Classic Rock News

After teasing it in a recent interview, Roger Waters has now released The Lockdown Sessions.

Waters recorded the five songs on the project — a digital-only release — at home during the COVID-19 lockdown between 2020 and 2021. One song postdates those tracks, though: a new version of “Comfortably Numb” that was recorded during Waters’ 2022 This Is Not a Drill North American tour.

The songs include material from both Waters’ solo career and Pink Floyd: “Mother” and “Vera” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall; “Two Suns In the Sunset” and “The Gunner’s Dream” from Waters’ final album with Floyd, The Final Cut; and “The Bravery of Being Out of Range” from his 1992 album, Amused to Death.

Explaining why he chose to record these particular songs, he writes, “Our Us and Them Tour lasted three years … At every gig we did an encore after the main show…[we] closed with ‘Comfortably Numb’… the encore was always ‘Mother’ … I can’t remember why I decided to start doing other songs? Anyway, at some point after the end of the tour … I started thinking, ‘It could make an interesting album, all those encores … The Encores — yeah, has a nice ring to it!'”

He continues, “Then … I’m in England doing the Ginger Baker tribute gig one Tuesday night at the Hammersmith Odeon with Eric Clapton and … the following Saturday marching from The Australian Embassy to Parliament Square to make a speech in support of Julian Assange, when, bugger me, Covid! For me it was Friday March 13, 2020. Lockdown! So much for the Encores project.”

Waters adds, “We’ve tacked C. Numb on the end of the collection, as an appropriate exclamation point in closing this circle of love.”

The European run of This Is Not A Drill will kick off March 17 in Lisbon, Portugal.

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This Saturday marks the 15th anniversary of Led Zeppelin‘s 2007 reunion show. To celebrate the occasion, the “Stairway to Heaven” legends have announced an online global watch party of their Celebration Day concert film, which captured the historic performance.

You can watch the stream beginning Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on YouTube.

Recorded December 10, 2007, at the O2 Arena in London, Celebration Day featured the reunion of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, along with the late John Bonham‘s son Jason Bonham on drums. It marked Led Zeppelin’s first live performance since their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and their first full concert since their 1980 breakup following John Bonham’s death.

Celebration Day was screened in theaters in 2012, and was released as a live album and on home video later that year.

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Stevie Nicks is on a roll when it comes to social media posts. After praising Lizzo for her People’s Choice Awards acceptance speech earlier this week, she’s now written a letter expressing her happiness that basketball player Brittney Griner is back in the U.S.A. A plane carrying the WNBA star landed in the U.S. early Friday, nearly 10 months after she was detained in Russia.

“Welcome home Brittney Griner!” Stevie wrote on Instagram. “I found out at 5:30 this morning that you were ‘in the air’ on your way home. I am crying, seriously, and just so happy that you have been released. You are free … Today is a beautiful day. Love Stevie Nicks.”

Griner was detained in Moscow in February for possession of vaping cartridges containing hashish oil, an illegal substance in Russia. She pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to nine years in prison on August 7. Griner’s appeal of the sentence in October was rejected. It was revealed Thursday that she was freed in a swap for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who had been imprisoned in Illinois.

Nicks’ post prompted numerous comments from fans who are unhappy about the prisoner exchange because of Bout’s past crimes and also because former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan is still imprisoned in Russia.

In other Stevie Nicks news, more stadium dates for her co-headlining 2023 tour with Billy Joel have been announced. They now have a total of seven shows lined up, spanning from March 10 in Inglewood, California, to September 23 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

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In the wake of Elton Musk‘s takeover of Twitter, Elton John has become the latest rocker to announce that he’ll no longer use the social media platform.

In what’s apparently his farewell tweet, Elton writes, “All my life I’ve tried to use music to bring people together. Yet it saddens me to see how misinformation is now being used to divide our world. I’ve decided to no longer use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.”

It’s not clear if anything specific spurred Elton’s decision, but it comes after Twitter updated its online rules on Monday to read, “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.” Since he took over, Musk has reinstated the accounts of some users who were previously banned for spreading COVID misinformation.

Other rockers who’ve famously left Twitter since the Musk takeover include Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Jack White.

