Classic Hits

Pink Floyd’s iconic album Wish You Were Here begins and ends with the two-part track “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a tribute to their late bandmate Syd Barrett. Now the two parts have been put together as one complete song.

The band has just released “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (pts. 1-9, New Stereo Mix),” which marks the first time the song has been released as one continuous piece. The 25-minute track, newly mixed in stereo by James Guthrie, is part of Wish You Where Here 50, Pink Floyd’s 50th anniversary reissue of the album, which is dropping Dec. 12.

To coincide with the release, comedian and Great British Baking Show co-host Noel Fielding has created a commissioned set of original paintings inspired by Barrett’s iconic image.

“I was pretty young when my affinity with Pink Floyd and Syd started,” Fielding shares. “What’s amazing about Pink Floyd, especially with Wish You Were Here, is that the artwork was as good as the music.” He adds, “It is a masterpiece, that album cover, and that album. It’s a masterpiece. And it’s based on Syd Barrett, who is a walking masterpiece.”

Wish You Were Here 50 will be released in a variety of configurations, including a three-LP or two-CD set, with the original album plus 25 bonus tracks, including six tracks that have never been released before. There will also be a Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 Surround mixes of the album; three concert films from the band’s 1975 tour; and a short film by famed art designer and Hipgnosis co-founder Storm Thorgerson.

All formats are available for preorder now.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

R.E.M. called it quits in 2011, and while fans may be holding out hope for a reunion, Mike Mills doesn’t see that happening.

“R.E.M. broke up because it was time, and we all recognized it and we all had thought about it before we ever mentioned it to each other,” Mills said on the latest installment of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. “And, you know, it’s fine.”

Although the band did perform “Losing My Religion” together at their Songwriters Hall of Fame induction in 2024, Mills doesn’t see it as that big of a deal.

“We didn’t reform, we got together to play one song one time, because that’s what you do with the Songwriters Hall of Fame,” he says. “It’s churlish to go in there and not do the thing that everyone does when you play there. So we did … and it just completely reinforced our belief that we’d done the right thing.”

The interview had Mills, Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker and former The Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman talking about their new band, Howl Owl Howl, which wrapped a U.S. tour Saturday in Atlanta. Their show in Athens, Georgia, on Friday included an appearance by R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry.

Mills reveals in the interview that it was his R.E.M. bandmate Michael Stipe who came up with the name for the new group.

“Stipe said, ‘Howl Owl Howl,’” Mills says. “And I was like, ‘OK, that’s it. That is so weird that I’m gonna send it to ’em and they’re gonna hate it.’ And they did.”

Gorman adds that he changed his mind after a couple of days, noting, “It was just in my brain. I couldn’t get rid of it. I was like, ‘Oh s***. Howl Owl Howl’s great.’”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

“Weird Al” Yankovic has added a new 2026 leg to his successful Bigger & Weirder tour.

Originally launched in 2025, the tour had Weird Al playing 75 shows across 67 cities to over 500,000 fans. The new leg has him playing 90 North American cities, beginning May 26 in Hollywood, Florida, and wrapping Oct. 17 in Milwaukee.

“We did 75 shows this year, and the fans weren’t sick of us yet,” Weird Al explained, “so we’re just going to keep on touring until they are!”

Weird Al revealed the tour news with a video spoofing the Star Wars scene where the mask is lowered down on Darth Vader’s head. In his clip, Weird Al’s signature curly hair is slowly lowered onto his apparent bald head. He also uses “The Force” to get a stagehand to bring him boysenberry doughnuts.

A complete list of dates can be found at WeirdAl.com. An artist presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. local time, with tickets going on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m. local time.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Warren Haynes has announced dates for a new 2026 solo tour.

The trek will feature just Haynes and his guitar, and will have him playing stripped down shows that will feature two sets each night. He plans to play songs from his catalog, including solo recordings, and Gov’t Mule and Allman Brothers Band tunes, plus music that has influenced his career.

