Classic Hits

It’s been eight years since the last U2 album, but Bono and the boys are back.

The BBC reports that backstage at The Ivors ceremony in London on Thursday, where the band was given a prestigious fellowship of The Ivors Academy, they said they were in the studio making new music, complete with drummer Larry Mullen Jr. He’d been sidelined due to a neck surgery and was absent from U2’s residency shows at Sphere Las Vegas.

“It was difficult being away because of injury,” Mullen said. “So I’m thrilled to be back in a creative environment, even if I’m not 100% there and I’ve got some bits falling off.”

He added, “When I was away from the band, I missed it, but I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”

The band’s most recent projects have looked to their back catalog — playing Achtung Baby at the Sphere, rerecording their catalog acoustically on the Songs of Surrender album and reimagining How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. But as Bono said Thursday, “You do that because you need to understand where that desire to be heard came from.”

Now, however, “The sound of the future is what we’re most interested in. It doesn’t exist yet. It’s ours to make, and that’s what we have the chance to do.”

According to the BBC, Bono said U2’s latest songwriting sessions consisted of “just the four of us in a room, trying a new song and going, ‘What’s that feeling? Oh right, that’s chemistry.'”

“We’ve had it over the years but you lose it sometimes,” he added. “But isn’t it strange that it’s just got to the moment when just bass, drums, guitar and a loudmouth singer sounds like an original idea? That’s where we’re at in 2025.”

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Deadline reported in March that pop star Lizzo would star as rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in an upcoming biopic. But now, news comes that Mick Jagger, in partnership with Live Nation Productions among others, is producing a feature film on Tharpe. This film appears to have no connection to the Lizzo project.

Oscar-nominated actress Aunjanue [ingenue] Ellis-Taylor has been tapped to write the movie, which has been granted the rights to Tharpe’s music by the late singer’s estate, according to Deadline. The producers have also secured the rights to the definitive biography of Tharpe, who died in 1973. A companion documentary is also planned.

In a statement, Jagger says he’s “so thrilled to be a part” of telling the story of the “trailblazing singer and electrifying guitarist,” adding that she “reshaped music history and influenced countless artists.”

Tharpe was a queer Black gospel singer, songwriter and guitarist who made a huge impact on early rock ‘n’ roll artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. Her electric guitar playing, in particular, influenced artists like Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Jagger’s Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards. Known as the Godmother of Rock and Roll, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

As for the Lizzo project, it’s being developed and produced by an entirely different team and will focus on one event in Tharpe’s life: when she married her manager in front of 25,000 paying customers at a Washington, D.C., stadium in 1951 and then performed. The event has been described as “the first stadium show.”

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Here’s a sentence you probably never thought you’d read: A bar in Toms River, New Jersey, won’t allow a Bruce Springsteen cover band to perform there. And the reason has nothing to do with the actual band.

According to NJ.com, Riv’s Toms River Hub had booked a Springsteen cover band called No Surrender to perform on May 30. However, after Springsteen made headlines by criticizing President Donald Trump‘s administration from the stage in Manchester, England, bandleader Brad Hobicorn got a text from the bar owner, Tony Rivoli, telling him the gig was canceled.

According to Hobicorn, Rivoli told him it was “too risky at the moment” to have them play, because his customers are conservative. When Hobicorn offered to simply play classic rock songs, Rivoli said he wouldn’t pay them their fee for that.

“Unfortunately it’s just too much money,” Rivoli texted Hobicorn. “We would have done well but now because Bruce can’t keep his mouth shut we’re screwed.”

In a separate message to bass player Guy Fleming, Rivoli wrote, “Whenever the national anthem plays, my bar stands and is in total silence, that’s our clientele. Toms River is red and won’t stand for his bulls***.”

Hobicorn said that after Fleming revealed what happened in a Facebook post, Rivoli reached out and denied he’d canceled the gig. But the band decided not to play due to safety concerns and the “negative vibes.”

“This is not political for us at all,” Hobicorn said Thursday. “We’re just a cover band that’s trying to make some money and people rely on it financially. We’re the ones really getting hurt.”

