Month: August 2021

Last night (Friday, August 27), GUNS N’ ROSES played the first-ever rock concert at Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium, a 65,000-seat venue which is run by the Las Vegas Raiders. The show was part of the band’s U.S. tour, which kicked off on July 31 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Support on the trek is coming from Wolfgang Van Halen’s MAMMOTH WVH.

Prior to the Allegiant concert, the most recent GUNS N’ ROSES show in Las Vegas was the band’s appearance at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in November 2019, a three-hour performance which closed its “Not In This Lifetime” tour.

When GUNS N’ ROSES’ concert at Allegiant was first announced, Kurt Melien of Live Nation, which produced the gig, said in a statement: “As the largest concert promoter and headline resident promoter in Las Vegas, we had to go big for our first show at Allegiant Stadium. GUNS N’ ROSES and the Raiders go all the way back to the ’80s when the band was just starting out in L.A., so to be able to bring them to the team’s new home and to have such incredible support from the Raiders is a real honor.”

Dubbed “We’re F’N Back!”, GUNS N’ ROSES’ current tour comes on the heels of the “Not In This Lifetime” run that began in April 2016 and became the No. 3 highest-grossing tour in the history of Billboard Boxscore.

As was the case with “Not In This Lifetime”, the current GUNS N’ ROSES tour features classic-lineup members Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Axl Rose (vocals) backed by guitarist Richard Fortus, drummer Frank Ferrer, keyboardist Dizzy Reed and second keyboardist Melissa Reese.

The massive touring production will wrap up with two shows in Hollywood, Florida, at the Hard Rock Live Arena on October 2 and 3, 2021.

On August 6, GUNS N’ ROSES officially released a new song called “Absurd” across all digital music providers. The studio version of “Absurd” — which is a reworked version of a previously unreleased GN’R track called “Silkworms” — arrived three days after the band performed the tune live for the first time during its concert at Boston’s Fenway Park.

GUNS launched its long-rumored and long-awaited reunion tour with an April 2016 club show in Hollywood and appearances in Las Vegas and at California’s Coachella festival.

The band is now reportedly working on a new studio album — the first under the GUNS banner since 2008’s “Chinese Democracy” and the first to feature Rose, Slash and McKagan since 1993.

THE ROLLING STONES have paid tribute to Charlie Watts with a two-minute video featuring various photos and footage of their late drummer over the years.

The clip, which was uploaded to the band’s social media accounts on Friday, is set to the 1974 track “If You Can’t Rock Me” and concludes with a photo of Watts’s drum set that has a “closed” sign hanging on it.

Watts’s publicist said that he “passed away peacefully” on August 24 “in a London hospital surrounded by his family.”

Charlie’s death came just weeks after THE ROLLING STONES announced that Watts would be missing several U.S. tour dates while he was recovering from an unspecified medical procedure.

The 12-date “No Filter” tour will reportedly take place as scheduled, with Steve Jordan taking Watts’s place.

Although Watts wasn’t a founding member of THE STONES, he had been with the band since January 1963.

He battled throat cancer in 2004 but got the all clear after undergoing two operations.

Following Watts’s death, THE ROLLING STONES guitarist Keith Richards shared the same drum set photo that closed out the video, while singer Mick Jagger posted a smiling picture of Watts. Guitarist Ronnie Wood shared a photo of him with his late bandmate, writing, “I love you my fellow Gemini ~ I will dearly miss you ~ you are the best.”

pic.twitter.com/K6OKExXBED
— The Rolling Stones (@RollingStones) August 27, 2021

A video of Dave Mustaine offering a tour of the backstage area from MEGADETH’s “The Metal Tour Of The Year” with LAMB OF GOD, TRIVIUM and HATEBREED can be seen below.

Mustaine made the clip while filming a new message on Cameo, which lets users hire celebrities to record brief, personalized video messages about virtually any topic.

“The Metal Tour Of The Year” kicked off on August 20 at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater in Austin, Texas. The trek marks MEGADETH’s first run of shows with bassist James LoMenzo in nearly 12 years.

Produced by Live Nation, the rescheduled tour will wrap in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada on October 2.

LoMenzo joined MEGADETH in 2006 and appeared on two of the group’s studio albums, 2007’s “United Abominations” and 2009’s “Endgame”. He was fired from the band in 2010 and replaced with returning original MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson.

In addition to MEGADETH, LoMenzo has played with Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde and WHITE LION. For the past eight years, LoMenzo has been performing with iconic rocker John Fogerty.

