Classic Hits

Gov’t Mule is once again inviting fans to come hang out with them on the beach. The band just announced details of their Island Exodus 14, happening January 14-18, at Jewel Paradise Cove Resort in Runaway Bay, Jamaica.

The island getaway will feature four nights of music, including three full sets from Gov’t Mule, along with a solo set by frontman Warren Hayes. Other guests on the bill include Robert Randolph Band, Samantha Fish Band featuring Jesse Dayton, and Pressing Strings. The bill also includes Wednesday Night Titans with special guest Ron Holloway, and Circles Around the Sun, with the latter playing January 13, the night before the official opening.

The getaway will also include lots of other fun activities for fans, like a joint Q&A with Hanes and Gov’t Mule drummer Matt Abts and Ron Holloway’s Fan Jam.

A presale for attendees of Island Exodus 13 begins Tuesday, July 18, while folks who attended previous festivals get access starting Wednesday, July 19. The general onsale begins Thursday, July 20. All ticket sales begin at 10 a.m. ET.

More info can be found at islandexodus.com.

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Billy Joel is back on the Billboard Hot 100 … sort of. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer returns to the singles chart as a writer, thanks to Fall Out Boy’s update of “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” which debuts at #94 on the all-genre chart.

The cover gives Joel his first Hot 100 appearance as a writer since the Glee days, when the show’s version of “Uptown Girl” charted in 2011. It has also led to the original “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which is one of Joel’s three #1 Hot 100 hits, increasing 44% in streams and 104% in downloads.

Fall Out Boy dropped their “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in June with updated lyrics referencing pop culture and world events that have occurred since the original was released in 1989. Joel gave his blessing to the cover in an interview with BBC Radio 2, declaring, “Fall Out Boy, go ahead, great, take it away!”

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AC/DC‘s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” is featured in season 2 of FX’s The Bear, but executive producer Josh Senior tells Billboard there was a real worry they wouldn’t be able to secure the rights to the tune.

“Everybody I’ve ever talked to about licensing music always told me AC/DC was hard to get, hard to pay for, hard to contact, hard to deal with,” he says. “And we knew we wanted that song.” 

It turns out, all Josh’s worry was for nothing. He notes, “They ended up being amazing and awesome. But the hype was intimidating.” 

“If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” appears on AC/DC/s sixth studio album, Highway To Hell, which was the last to feature lead singer Bon Scott.  It appears in episode 9 of The Bear, as the restaurant gets ready to open.

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Sammy Hagar is putting to rest any talk of a Van Halen reunion to honor the band’s late guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who passed away in 2020.

Although there was talk of some sort of tribute in the past, Hagar discusses why a reunion of the band can’t really happen during an appearance on the That Rocks podcast.

“It’s the same old story. It’s the same old f***** story,” Hagar says. “Alex [Van Halen] won’t respond to me. I reach out to him. I haven’t done it in a long time now, ’cause it’s, like, ‘Hey, you wanna talk to me? Call me.’ But there’s not going to be a Van Halen reunion,” he continues, adding, “it’s too late.” 

If it were to happen, Sammy says Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, “would be the perfect guy” to be a part of it, but he’s too busy now with his own band Mammoth WVH. When it comes to the band’s other frontman, David Lee Roth, Hagar says, “there’s no way he would cooperate with me.”

“So if [Dave] goes out by himself, that’s not a Van Halen reunion; that’s half a Van Halen reunion. If I go out by myself without him, it’s a half a Van Halen reunion,” Hagar explains. “Only good news about that is that I could sing his songs just fine.” 

Sammy and bassist Mike Anthony are still close and perform together; Sammy says he’d love to have Alex come play with them as well, but “the thought of a Van Halen reunion without Eddie, no, there’s no such thing.”

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The Beach Boys are finally getting ready to tell their story. The band is set to release their first official book, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys, via Genesis Publications.

The book was created using new interviews with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston as well as archival interviews from Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson. It will feature personal photos from the band as well as photos culled from both the Capitol Records and the band’s archives. Among them are behind-the scenes pics from recording sessions, live concert and rehearsal shots and more.

The book will also feature an abundance of archival memorabilia, including tour posters, programs, handwritten notes, lyrics, newspaper clippings and more, as well as contributions from artists like Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Def Leppard, Lindsey Buckingham, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend and others.

Genesis will release a deluxe edition of The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys, limited to only 415 numbered copies, with all of them signed by Wilson, Love, Jardine and Johnston. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Surfrider Foundation. 

The book, which will ship in December, is available for preorder now.

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Billy Joel is getting closer to wrapping his residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden, but he’s just added another date.

