Classic Hits

John Oates is back with another new single: This time he’s shared a cover of the Timmy Thomas track “Why Can’t We Live Together,” which some music fans may recognize as the tune sampled in Drake‘s 2015 hit “Hotline Bling.”

“When thinking about the state of our world today I was reminded of the brilliant, classic 1970’s anti-war anthem by Timmy Thomas,” Oates shares. “The original was a stark and powerfully beautiful recording using only a primitive drum machine and Hammond B3 organ to support his haunting vocal performance.” 

He adds, “I felt the time was right for me to cover this great song … but I wanted to reimagined (sic) in my own style with ‘doo wop’ style background vocals, a live band and as a final touch a very 1970s electric sitar riff that I did at home to add a little more period sweetness.” 

“Why Can’t We Live Together” is the third of a series of tracks Oates will release each month. He previously released the tracks “Disconnected” and “Pushin’ a Rock.”

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After postponing three shows due to illness, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band returned to the stage Thursday night for a show at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center. 

According to the Asbury Park Press, The Boss didn’t talk about the illness that forced the postponement of the shows in Columbus, Ohio; Uncasville, Connecticut; and Albany, New York, or who it actually affected. 

Regardless, it sounds like everyone was healthy and raring to play, with the 73-year-old Bruce and the band rocking the house for two hours and 45 minutes. The set included “Prove It All Night,” “Letters To You,” “The Promise Land,” “Trapped,” “Backstreets,” “Thunder Road,” “Born To Run” and “Rosalita.”

“I love being in Philadelphia,” The Boss said during the show. “Philadelphia has meant so much to us for such a long time. Thank you for a beautiful reception.” 

The band’s next concert is happening Saturday in State College, Pennsylvania. The first U.S. leg of the tour wraps April 14 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, before they hit Europe later in April. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

As for those postponed shows, Springsteen just announced the rescheduled dates, with Uncasville, Connecticut, set for September 16; Albany, New York, happening September 19; and Columbus, Ohio, set for September 21. Previously purchased tickets will be honored for all shows, and those who can’t make the new dates have until April 16 to request a refund from Ticketmaster.

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After postponing three shows due to illness, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band returned to the stage Thursday night for a show at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center. 

According to the Asbury Park Press, The Boss didn’t talk about the illness that forced the postponement of the shows in Columbus, Ohio; Uncasville, Connecticut; and Albany, New York, or who it actually affected. 

Regardless, it sounds like everyone was healthy and raring to play, with the 73-year-old Bruce and the band rocking the house for two hours and 45 minutes. The set included “Prove It All Night,” “Letters To You,” “The Promise Land,” “Trapped,” “Backstreets,” “Thunder Road,” “Born To Run” and “Rosalita.”

“I love being in Philadelphia,” The Boss said during the show. “Philadelphia has meant so much to us for such a long time. Thank you for a beautiful reception.” 

The band’s next concert is happening Saturday in State College, Pennsylvania. The first U.S. leg of the tour wraps April 14 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, before they hit Europe later in April. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

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Yes will not be bringing their Relayer tour overseas as planned. The band just announced they are postponing their European and U.K. tour “due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the band’s control.”

“Yes and their management have explored every possible avenue to arrange insurance cover for the tour in the event of COVID-related exemption or Act of War exclusion,” reads a statement on their website. “The insurance industry has withdrawn all such insurances which made touring possible pre-COVID and before the Ukraine conflict.” 

They add that “the band simply cannot undertake such a large-scale tour with so many risks being uninsured.” 

Yes plan to reschedule the tour for 2024 and will announce new dates soon. One show, their concert at London’s Eventim Apollo, has been canceled and fans will be getting refunds.

“Yes wish to express their sincere regrets to their faithful fans and ask for their understanding,” the statement adds. “The band has now received the necessary assurances for 2024 and are committed to returning to the stage then.” 

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Rod Stewart is holding steadfast to plans to perform in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, following a devastating cyclone that hit the area last month.

Cyclone Gabrielle battered the region mid-February and has since been described as the most severe weather event in years.

Stuff reports the legendary rocker remains committed to his original April 8 concert date, despite ongoing recovery efforts.

Live Nation emailed a statement to the outlet, which said, “Our teams continue to monitor the massive clean-up and rebuild effort underway in the region, and we are liaising with local authorities and the police.”

“Our confident expectation is that the Rod Stewart concert at Mission Estate Winery on April 8 will go ahead as scheduled,” the statement continued.

Mission State CEO Peter Holley previously told the outlet, “There’s absolutely no intention to cancel at this point in time.” There are also measures in place to ensure the performance doesn’t utilize any resources needed for recovery efforts.

Holley noted that the region could probably use a pick-me-up and predicted “we’ll really be in for a good day” when the rocker arrives.

That said, should Stewart honor his concert date, it’ll mark the area’s first major performance since Cyclone Gabrielle, which forced several artists to call off their shows. Sting was just one performer who was forced to cancel his concert, which had been set for March 4.

Rod will also perform in Auckland, New Zealand, on April 9 at Spark Arena. A portion of the concert’s proceeds will be directed to the Red Cross NZ Disaster Relief Fund.