Mustaine has yet to reveal who played bass on the band’s new album after Ellefson’s tracks were removed from the LP following his dismissal from the group in late May.

Ellefson laid down his bass tracks on MEGADETH’s sixteenth LP in May 2020 at a studio in Nashville, Tennessee.

In July, Mustaine announced during an episode of his Gimme Radio program “The Dave Mustaine Show” that Ellefson’s bass tracks would not be used on the new MEGADETH LP.

In early May, on the same day that sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving Ellefson were posted on Twitter, he released a statement on Instagram denying all social media chatter that he “groomed” an underage fan.

On May 24, Mustaine — who formed MEGADETH with Ellefson in 1983 — announced the bassist’s departure from the band.

Ellefson was in MEGADETH from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.

Multi-camera fan-filmed video footage of JUDAS PRIEST performing the song “One Shot At Glory” on August 15 at the Bloodstock Open Air festival, which took place at Catton Park, Walton-on-Trent, United Kingdom, can be seen.

The British heavy metal legends, who are celebrating their 50th anniversary, were rejoined by guitarist Glenn Tipton during their first concert in more than two years. The band also pulled out a number of surprises in its set, including first-ever performances of “One Shot At Glory” and “Invader”, as well as several tracks that hadn’t been played in a long time, such as “Rocka Rolla (performed for the first time since 1976), “Exciter” (first time since 2005), “Hell Patrol” (first time since 2009), “A Touch Of Evil” (first time since 2005), “Dissident Aggressor” (first time since 2009) and “Blood Red Skies” (first time since 2012).

Tipton was diagnosed with Parkinson’s seven years ago — after being stricken by the condition at least half a decade earlier — but announced in early 2018 he was going to sit out touring activities in support of JUDAS PRIEST’s latest studio album, “Firepower”. He was replaced by “Firepower” album producer Andy Sneap, who is also known for his work in NWOBHM revivalists HELL and cult thrash outfit SABBAT.

As he has done a number of other times over the course of the last three and a half years, Tipton joined PRIEST onstage on Bloodstock for the encore, performing “Metal Gods”, “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight”.

JUDAS PRIEST’s setlist for Bloodstock Open Air 2021 festival:

01. One Shot At Glory (live debut)
02. Lightning Strike
03. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
04. Exciter (first time since 2005)
05. Turbo Lover
06. Hell Patrol (first time since 2009)
07. Halls Of Valhalla
08. The Sentinel
09. Rocka Rolla (first time since 1976)
10. Victim Of Changes
11. Desert Plains
12. A Touch Of Evil (first time since 2005)
13. Dissident Aggressor (first time since 2009)
14. Blood Red Skies (first time since 2012)
15. Invader (live debut)
16. Painkiller
17. The Hellion / Electric Eye
18. Hell Bent For Leather
19. Metal Gods (with Glenn Tipton)
20. Breaking The Law (with Glenn Tipton)
21. Living After Midnight (with Glenn Tipton)

PRIEST singer Rob Halford recently told Metal Pilgrim that Glenn is “still actively involved with JUDAS PRIEST, a hundred percent. Andy is still standing in that spot for Glenn with Glenn’s blessing… And my gratitude to Andy. It couldn’t have happened in a better way, if you wanna try and make something good out of it. It was a really important day when Glenn said, ‘I think it’s probably best if I step to the side and maybe we should let Andy come in.’ That was just a really beautiful act of selflessness. That’s Glenn treasuring PRIEST and PRIEST’s reputation, particularly in live concert more than anything else. So bless Glenn for that. And as a result, Andy stepped in and did amazing work on the ‘Firepower’ tour, and we’re looking forward to doing the same thing with him on this 50th-anniversary [tour]. And don’t discount the fact that Glenn can show up. He plays the guitar differently, but there’s no reason why Glenn can’t show up and do some work. I mean, I’ve said to Glenn, ‘Just walk out on stage and do that to everybody [flashes devil horns], and the people will just go fucking crazy, ’cause you are loved so much.’ But I’ve got a feeling that Glenn’s gonna be making the occasional appearance on this 50th-anniversary [tour].”

This past June, JUDAS PRIEST announced the rescheduled dates for the North American leg of its 50th-anniversary tour. Produced by Live Nation, the “50 Heavy Metal Years” trek will feature SABATON as openers. It will kick off on September 8 in Reading, Pennsylvania and run through October before concluding on November 5 in Hamilton, Ontario.

