Metallica Sets Record For Germany's Biggest Stadium Concert
Metallica is still setting records 40+ years into their storied career. Over the weekend, they set an attendance record for Germany's biggest-ever stadium concert by performing in front of 94-thousand people at Berlin's Olympiastadion. That breaks a record held by U2, which drew a crowd of just over 90-thousand to the venue in 2009. The band noted the Berlin record in a post on social media, writing: "Night after night, city after city, the #MetallicaFamily is bringing it! Yesterday, over 94,000 of you helped break the record for the biggest EVER show at Olympiastadion. Thank you!"
MICHAEL ANTHONY: Let's Help Him Out
Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony is once again helping to raise money for the Children's Hospital Los Angeles through its 10th annual Walk & Play L.A. event this Saturday at the Santa Monica Pier. He writes on Instagram, "As you may know, we lost our dear grandson, Rex Michael, to heart disease at just two weeks old. He arrived at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles just hours after being born and went into surgery to try and correct his heart defect. The surgery was successful, but his tiny body could not handle recovery and at just two weeks old joined the angels in heaven. The dedicated doctors and staff of CHLA did all they could to save our grandson, and although they couldn’t, our family will forever cherish every second of the two weeks that we had with our little Rex!.. "Any amount you can donate through me to the hospital is greatly appreciated, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart once again for helping me raise money so that CHLA can continue saving as many of our children as they can." Anthony's team is named Rex and the Heartbeaters, and so far they've raised just over $27,000. To donate, go to CHLA.org and follow the links to Walk & Play L.A. Unfortunately, hewon't be at the event this year because he's busy rehearsing for his summer tour with
Sammy Hagar. Sammy Hagar commented on Anthony's Instagram post saying, "My friend, it is so wonderful that you have kept this thing going and I'm sure you plan on keeping it going forever. God bless you. You know I'm in." In 2017, David Lee Roth donated $10,000 on behalf of Anthony's team.
Michael said "My grandson Rex was born with congenital heart disease, and my daughter didn't even get to hold him and we whisked him off to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. You hear about the hospital and whatever, but you don't realize just what they do until unfortunately like me, you're kind of in a situation where you're there. And, you know, you don't pay -- it's all done free for the children. And that year that he passed away they had their first CHLA Walk L.A. they call it, and it's just a great family thing and, you know, we take donations in for the hospital. So we do that every year now."
THE BLACK CROWES: Get Booed in Tampa
Sunday night's Black Crowes show in Tampa brought out a different kind of bird -- boobirds.
After the band performed "Soul Singing," an image of the band's crow character dressed as Uncle Sam popped up on the screens, which led to a chant of "U.S.A." from the audience.
Just as the band started getting ready to play "She Talks to Angels" Chris Robinson told the crowd, "Thanks for the geography lesson." When people kept chanting, Robinson added, "I don't know what you have to be so proud of right now." Many in the crowd starting booing and then started leaving the show. TMZ got a video of the incident, and in it Robinson told the audience, "For those of you [effing] booing us, some of us are not afraid. And we most assuredly are not [effing] ignorant."
All they did was show pride in their country on it's 250th birthday. They didn't chant TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP. Honestly, kind of ridiculous but that seems to be the norm today.
The Crowes' tour continues tonight (Tuesday) in St. Augustine, Florida.
RUSH: Six Days to Go
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson certainly know how to keep a secret, which was the case for over three years when they learned Rush drummer Neil Peart was dying of brain cancer, and again last year when they decided to reunite for a tour this summer. Shortly after announcing the Fifty Something last October, Geddy gave us the scoop on keeping the news under wraps, and when the decision was made to tour again. On keeping it a secret that he and Alex were planning to tour: "It was a very difficult secret to keep and very hard to look your friends in the eye and evade. I don't like to think of it as lying. I like to think of it as subtle evasion. But, yeah, obviously we've known for a little bit that we're going back on the road and it's taken an incredible amount of planning, and, I'll be frank -- a lot of soul searching and a lot of hurdles to overcome before we actually made that final decision to go back."
As for that decision to tour again, Geddy says he and Alex, performing with different drummers in 2022 at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in London and Los Angeles started to make Alex, who was reluctant to tour, come around to the idea that perhaps they could do something. And what helped cement the idea was when they started to play Rush songs in Geddy's studio, which Alex suggested, and then Geddy accompanying Alex to a health spa in Austria in January 2025. "We wanted someone with a fresh story. We wanted someone sort of out of nowhere. And Anika was not out of nowhere, but I loved her story. And when I turned Alex onto some of her work, he just loved her playing. And we met first over Zoom, and, you know, we were really impressed with her and then we brought her to Canada and we got a studio very quietly and jammed for a few days to some Rush songs. And honestly by the end of it we were getting excited. You know, she's really fun to play with. But it took one more time around of rehearsals before she relaxed into the role."