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Van Halen’s sixth studio album, 1984, hit number two on the Billboard album chart and stayed there for five weeks. The album was denied the top spot by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – which features guest guitar work from Eddie Van Halen. 

The album never reached number one, but did go on to sell more than 10 million copies.

1984 was the last Van Halen album to feature original frontman David Lee Roth, until 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth. It was also the last full-length album to feature all four original members of Van Halen, as bassist Michael Anthony was replaced by Eddie’s son Wolfgang Van Halen on the 2012 album.

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If you bought a ticket to The Cure‘s upcoming U.S. tour during this week’s Ticketmaster Verified Fan sale, you’ll be getting some money back, thanks to frontman Robert Smith.

As previously reported, Smith tweeted earlier this week that he was “sickened” by the fees charged by Ticketmaster on top of the ticket price. One viral tweet showed someone bought four tickets for a total of $80 and was charged over $90 in fees.

In a tweet Thursday evening, Smith shared, in his traditional all caps style, “After further conversation, Ticketmaster have agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high.”

“As a gesture of goodwill have offered a $10 per ticket refund to all Verified Fan accounts for lowest ticket price (‘LTP’) transactions and a $5 per ticket refund to all Verified Fan accounts for all other ticket price transactions, for all Cure shows at all venues,” Smith continued.

Smith added that tickets purchased during Friday’s general sale “will incur lower fees.”

The Cure’s tour, which marks their first full U.S. headlining run in seven years, begins May 10 in New Orleans.

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Queen’s deep dive into their live performances continues with episode nine of Queen The Greatest Live taking a look at the importance of lighting in a show.

The episode, “Under the Lights,” looks at the production that has gone into their tours, with Brian May and Roger Taylor sharing their thoughts on why lighting is such an important part of their stage show.

“For that 2 1/2 hours that we’re onstage, we are in complete control of the environment – that means the sound, the lights, the temperature, everything,” May shares. “We’ve always thought the lights are not just objects to illuminate, they’re objects in themselves and they’re part of the environment. And that’s a kind of rock ‘n’ roll thing, I think. I think we imbibed that from seeing stuff that we enjoyed when we were kids.” 

Taylor notes they took inspiration from their peers, such as Pink Floyd, when coming up with their lighting, but sought to go even further. “There were so many acts going around that had hundreds of lights, all different colors, and it just made white,” he shares. “So, we had this idea of just having red, green and white. And it was very effective.” 

Queen was one of the first bands to use a lighting rig called the “crown,” which could be raised and lowered during the show, as well as what May calls the “pizza oven,” which was a wall of lights above them that got incredibly hot.

But even Roger notes that sometimes all that stuff isn’t necessary. He explains, “Sometimes the most effective light is one single powerful spotlight, to focus the entire arena on that performer.”

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U2 fans have a lot to keep them busy this weekend. The band’s new album, Songs of Surrender, is out now, featuring 40 rerecorded and reimagined U2 classics. The opening track is the Achtung Baby classic “One,” while the album closes, appropriately enough, with the War song “40.”

Curated and produced by The Edge, each of the album’s four parts are named after one of the band members. Each song on the album is a completely new recording, with new arrangements and in some cases new lyrics.

“It’s both a vanity project and a grudge match,” Bono tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of their reason for making the album. “The grudge match is, [what] we were trying to prove, or else maybe obfuscate, was if our songs could stand up with the best songs, our favorite songs. And so that was it. We wanted to see.”

The Edge adds “just serving the songs … was the overarching idea for this collection. And to serve the song, but to serve the voice, which meant the voice was the centerpiece of every single arrangement.”

In addition to the album, U2 and The Edge star alongside David Letterman in the new Disney+ special Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, which premieres Friday. The special finds the longtime bandmates returning to their hometown of Dublin, Ireland, while being interviewed by famed talk show host.

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U2‘s Bono and The Edge are out and proud fans of ABBA — but they once viewed their music as “the National Anthem for young mothers.”

Speaking to BBC’s The Radio 2 Piano Room, the rockers chatted about their love of the band and explained why they tried to hide it when they were younger.

Bono recalled feeling a certain pressure to appear macho, and to do that, it meant consuming punk music over pop songs.

Edge explained that, although they didn’t “want to own up to ABBA,” his perspective on their music has now shifted. “I’ll tell you what, they’re just better songs. You can’t be empirical about everything in art,” the guitarist said.

Bono added, “I didn’t have the courage to own up to this next band when I was 16 in the middle of punk rock.” He also recalled being confused about why ABBA was such a phenomenon when he was younger, saying, “At closing time at our local pub, often young women would sing ‘Thank You for the Music’, and I would sing it — and I was very thankful for the music.” 

They now understand why ABBA was and continues to be a phenomenon. “We’re big fans of this Scandinavian band, appreciators of their work in a way that grew over years,” said Edge.

He continued, “We’re fans of lots of great songwriters who aren’t necessarily seen as very hip, and I guess we’re just appreciators of their work.”

Bono also reflected on the time U2 “murdered ‘Dancing Queen'” at a concert in 1992 alongside ABBA singers Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson.

The two then dove into a Johnny Cash-twist on the classic ABBA song “S.O.S.”

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