Classic Hits

Paul McCartney is being honored by The Royal Mint with his very own coin.

McCartney’s coin, officially approved by The Beatles legend, will feature McCartney’s Magic Piano and will reference his career, with piano notes chosen by McCartney, the Wings logo and his Höfner Violin Bass guitar.

“This feels like a huge honor,” McCartney shared. “It’s not anything I would have ever expected to happen when I was a kid.”

This will be the first time McCartney has ever appeared on an official U.K. coin. To mark the occasion, The Royal Mint has gifted McCartney a special pick-shaped version using sustainable gold, inspired by his early use of pennies as guitar picks.

“Our coins recognize the greatest icons and events in British history, so it’s fitting that Paul McCartney’s remarkable music career is now celebrated on an official U.K. coin,” Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coin at The Royal Mint, said. “What makes this coin extra special is that Paul has been involved throughout the design process. The coin celebrates elements from throughout his solo career, and we hope fans will enjoy the layered references to songs, instruments, and bands.” 

The Paul McCartney coin comes in a variety of finishes, including gold, silver and silver with color. They’re available to order now, starting at about $20, with the most expensive being a limited-edition 1-ounce gold coin, which sells for about $3,800.

The news coincides with the launch of the European leg of McCartney’s Got Back tour, which kicked off Wednesday in Paris. He’s set to wrap the tour in London with two nights at the 02, Dec. 18 and Dec. 19.

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Sammy Hagar has joined the lineup for Metallica‘s 2024 Helping Hands benefit concert, taking place Dec. 13 in Los Angeles.

The Red Rocker will be joined by his Best of All Worlds lineup, which includes his former Van Halen bandmate Mike Anthony, guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff.

Metallica has also announced that musical duo SistaStrings will be playing Helping Hands, as well.

The biannual Helping Hands benefits Metallica’s All Within My Hands charity foundation and features a rare acoustic performance from the metal legends. 

Previous openers and special guests include Greta Van Fleet, Cage the Elephant and St. Vincent.

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Timothée Chalamet and the cast of the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown do their own singing in the film, and now fans will be able to enjoy their performance long after they’ve left the movie theater.

A Complete Unknown (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be released Dec. 25 to coincide with the film’s opening, and the first two singles have just been released: “Girl From The North Country,” sung by Chalamet as Dylan and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Dylan’s signature tune, “Like A Rolling Stone,” sung by Chalamet.

Both songs are available now via digital outlets.

“To me, there was only one way to make this film — to cast actors that are profoundly talented, ambitious (and brave enough!) to inhabit the whole of the artists they would portray,” the film’s director, James Mangold, shares. “And in order to inhabit that world those artists had to be able to sing the songs. We were never out to replace the power, beauty and majesty of what exists, but rather, to celebrate it.” 

In addition to the Dec. 25 digital release, a limited-edition vinyl version of the soundtrack will drop in late January. It is available for preorder how.

A Complete Unknown follows a 19-year-old Dylan as he arrives in New York from Minnesota and tracks his rise as a folk singer during the ’60s to the top of the charts, ending with his electric rock ‘n’ roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

The film also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a character named Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax.

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Grateful Dead, who’ll receive the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, have a long history of philanthropy, and in a new interview with Billboard they talk about their motivation for giving back to the public. 

“We’re part of a community, and so the better the community is doing, the better we’re doing,” Bobby Weir says of their mission to help, noting that the late Jerry Garcia “always used to say, ‘You get some, you give some back.’ It just makes sense.”

“We help people and give them stuff. It’s just a good way to live life,” Bill Kreutzmann adds. “I wish that more people in the world lived life that way, instead of wars and bombings.” 

The members of The Dead will also be celebrated for their philanthropy by the Recording Academy in February as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

“It all follows in that tradition of teaching the industry what it should know about,” Mickey Hart says. “That’s that Grateful Dead kind of style, where we just did it because we knew it was the right thing to do.”

He adds, “If we wanted to do this the rest of our lives was the idea, we have to do these things, because people support us — and we reciprocate.”

The band members also reiterated to Billboard their previous revelation that prior to Phil Lesh‘s October death they were making plans to reunite for their 60th anniversary in 2025, noting Lesh was excited about the possibility.

“(Phil) had a dream that he was going to get to play with us three one more time,” Kreutzmann notes. “And that didn’t happen — but that’s how it goes.”

The Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS Dec. 22.

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Billy Joel has announced his first 2025 show with Rod Stewart. The two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will headline Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium on July 5. 

A Citi presale for tickets begins Dec. 9 at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public on Dec. 13 at 10 a.m.

Billy and Rod played their last show together in September in Cleveland. So far this is the only date they have booked for 2025, although Rod will head out on his own next year, with the U.S. leg of his One Last Time tour kicking off March 7 in Austin, Texas. 

Billy has several 2025 dates on the books, including a just-announced show with Stevie Nicks in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Aug. 8, as well as another in Detroit in March.

He’s also set to play five shows with Sting and has some solo dates on the books.