Keith Richards Is A Great-Grandfather
If everybody adhered to The Who's wish that "I hope I die before I get old," we'd be without a lot of rock legends (including the Who). Take Keith Richards, for example; it was announced yesterday that the Rolling Stones legend is now a great grandfather! His granddaughter
Ella announced the birth of her daughter Luna on Instagram, making the 82 year-old guitarist a great grandfather for the first time. Believe it or not, bandmate Mick Jagger became a great grandfather 12 years ago, when his 21-year-old granddaughter, Assisi Jackson, gave birth to a baby girl.
CHARLIE WATTS: Would Have Turned 85 Today
Tuesday, June 2nd, would have been Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts's 85th birthday.
Born in London on June 2nd, 1941, he started drumming when his parents gave him his first drum kit in 1955. In mid-1962, Watts met Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and they finally convinced him to join the band in January 1963. Watts played drums on every Stones album, from their 1964 self-titled debut (which was released in the U.S. as
England's Newest Hitmakers) up to their latest one, Foreign Tongues, which will be out on July 10th. (But not every song, as producer Jimmy Miller played drums on "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Happy"; Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenney Jones played on "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)"; and Steve Jordan, who Watts selected to replace him when he took ill in 2021, played on all but two songs on 2023's Hackney Diamonds, and 13 of the 14 songs on Foreign Tongues. Watts plays on "Hit Me in the Head.")
Watts was known as the steady and quiet member of the band compared to Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards, and hid his addiction to alcohol and heroin in the mid-'80s until he got clean in 1986. That year he launched his jazz career with The Charlie Watts Orchestra and went on to release nine more jazz albums through 2017. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004, even though he had given up smoking in the late 1980s. After undergoing radiation treatment he rejoined the Stones to make A Bigger Bang and then went on tour for two years. At the time he joked, "It seems that whenever we stop, I get ill. So maybe I should carry on." Pictured alone on the cover of the Stones' second live album, 1970's "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!": The Rolling Stones in Concert, his last show with the band was August 30th, 2019, in Miami. The last song he played was "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." On August 4th, 2021, it was announced that Watts would miss the start of the band's No Filter tour as he recovered from cancer surgery. He asked Steve Jordan to fill in for him, and sadly he never made it back, passing away 20 days later on August 24th at 80. He was the third member of the Stones to pass following guitarist
Brian Jones in 1969 and piano player Ian Stewart in 1985.
Dave Grohl Joins Sepultura On Stage For Final Show Of Farewell Tour
Dave Grohl made a surprise appearance at Sepultura's final North American show, joining the band on drums for a performance of "Kaiowas," the instrumental track from their 1993 album "Chaos A.D.," at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles on May 29th. Grohl has long been a vocal fan of the Brazilian metal band, naming Sepultura’s 1996 album "Roots" as one of the records that shaped his musical imagination. The Los Angeles date was the last stop on the North American leg of Sepultura's "Celebrating Life Through Death" farewell tour. Their final concert of all time will take place November 7th in São Paulo, Brazil. Sepultura co-founders Max and Iggor Cavalera declined an invitation to participate in the final show, according to guitarist Andreas Kisser, though other former members will appear.
PAUL McCARTNEY: Shows His Human and Humorous Side
Paul McCartney took time out from doing serious interviews about his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, which was released last Friday, to take part in a lighthearted chat with U.K. comedian Amelia Dimoldenberg on her YouTube series Chicken Shop Date. Each episode features Amelia meeting with a celebrity guest at a local fried chicken restaurant where she asks them funny and strange questions while they eat. But since McCartney is a vegetarian, they shot the episode while eating "vegan nuggets and chips." Among the things they talked about:
·Paul and original Beatles drummer Pete Best lighting a condom on fire.
·If he has a tattoo, which he doesn't.
·How often one should see their dentist. He said once a year. Amelia hasn't been in five years, but McCartney told her she has nice teeth.
·How the late Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis inspired a gift he gave his late wife Linda. He gave his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis a bracelet inscribed with “JILY,” which stood for “Jackie I Love You.” So McCartney gave Linda one that was inscribed, “LILY,” for “Linda I Love You.”
Amelia also asked him if she should be taking drugs, to which he said, "Depends. We’ll talk.”
And since everyone has a favorite Beatle, she asked who is favorite is. "Currently it's Ringo
because he's the only one left besides Paul]. During the Beatles, I think we all used to look up to John [Lennon], ’cause he was like the leader, even though there wasn’t officially a leader of the group. He was very witty and he was great to have in the group. I think all of us might’ve said John."
PETER FRAMPTON: Who Showed Him the Way
Peter Frampton says the reason it took him so long to be nominated, elected and inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was because of Jann [pr: Yon] Wenner. He says the co-founder and former publisher of Rolling Stone, who co-founded the Hall and served as its Foundation's chairman, didn't like him. Frampton believes that it took his replacement, radio executive John Sykes, to help make it happen. "I said, when you have the public voting, it has to in some way be close enough to what you guys vote for. He said, 'Absolutely.' The public don't like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting at all. He said, 'I know. We're changing that. We have got some catching up to do.' And he's caught up, in the last couple of years." Eligible for nomination since 1997, he was elected on his first ballot and finished second in the Fan Vote behind the Dave Matthews Band. He was inducted in the Performer Category, which is defined as "artists who have created music whose originality, impact, and influence has changed the course of rock & roll."