In other Elton news, he’s mourning the death of his beloved aunt. On Instagram, he writes, “My beautiful Auntie Win passed away this morning at 95 years of age. I loved her so much and will miss her terribly. She was kindness personified.” His songwriting partner Bernie Taupin responded in the comments, “I’m so sorry, she was one of a kind.”

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David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band Live at the Capitol Theatre, out Friday, is billed as David Crosby‘s “first live solo release.” But since it documents a 2018 show that he played with his frequent collaborators The Lighthouse Band — Becca Stevens, Michelle Willis and Michael League — Crosby doesn’t actually consider the record a “solo” release at all.

“We sell them that way because my name sells them more than saying, ‘Hey, this is The Lighthouse Band,’ who you’ve never heard of,” Crosby tells ABC Audio bluntly. “And so we sell them as David Crosby records, but that’s a group record.”

Crosby previously recorded an album, 2016’s Lighthouse, with the trio, and before the pandemic, he’d toured on and off with them regularly.  “That’s a really definite group chemistry that happens in between me and [them],” he notes. “I noticed it right away when we started working together. I said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, this is special.'”

Also special: the 2018 show in Port Chester, NY that’s documented on the album.

Crosby explains, “It was the end of the tour. We were polished up. We knew what we were doing. There was a certain confidence to it. The night had that kind of magic to it. We all agreed it was as good as we were gonna be.”

In addition to songs new and old, the album includes new arrangements of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Guinnevere” and “Woodstock” and “Déjà Vu” by CSNY. With such a rich back catalog, how does Crosby decide which throwback tunes to perform?

“It’s pretty hard not to do ‘Guinnevere.’ It’s probably my best song,” he admits. “We didn’t go anywhere near a whole lot of them. But there were certain ones that just really flourished under a fresh read, a fresh look, a fresh treatment.” 

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Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing quit Judas Priest in 2011 amidst bad blood between him, his bandmates and their manager, Jayne Andrews. Priest invited Downing and former drummer Les Binks to join them for their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction last month, but now Andrews says she was disappointed that Downing wasn’t more grateful for the opportunity.

In a new episode of the podcast Gabbing with Girlfriends, from Geezer Butler‘s wife, Gabby Butler, Andrews says of the band’s approach to the induction, “We all said, any grievances or problems, we put them behind us. This is a very positive time. And that’s the way we looked at it. And it’s just a shame that [K.K.] didn’t seem to look at it the same way.”

She adds, “If ever there was a time to try and build bridges, that was it … it’s sad for him, really … when he had the opportunity, he didn’t take it.”

According to Andrews, she urged the band to invite Downing and Binks to join them onstage, telling them, “Be the bigger men.” But, Andrews tells Butler, “To me, he should have just stuck his head around the door and said, ‘Thank you for inviting me onstage with you.’ ‘Cause they didn’t have to.”

Andrews goes on to disparage Downing’s performance that night, telling Butler, “To be honest — and I probably shouldn’t really say this — [K.K.] seemed a little bit nervous and almost out of his depth.”

She added, “When we talked about it afterwards, we thought, well, Priest have carried on touring all these years; he hasn’t. So he’s probably lost a bit of confidence, coming to a big event like that, obviously, [and] having to confront all of us.”

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Participating artists have been announced for The Music of Paul McCartney, a tribute concert scheduled for New York City’s Carnegie Hall on March 15, 2023.

The show is the latest in the series of annual charity concerts that New York City entrepreneur Michael Dorf has been organizing since 2004. Each year focuses on the music of a single well-known artist.

The lineup includes McCartney’s old pal Peter Asher, the guitarist, singer, manager and producer who was a member of the vocal duo Peter & Gordon, and is the brother of McCartney’s former girlfriend, Jane Asher. 

Also on the bill are Ingrid Michaelson, Lyle Lovett, soul singer Bettye Lavette, the band Lake Street Dive, Irish singer/songwriter Glen Hansard and Canadian singer/songwriter Allison Russell. More artists will be added in the coming weeks.

Proceeds from the concert will go to organizations that provide music education programs and opportunities to underserved youth. Since the concert series started in 2004, over $1.5 million in proceeds have been donated.