“Although I have done a few solo dates here and there, I’ve never afforded myself the opportunity to do an actual solo tour so I’m extremely excited about this,” Haynes says. “Anytime I get the chance to do something that I don’t get to do often enough is a rewarding experience for me and hopefully for the audience as well.”

The 11-date tour kicks off Feb. 12 in Grass Valley, California, and wraps Feb. 26 in Pelham, Tennessee.

Haynes will also be hitting the road with the Warren Haynes Band starting March 1 in Birmingham, Alabama, and wrapping March 7 in Ithaca, New York.

A fan club presale for all new shows will begin Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET, with local presales starting Thursday at 12 p.m. ET. Tickets go on sale to the general public starting Friday at 12 p.m. ET. A complete list of dates can be found at WarrenHaynes.net.

Next up, Haynes will hit the stage in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, for his annual Christmas Jam. The concert, taking place Dec. 13 at ExploreAsheville.com Arena, will be headlined by Warren Haynes & Friends, with the lineup also including Stone Temple Pilots and MJ Lenderman & The Wind.

The show will feature a special Christmas Jam tribute to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, featuring Haynes, Lesh’s son Grahame Lesh, Widespread Panic‘s Jimmy Herring, John Molo and Jason Crosby, along with special guests.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Cheap Trick is revisiting their iconic live album Cheap Trick at Budukon, but fans won’t have to travel to Japan to experience it.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers announced two shows in Las Vegas where they will play the 1978 live record in its entirety, along with their other hits. Cheap Trick at Budokan – Live in Las Vegas will take place April 17 and 18, 2026, at The Venetian Theatre inside The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.

A ticket presale is underway, with tickets going on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m. PT.

Cheap Trick at Budokan was recorded April 28 and 30, 1978, at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan. It was the band’s first live album, and featured performances of such classic tracks as “Surrender” and “I Want You To Want Me.” It went on to become the band’s bestselling album and has been certified triple Platinum by the RIAA. In 2019 it was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

The Vegas announcement comes just days after Cheap Trick released their 21st studio album, All Washed Up. It’s the band’s first album since 2021’s In Another World.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, Nov. 17, 2010…

Rocker Patti Smith was awarded the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids.

The book documented Smith’s relationship with late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the late ’60s and early ’70s New York art scene. The book was a New York Times bestseller and won several other awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Patti released her second memoir, Bread of Angels, on Nov. 4. Described as “the most intimate” of Smith’s memoirs, the book follows the musician through her childhood in Philadelphia and South Jersey, her teenage years “when the first glimmers of art and romance take hold,” her marriage to Fred “Sonic” Smith and their family life, and more.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

KISS returned to the stage for the first time since their final End of the Road World Tour concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden in December 2023. They performed Friday to Sunday at their KISS Kruise: Landlocked convention in Las Vegas.

The performances were the band’s first since the death of founding member Ace Frehley, who they paid tribute to at their first unmasked performance Friday, fan-shot footage posted to YouTube shows.

“Obviously, before we get going, and we’re going to have an awesome time … we just wanted to take a moment to think about somebody who was at the foundation of this band, and we’re talking about Ace,” Paul Stanley said. “We certainly had differences, but that’s what family is about.”

He then asked fans to take a moment of silence to honor Ace and “think about him looking down on us,” which was followed by chants of “Ace, Ace” from the crowd.

The KISS Kruise featured a reunion of the final KISS lineup: Paul, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer.

They played the tracks “Hard Luck Woman” and “Hide Your Heart” at their Friday acoustic performance for the first time since 2019, according to setlist.fm. The set also featured their classic ballad “Beth” and a cover of The Beatles’ “I’ll Be Back.”

The band broke out more KISS classics at their Saturday electric show, including “Detroit Rock City” and “Black Diamond,” as well as “Lick It Up” and “Rock and Roll All Nite” featuring former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Robbie Robertson‘s final solo album, 2019’s Sinematic, features “Beautiful Madness,” a song inspired by the two years he and Martin Scorsese lived together after their respective marriages collapsed. That “madness” is now detailed in The Band guitarist’s brutally honest new book Insomnia, the sequel to his memoir, Testimony.