As for why he feels deserving of this honor, he tells us his band Humble Pie has influenced many other bands, and then in 1976 came his fifth album, Frampton Comes Alive! "It did change the record industry. I'm not the one whose saying it. Other people are saying it. So, no one expected that record to do what it did and after that there was a slew of live records. But then my career has gone in many different directions after that. I realized I'm an artist. I'm not a face. I play an instrument, I write, and I sing and I do it well and I'm not gonna give up. So, it's been a long journey, but it's been so gratifying." Frampton Comes Alive! is among the best-selling live albums of all-time with over eight-million in sales in the U.S. Frampton just released his 19th studio album, Carry the Light, and he performed one of the songs from it, "Buried Treasure," this past weekend on CBS Saturday Morning.
Def Leppard Extends Ongoing 2026 World Tour With Extreme
Def Leppard are extending their 2026 tour with more dates in October and November. The latest confirmed dates are scheduled to begin in Hollywood, Florida, on October 15th and wrap up on November 8th in Santiago, Chile. The band's ongoing world tour launched in March in India. Tickets information can be found on Def Leppard's website.
SOUNDGARDEN: Thought Cornell's Suicide Was Hoax At First
Kim Thayil writes in his new memoir A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond that the band thought Chris Cornell's death was a hoax at first because they were already on the way to their next gig. Thayil shared a chapter called "Like Suicide" with Rolling Stone where he writes that he, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron had all left Detroit in the early hours of the morning of May 18th, 2017 with their crew heading to Columbus, Ohio for Rock on the Range. Thayil writes that Cameron, who was on a different bus, called him."Kim, I’m reading a lot of weird [crap] on the internet. Somebody posted ‘RIP: Chris Cornell’ on my Facebook page."
Thayil and Cameron thought at first that they were being pranked, but then they got confirmation from Detroit that Cornell was dead. Thayil writes, "I didn’t see it coming. The thing that hurts me the most is to be a close friend and colleague and not to have read things that perhaps, in retrospect, I should have read. That’s hurtful. I feel like I let Chris down by not seeing the look in his eyes, or not hearing a tone in his voice — not being able to read it."
"But it’s hard to read things like that, because you don’t get a lot of chances at it. You can only look in retrospect and go, Ah, here’s an indicator. There was nothing that was on my radar that I could read at that time. And then I looked at the paper trail and it was like [Crap], the paper trail goes back to the beginning." A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond will be published on June 9th.
DISTURBED: These Songs Are Pretty Good!
Disturbed frontman David Draiman is pretty excited about the songs the band have stocked away for their next album. Draiman posted on his social media, "I'll tell you one thing -- I've had a lot of time to go over these last songs we've written. Took time away, came back to them, and fell in love with them all over again. Diverse, fresh, and powerful." "It'll be some time but I can't wait for these songs to see the light of day. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised." Draiman and the band recorded a bunch of songs in fall 2024 and released one of them, "I Will Not Break," last year before they did a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Sickness. Disturbed's last album of new material was 2022's Divisive. Disturbed are off the road most of the year, but are doing two shows next month -- headlining the Inkcaceration Festival in Mansfield, Ohio on July 17th and a show in Hollywood, Florida July 25th.
IN OTHER NEWS
Michael Stipe and producer Andrew Watt will perform "I Played the Fool" from the HBO series Rooster this Tuesday on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Billy Joel’s latest video on his YouTube channel is a performance of “Big Shot” from his June 8th, 1984 show at London’s Wembley Arena.
Sammy Hagar has posted a video on Instagram of himself performing “There’s Only One Way to Rock” at home and explaining how a San Francisco radio station’s refusal to play his song “I’ve Done Everything for You” inspired it.
Lindsey Buckingham has posted another video in his YouTube series, Lindsey Reacts. This time it’s him and his son Will watching and discussing Sam Fender's “People Watching,” which sounds like it could be influenced by Fleetwood Mac.
Mick Fleetwood posted a video on Instagram talking about heading back to Los Angeles from his home on Maui to finish his new album, which he’s been working on for three years. He says he thinks it’s coming out good.
Little Feat co-founder and keyboardist Billy Payne recently took a spill on stage, but came away unscathed, saying, “I spent many years cross-country skiing some rather large hills and learned how to fall. I was pleased to remember those skills when the time came! After what seems like a lifetime of bouncing around the narrow confines on a bus, I’ve developed an aptitude for careening off walls in the middle of the night as we roll down the proud highway; although I have seen evidence of bruises the next day and forgot where they came from.”
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons has released a new song, “Brown Paper Bag” featuring Keith Urban on guitar. You can listen to it on YouTube.
Def Leppard will tour Latin America in October and November with special guest Extreme. They’ll get ready for it with a one-off show in Hollywood, Florida on October 15th.
Cream have released their performance video of “I’m So Glad” from their 2005 album, Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005. You can watch it on YouTube.