Billy’s next concert is a New Year’s Eve show at UBS Arena in Long Island, New York.

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Elton John sits down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts for a new interview airing Dec. 11, ahead of the Dec. 13 premiere of his new Disney+ documentary, Elton John: Never Too Late.

In a new preview of the sit-down, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer talks about whether or not it was difficult to watch some of the more challenging times in his life for the film.

“A bit. Because I hadn’t seen a lot of that footage,” Elton shares. “But what it did, it confirmed in myself that those were great songs … I played well and had a great band. The records were amazing. I tend to forget that because I don’t listen to the past of, my past anyway.”

Elton noted that watching the film made him reflect on how he made 13 albums in such a short time while touring and doing interviews, and he came to an interesting conclusion.

“There was no internet, there was no mobile phones and there were no paparazzi so we didn’t have distractions,” he said. “Artists today have so many different distractions. It’s a different ballgame.”

He added, “I’m so grateful that I grew up in that era.”

Speaking of Elton’s documentary, the rocker just shared a new clip from the film on Instagram, featuring John Lennon talking about their relationship. “Elton and I are very close,” Lennon says in the clip. The film also promises to feature never-before seen footage of Lennon joining Elton onstage after his Thanksgiving 1974 Madison Square Garden show.

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Queen guitarist Brian May revealed in September that he was recovering from a “minor stroke” that initially left him with no control over his left arm, but according to his wife, actress Anita Dobson, his health now seems to be back on track.

According to The Mirror, while speaking at a Christmas lunch held in London by the Television and Radio Industries Club, Dobson let fans know that her hubby is doing okay.

“He’s much better now, he’s stabilized now, which is brilliant,” she shared. “He’s got the use of that arm, which was a bit of a challenge, back now.” 

While Dobson noted that she was worried about “more reoccurrences,” she said May is “good to go now.”

“He’s playing the piano quite a lot in the house,” she said. “He likes a lot of Beethoven. I love it – the piano in the house is really, just very relaxing.”

Dobson added that the whole thing is scary.

“And also being a genius for someone like that. His brain’s overloaded, that’s what it is,” she said. “He’s too clever for his own good.”

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On This Day, Dec. 5, 1974…

Paul McCartney and Wings released their third album, Band on the Run, which became a huge hit and to this day remains McCartney’s most successful non-Beatles album.

The album produced two hits, the title track and “Jet,” and went to #1 in the U.S. and the U.K.

The cover depicted McCartney, his wife Linda, and guitarist Denny Laine posing with actors James Coburn and Christopher Lee, British boxer John Conteh, U.K. broadcasters Michael Parkinson and Clement Freud, and English entertainer Kenny Lynch, all dressed as escaped convicts.

To celebrate the anniversary, McCartney released a special 50th anniversary edition of the album in February.

The reissue reentered the Billboard 200 at #156, and landed in the top 10 on three other Billboard charts: the Top Album Sales chart, where it reentered at #5; the Vinyl Albums chart, where it debuted at #7; and the Tastemaker Albums chart, where it hit #6. It also debuted at #37 on the Rock & Alternative Albums chart.

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He’s always in a New York State of Mind, but Billy Joel will be playing New Jersey next summer for the first time in years.

He and Stevie Nicks have booked an Aug. 8 show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It’ll mark the first time he’s played a show in the area since 2002, and his first outdoor show there since he played that stadium — then known as Giants Stadium — in 1994.

As for Stevie, this will be the first time she’s played New Jersey as a solo artist since 2012. For both, it’ll be their only appearance together in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut in 2025.

Tickets go on sale Friday, Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. via LiveNation.com. A Citi card presale starts Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. ET via citientertainment.com.

Billy and Stevie are also set to play together March 29 at Detroit’s Ford Field. Billy and Sting have several stadium dates booked for next year as well.

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A long in the works Led Zeppelin documentary is finally set to hit theaters.

The film, Becoming Led Zeppelin will open exclusively in IMAX theaters on Feb. 7, with a one night only early access screening to take place Feb. 5 in 18 markets, including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston.

Becoming Led Zeppelin is a film fans have been waiting for for a long time. In fact, it first premiered as a work-in-progress at the 2021 Venice Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the rights to the completed film in May. 

The movie, described as a “hybrid docu-concert film,” is the first officially sanctioned documentary about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group.

As for why it took so long to complete, it seems the filmmakers had a hard time finding early footage of the band, and had to search for material to use for the project.

“We spent five years flying back and forth across the Atlantic scouring attics and basements in pursuit of rare and unseen film footage, photographs and music recordings,” writer/producer Allison McGourty explains. “Then we transferred each piece of media with custom techniques, so that in IMAX, these 55-year-old clips and music would look and sound like they came out of the lab yesterday.”

Director Bernard MacMahon adds, “The cinematic power of IMAX paired with the film’s authentic sound creates an immersive and transportive viewing experience letting audiences feel like they are there, in the venues with the band.” 

Tickets for Becoming Led Zeppelin are on sale now.

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