In Insomnia, Robertson and Scorsese are creatively on fire. As The Band dissolves, they work on The Last Waltz and Raging Bull; hang with Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Warren Beatty; travel the world; bed beautiful women and do ridiculous amounts of drugs, stopping only after Scorsese nearly dies. Their creative partnership, though, continued for decades.

“I think they both admired each other greatly … Robbie thought Marty was a genius filmmaker, and I think Marty thought Robbie was an amazing writer and an amazing storyteller,” Robertson’s longtime manager, Jared Levine, says of their relationship.

Levine says Robertson had wanted to tell the “origin story” of his friendship with Scorsese for years, but in the form of a movie, which David Fincher planned to direct. Dissatisfied with the screenplay, Levine says, “Robbie was like, ‘You know what? I need to write the story for this to be done properly.'” 

While Robertson completed Insomnia’s first draft prior to his unexpected 2023 death, Levine says, “We didn’t rush to release it” — in part because Robertson’s family was “ambivalent” about it. “They weren’t prepared for what this book was,” Levine notes.

“It’s so irreverent and so much about being a bad boy,” Levine says, noting the guitarist’s descriptions of his affairs with actresses and models “aren’t things that Robbie ever talked to his kids about.” He continues, “To read it after he had passed, it was even more so a difficult thing.”

Consequently, Insomnia includes an afterward by Robertson’s ex-wife and lifelong friend, Dominique Robertson, providing context for that period.

Filmworks: Insomnia, an LP collecting Robertson’s music for The Last Waltz, Raging Bull and his acting debut, Carny, arrives on Record Store Day Black Friday, happening Nov. 28.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

He wasn’t dancing, but Pete Townshend did appear onstage during Friday’s New York City premiere of Quadrophenia: A Rock Ballet, the latest iteration of The Who‘s 1973 concept album. The production, which debuted in London this past summer, is playing at New York’s City Center through Sunday.

Townshend strolled onstage nonchalantly with a guitar during the “I’m One” portion of the ballet to thunderous applause. He then sat down off to the side of the stage and played — or appeared to play — while Paris Fitzpatrick, who plays the central character of Jimmy, danced.

As the cast took their bows during the end of the show, Townshend made another appearance, sharing with the audience that he wanted the show to be a tribute to its choreographer, Paul Roberts, who died of cancer in September, after working on it right up until the end.

Referring to the ballet, Townshend said, “I brought it to New York out of my own pocket. You all know how I feel about the U.S. of A, but also this city, and I really wanted to bring it here for him and for his husband Phil, and everybody in the company.”

“Thanks for supporting us here,” he added. 

Directed by Rob Ashford, Quadrophenia: A Rock Ballet debuted in the U.K. in May. It features an orchestral version of the album by Townshend’s wife, Rachel Fuller. Like the album and the 1979 film, it focuses on Jimmy, a working class mod who yearns for a different life than his parents. 

In the ballet, Jimmy and the other characters — his childhood friend, the girl he loves, his parents, head mod Ace Face and rocker The Godfather — tell their story solely through dance, costumes and scenery. There are no lyrics or vocals.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

War has teamed up with Playing For Change, a multimedia project that aims to connect the world through music, to release a new version of their iconic tune “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” to mark the 50th anniversary of the song, and the album of the same name.

The new track features 30 musicians from around the world, including War founding member Lonnie Jordan and former band members Howard Scott, Harold Brown and Lee Oskar.

“Fifty years on, ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ feels more powerful than ever,” says War’s longtime producer Jerry Goldstein. “It’s a beautiful message, and we’re grateful to share it with the world and bring people together through the music.”

Released in April 1975, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” was a top-10 hit for War, peaking at #6 on the Hot 100 singles chart. The album of the same name, which also featured the iconic tune “Low Rider,” was also a top-10 hit, reaching #8.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.