The latest addition to the schedule is January 11, 2024, which will mark the 10-year anniversary of the start of the residency, which kicked off in January 2014 and has sold more than 1.6 million tickets.

There will be various presales starting January 17, with the general onsale set for Friday, July 21, at 10 a.m.

Joel is set to wrap his residency in July 2024, which will be the 150th MSG show of his career. His next MSG show is happening Monday, July 24. A complete list of dates can be found at billyjoel.com.

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The members of David Crosby’s final band say the rocker wanted to try and mend his relationship with his bandmates, Graham Nash, Neil Young and Stephen Stills, and had planned to make the first move with music.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Crosby’s son James Raymond and guitarist/singer Steve Postell say before Crosby’s death, they had been rehearsing a set of songs from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s (CSNY) catalog, including “Long Time Gone,” “Woodstock,” Carry On,” “Ohio” and more. Postell notes there was a good reason Crosby chose these tunes. 

“We decided this was not just a celebration of Crosby — it was about the music of CSNY. That was the concept, and it was David’s idea. David loved all those guys,” Postell shares, adding, “He knew he’d made some mistakes and wanted to make amends as much as possible. Part of doing that was playing some of that music.”

Crosby and the band were supposed to play two shows in February to celebrate the Lobero Theatre’s 150th anniversary, but that never happened because Crosby passed away January 18.

Now, the band, billed as Stand and Be Counted, will play the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California, on August 20, performing the set Crosby planned to play at the original shows. The concert will feature Shawn Colvin and promises other special guests, but so far, there’s no indication that will include Crosby’s former bandmates.

“We haven’t gotten no’s, but we haven’t gotten yes’s either,” Lobero executive director David Asbell tells the mag. “David had interesting relationships with his bandmates. So it’s hard to know where it all ended up.” 

Tickets for the concert go on sale July 13. More information can be found at lobero.org.

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On This Day, July 13, 1985…

The star-studded Live Aid charity concerts were held at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

The concerts, organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, featured performances by Queen, David Bowie, U2, Sting, The Who, Elton John, Paul McCartney and others in London, and Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, a reunion of Led Zeppelin and more in Philadelphia.

Phil Collins actually performed at both shows, flying from London on a Concorde flight and then transporting to and from each stadium via helicopter.

Both concerts raised money for African famine relief. They were broadcast around the world, with an estimated audience of 1.0 billion, in 150 nations.

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Howard Jones is hitting the road with Boy George & Culture Club on the Letting It Go Show, which also features Berlin. The package has a little bit of everything for the ’80s music lover, which is exciting for Jones.

“Wow. I mean, I’d love to go to that show,” he tells ABC Audio. “I mean, it’s a dream, really … it’s going to be great fun.” 

Fans of ’80s music are often a very loyal bunch, coming out for shows no matter how old they are, which is why Jones suspects each night will be filled with an audience reveling in the music they grew up on.

“You know, they feel an ownership of that music, and it’s their music and it comes with all the memories that go with that time when you’re in your, you know, late teens, early 20s,” the “No One Is To Blame” singer says. “And those memories are so vivid … it brings back the emotion that you felt at that time.”

And who knows, concertgoers may even get a chance to see Jones and Culture Club onstage together during the tour.

“You know, you can’t really tell until you get to the gig, and see how everyone is and where their heads at,” he says regarding a possible collaboration between acts. “I’m always up for a bit of collab myself, but, but other people may not. And so, let’s see how it goes.” 

The Boy George & Culture Club Letting It Go Show, with Howard Jones and Berlin, kicks off Thursday, July 13, in West Palm Beach, Florida. A complete list of Jones’ dates can be found at howardjones.com.

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While Bryan Adams is best known for his music, he’s also a skilled photographer — and now fans are getting a chance to see his latest work. The rocker will be the subject of a new exhibit, Bryan Adams in Colour, making its world premiere at the Atlas Gallery in Chicago on June 27 and running until August 12.  

According to the announcement, the exhibit was inspired by the phrase “seeing things through rose-tinted glasses.” It has him experimenting with multicolored plexiglass to share a new point of view of his catalog of portraits, including those of stars like Mick Jagger and Amy Winehouse.

The gallery notes it “adds even more to the sense of the celebrity appearing to be viewed as if behind a screen, at a distance from the viewer, but somehow also themselves trapped.”

More information on the exhibit can be found at atlasgallery.com.

As for his day job, Adams is currently on his So Happy It Hurts tour, with opener Joan Jett. The trek hits Phoenix, Arizona, on July 25. A complete list of dates can be found at bryanadams.com.

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