VIP tickets are available now via MusicOf.org, with general admission tickets coming soon. The top-tier A Day in the Life Package costs $15,000, which not only gets you tickets to the show, but also lets you help Michael Dorf determine the set list. 

The Really Love You package costs 10 grand: That gets you access to the rehearsals and a dinner party with the artists, access to soundcheck, great seats for the show, the ability to join everyone onstage for the finale and access to the after-party. The rest of the packages range from $375 to $3,000.

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Wednesday night was the New York City premiere of If These Walls Could Sing, a documentary about London’s Abbey Road Studios directed by Mary McCartney that will premiere on Disney+ on December 16. For some inside information, the filmmaker, photographer and cookbook author turned to one of Abbey Road’s most well-known regulars: her dad, Paul McCartney.

Speaking to People, Mary says, “I was with him and I was like, ‘I’m going to make this documentary about the history of Abbey Road,’ and he would just sort of give me little tips. It was good! He was mulling it over and he sort of told me little anecdotes.” What Paul wanted to stress, she says, is how important the people who worked there were to the Beatles’ career.

“He was keen to talk about how the people there had helped them—staff, people behind the scenes, engineers,” Mary explains. “He feels passionate about it. I think in the documentary you see how passionate he is about it.”

Mary says her inspiration for the film was a photo taken of her parents in 1977 which shows them walking across the famous crosswalk seen on the cover of the Abbey Road album with a pony.

“I love the picture of my mom going over the zebra crossing. She had a little pony in London … she’s my inspiration,” Mary tells People of Linda McCartney, Paul’s first wife, who died in 1998. While researching the film, Mary says she learned that her mom would “apparently would come around to [Abbey Road] and be like, ‘Could somebody babysit the kids tonight?’ It shows how I grew up there.”

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Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen is recovering from what’s described as a “procedure,” and will have to miss the band’s scheduled shows this Friday and Saturday.

On Instagram, the band notes, “Six weeks ago Rick had a procedure that has required him to stay off the road until fully recovered. Unfortunately, Rick still needs a little bit more time and will not be out with us this week.”

The post goes on to say, “Robin Taylor Zander will be moving to lead guitar for the next two shows. We appreciate the continued support.”

Robin Taylor Zander, the 28-year-old son of Cheap Trick singer Robin Zander, has filled in on drums, bass and guitar multiple times over the years when the band members were sidelined by health or personal issues.

Cheap Trick is scheduled to perform Friday at Desert Diamond Casinos & Entertainment in Sahuarita, Arizona, on Friday, and at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, on Saturday. Then they’re off the road until January, when they have two shows lined up for the 12th and 13th. Starting August 4, they’ll join Rod Stewart for a string of tour dates.

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Jet Black, drummer for the influential British punk/new wave band The Stranglers, has died. He was 84.

The band wrote on social media, “It is with heavy hearts we announce the passing of our dear friend, colleague and band elder statesman Jet Black. Jet died peacefully at home surrounded by his family. Fond adieu, fly straight JB.”

In a longer statement on the band’s website, they reveal that founding member Black, born Brian Duffy, died “peacefully at his home on December 6.” He had retired from performing live with the band in 2015 due to respiratory health issues.

Referring to Stranglers keyboard player Dave Greenfield‘s death in 2020 from COVID, bass player and vocalist Jean-Jacques Burnel said, “The welcoming committee has doubled. After years of ill health Jet has finally been released.”

Burnel continued, “He was a force of nature. An inspiration. The Stranglers would not have been if it wasn’t for him. The most erudite of men. A rebel with many causes. Say hi to Dave for me.”

Black, a successful businessman who’d been a semi-professional drummer in the ’50s and ’60s, formed the band in 1974 after he decided to return to music. The Stranglers were identified with the punk rock movement because they toured with The Ramones and Patti Smith, but in actuality, they were older and much more musically adept than the other bands in the genre.

While they never had a U.S. hit, their songs “Peaches,” “No More Heroes,” “Something Better Change,” “Golden Brown,” “Skin Deep” and “Always the Sun” were hits in the United Kingdom and have been heavily used in commercials, TV shows and movies. “Golden Brown” was used in the Black Mirror episode “Metalhead” and in season 2 of The Umbrella Academy.

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