Rivoli told NJ.com that he would have let the band play, adding, “I think a lot of people of my base would not have came, but I could have been wrong.”

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Robert Plant is the latest rocker to express his support for Bruce Springsteen, whose onstage comments during his shows in Manchester, England, have drawn the ire of President Donald Trump.

In fan-shot footage of his May 18 show in Finland with the band Saving Grace, Plant tells the crowd, “Right now in England, which is where we come from … Bruce Springsteen’s touring right now in the U.K. And he’s putting down some really serious stuff. So tune in to him.”

Plant continued, “And let’s all hope that we can be …” — the cue for the band to kick into the Led Zeppelin song “Friends.”

Following Springsteen’s anti-Trump administration comments onstage in Manchester, the president attacked him on Truth Social and called for an “investigation” into whether Springsteen, Bono, Oprah and Beyoncé had been paid to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. The celebrities have denied this.

On May 20, Neil Young supported Springsteen in a message on his website in which he told Trump, “STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made. Taylor Swift is right. So is Bruce. You know how I feel. You are more worried about yourself than AMERICA.” 

Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder also spoke out in support of Springsteen during a recent concert.

In other Robert Plant news, he appears on a new album of cover songs by former The Jam frontman Paul Weller. Find El Dorado, which includes Weller’s versions of songs by The Kinks, Bee Gees and Richie Havens, is out July 25.

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Jethro Tull really is living in the past with a new reissue that expands their 1972 double compilation album, Living in the Past.

Still Living in the Past, a five-CD/Blu-ray box set, is due out July 11. It includes remixes, edits, demos, live tracks and four promotional films. If that’s too much Tull for you, there will also be a two-LP vinyl edition featuring stereo remixes of the album by Steven Wilson.

The package includes a fully remixed version of Tull’s 1970 release Live at Carnegie Hall, the Steven Wilson stereo remixes and all the tracks from the Life Is a Long Song EP. Songs include “Locomotive Breath,” “Teacher,” “Bourée,” “A Song for Jeffrey,” “Dharma for One” and the title track.

Tull’s Ian Anderson says in a statement, “After 53 years since its original issue, this collection with the Steven Wilson re-mixes and surround sound upgrades is a splendid addition to the Tull album series. It was conceived at the time primarily to update the Tull story for U.S. and European audiences who might not have had the benefit of the many songs which had already reached U.K. fans’ ears.”

He adds, “I am so happy to have this material made available again.”

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On This Day, May 22, 1976 …

Paul McCartney & Wings hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with “Silly Love Songs,” which spent five weeks on top of the chart.

The tune, from the 1976 album Wings at the Speed of Sound, was McCartney’s answer to critics who suggested he only wrote lightweight love songs.

“Silly Love Songs” was McCartney’s fifth #1 as a solo artist and his 27th #1 as a songwriter, which was a new record.

According to the Beatles Bible, although McCartney continues to tour to this day, he hasn’t played “Silly Love Songs” live since the Wings Over the World Tour in 1976.

Next up, McCartney is set delve into his musical history with Wings in the new book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, coming Nov. 4.

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While some of his contemporaries are doing farewell tours, Rod Stewart is still going strong. He says he’s got three new albums in the works, and no plans to stop performing.

Speaking to AARP magazine, Rod, 80, says, “I’ve got so much more music to do. At the moment, I’m doing a covers album of all the songs I’ve ever wanted to cover … I’m supposed to do a country album … and we’re working on a Faces album, so that’s three projects that have got to be done.”  

Plus, Rod says, he’d still like to do a tour with “a big orchestra and play those glorious songs I did from the Great American Songbook.”  He adds, “I enjoy doing concerts more than I did back then. Maybe I’ve come full circle to appreciate how lucky I’ve been.”

As for how he maintains his stamina, Rod says he keeps himself “very fit.” He says Frank Sinatra once told him that the secret to being a great singer is to have powerful lungs. So, he says, “We do a lot of underwater training, where the trainer throws a brick into the pool and I have to dive in, push the brick to the end of the pool, and come up.”

