Classic Hits

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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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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Stevie Nicks usually takes to social media to comment on world events, politics or major personal news. For example, she mourned the loss of her bandmate Christine McVie in a lengthy post. But now she’s been moved to do a special post praising the acceptance speech delivered by Lizzo at the People’s Choice Awards earlier this week.

While accepting The People’s Champion trophy, Grammy winner Lizzo told the crowd, “I don’t need a trophy for championing people … to be an icon isn’t about how long you’ve had your platform. Being an icon is what you do with that platform.” 

She then brought a group of female activists onstage — 17 in all — and individually highlighted their work, which encompassed transgender and female rights, the rights of Indigenous peoples, anti-gun violence organizations and more. Images of each woman were also shown on video screens around the stage.

“Give them their flowers,” the “About Damn Time” singer concluded. “Power will always be to the people … follow them and support them.”

Stevie was so moved by Lizzo’s speech that she wrote on her socials, “Dearest Lizzo … your presentation … was not only so beautiful and so needed, that you get the award for being a great woman of our time.”

“I was so impressed and so touched that you put that together and pulled it off,” Stevie continued. “It was stunning, and everyone heard you. You have given all women soundbites forever — flute player, singer, songwriter, future politician…?”

Stevie concluded, “Your name is in the stars now.”

So far, Lizzo hasn’t responded to Stevie’s kind words.

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Aerosmith has crapped out in Las Vegas.

The band has canceled the remainder of their Deuces Are Wild Las Vegas residency — two shows, scheduled for Thursday night and this Sunday — due to frontman Steven Tyler‘s ongoing illness. “On the advice of doctors, Steven has to sit these out,” the band wrote on Instagram. Tickets will be refunded.

The band had already scrapped the December 2 and 5 shows of the residency at Dolby Live theater at Park MGM due to Tyler’s undisclosed illness. At the time, Tyler, 74, said on Instagram, “On the advice of my doctor, I’m taking more time to rest… there is nowhere we’d rather be than on stage surrounded by the greatest fans in the world.”

In May, Aerosmith canceled their June and July Las Vegas residency shows so that Tyler could “voluntarily” enter rehab, with the band explaining at the time that he’d relapsed after using pain medication following foot surgery.

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