Off the road, Rod enjoys his massive family, which includes eight children, five grandkids and “various boyfriends and husbands.” For his 80th birthday, 15 of them took a cruise on a huge yacht he rented. “One night, they all dressed up as Rod Stewart and didn’t tell me,” he says. 

And though they had a falling out a while back, Rod says he and Elton John are friends again. He tells AARP, “We FaceTime each other. It was his birthday a couple of days ago, so I sent him 48 pink roses.”

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While some of his contemporaries are doing farewell tours, Rod Stewart is still going strong. He says he’s got three new albums in the works, and no plans to stop performing.

Speaking to AARP magazine, Rod, 80, says, “I’ve got so much more music to do. At the moment, I’m doing a covers album of all the songs I’ve ever wanted to cover … I’m supposed to do a country album … and we’re working on a Faces album, so that’s three projects that have got to be done.”  

Plus, Rod says, he’d still like to do a tour with “a big orchestra and play those glorious songs I did from the Great American Songbook.”  He adds, “I enjoy doing concerts more than I did back then. Maybe I’ve come full circle to appreciate how lucky I’ve been.”

As for how he maintains his stamina, Rod says he keeps himself “very fit.” He says Frank Sinatra once told him that the secret to being a great singer is to have powerful lungs. So, he says, “We do a lot of underwater training, where the trainer throws a brick into the pool and I have to dive in, push the brick to the end of the pool, and come up.”

Off the road, Rod enjoys his massive family, which includes eight children, five grandkids and “various boyfriends and husbands.” For his 80th birthday, 15 of them took a cruise on a huge yacht he rented. “One night, they all dressed up as Rod Stewart and didn’t tell me,” he says. 

And though they had a falling out a while back, Rod says he and Elton John are friends again. He tells AARP, “We FaceTime each other. It was his birthday a couple of days ago, so I sent him 48 pink roses.”

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Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder will release his fourth solo album, The Vault – Fifty Years of Music, on Friday, featuring a collection of newly recorded versions of songs he’s demoed over the past five decades.

Felder tells ABC Audio that when he decided to dip into his vault for a new album he had “no idea” what was in there.

“I hadn’t heard stuff since the ’70s or ’80s,” he explains. “It was really like a flashback cause I could remember where I was working on those songs.”

And apparently there was a lot of music, with Felder sharing, “I could probably do a box set.”

“It was just interesting to go take some of these ideas, whether they were brand-new ideas or ideas that had just been little sparks along the way, and turn it into a finished song,” he adds.

The album has tracks embracing the sounds of the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and current day, including one that was written for the late Glenn Frey, his former Eagles bandmate.

While Felder left the band in 2001 on not the best terms, he says, “The only regret I have is that Glenn and I never really got a chance to have a human conversation.”

“That’s why one of the songs on this album is called ‘Blue Skies,’ and it’s written and produced for Glenn wishing him blue skies forever,” he says. (

Felder will be testing out some of these new songs on the road when he joins Styx and REO Speedwagon‘s Kevin Cronin on their upcoming Brotherhood of Rock tour, which kicks off May 28 in Greenville, South Carolina. A complete list of dates can be found at DonFelder.com.

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Dead & Company have revealed details about their previously announced performances in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park this August, including openers and ticket information.

Billy Strings will open the Aug. 1 performance, followed by Sturgill Simpson on Aug. 2 and Trey Anastasio Band on Aug. 3. 

You can sign up for a presale now at DeadAndCompany.com; those tickets go on sale May 28 at 10 a.m. PT.

Three-day tickets start at $635 and go on sale May 30 at 10 a.m. PT. Single-day tickets will cost $245 apiece; sale information for single tickets will be announced soon.

A limited quantity of $60 tickets will be available via lottery for California firefighters, starting June 4 at 10 a.m. PT. VIP tickets and travel packages are also available. 

As previously reported, the Dead & Company shows come in celebration of 60 years of Grateful Dead music. 

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