In early April, JUDAS PRIEST’s European tour, which was scheduled to kick off in late May, was once again postponed due to “ongoing COVID-19 vaccine issues.” The trek will now run from May 27, 2022 in Moscow, Russia until July 31, 2022 in Oberhausen, Germany.

SHINEDOWN frontman Brent Smith has confirmed that the first single from the band’s seventh studio album will arrive in January 2022. The follow-up to 2018’s “Attention Attention” is being recorded at a new studio in Charleston, South Carolina spearheaded by the group’s bassist and producer Eric Bass.

Smith discussed a possible timeline for the release of new SHINEDOWN material in an interview with New Jersey’s WSOU 89.5 FM radio station. Asked when fans can expect to hear music from the band, Smith said: “I can tell you right now the first single, you’re gonna hear it in the first month of 2022. And then hopefully a couple of months later, there’ll be a [full-length] record out.”

Last September, Smith told the KLOS radio show “Whiplash” that he and Bass were looking to make a more organic-sounding album this time around. “We’ve kind of proven that we can make these very large records, these very cinematic, orchestrated records with this wall of sound,” he said. “What we wanna try to do with this album is we do want to hone it back down to drums, bass, guitar and vocals and the best songs that we can write and the freshest songs we can write with the most tenacity and the most ferociousness that we can express. So I don’t think this time around we’re going to necessarily look at the handbook of, ‘Let’s layer this record like we’ve layered other records, and let’s keep adding to it so that it grows.’ I think more the idea of big mono on this album, it’s more about stereo and putting all of the sonics down the middle. But you don’t have a hundred tracks on a song; you don’t take a 22-piece orchestra and bring it in there. We’ve done that, and we’ve done those kinds of records, and we love those records, and we love that sound, but I think what we wanna do with this next record is we really want to focus on being a four-piece band, and let’s see if we can peel the paint off of the walls with just the fury of the four of us in a room.”

SHINEDOWN’s film “Attention Attention”, a cinematic experience of the band’s 2018 studio album of the same name, will premiere worldwide on Friday, September 3. Available on digital and cable VOD via Gravitas Ventures, “Attention Attention” is a visual journey that brings to life the story of SHINEDOWN’s acclaimed chart-topping album, their sixth full-length, which has accumulated more than 622 million global streams, debuted Top 5 on the Billboard 200, simultaneously hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative, Top Rock and Hard Rock Albums charts, and led to five iHeartRadio Music Award nominations. This sonic and visual work of art was directed by Bill Yukich (BEYONCÉ, METALLICA, WIZ KHALIFA) and features theatrical performances from the band, Melora Walters (“Magnolia”, “Big Love”, “PEN15”), and Francesca Eastwood (“Old”, “Twin Peaks”, “Fargo”), among others.

KISS is rescheduling its concert in Raleigh, North Carolina after frontman Paul Stanley tested positive for COVID-19.

Saturday’s (August 28) performance at Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek is the second KISS show to be postponed after Stanley’s diagnosis.

A makeup date for the Raleigh concert has not yet been announced, but all tickets will be honored for the new date once it is confirmed, the venue said on Twitter.

KISS called off its show on Thursday in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania while fans were waiting for the gates to open.

“I had been sick with flu-like symptoms and was tested repeatedly and was negative,” Stanley tweeted Thursday. “As of late this afternoon I tested positive. The crew, staff and band have all tested negative once again.”

This afternoon, Paul once again took to his Twitter to write: “Some really rough days behind and hopefully just a few more ahead. Then… I’M COMIN’ OUT THERE TO SEE YOU!!!!”

In a social media post, KISS said the whole band and the crew members who are traveling with them on the tour are fully vaccinated.

Members of KISS “and their crew have operated in a bubble independently to safeguard everyone as much as possible at each show and in between shows,” the band wrote in the statement.

“The tour also has a COVID safety protocol officer on staff full-time that is ensuring everyone is closely following all CDC guidelines,” the statement continued.

Earlier today, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons told “TMZ Live” that Paul is “gonna be great because he got vaccinated. He’s gonna be fine… Yesterday he started feeling like his voice wasn’t up to it and he started feeling a little fatigued. So we always take precautions. And we sent a doctor over, and he said, ‘Okay, you may be coming down with something. You guys better just stop.’ And that’s exactly what we did. And at the right time, as soon as we heard from the doctor, we had paramedics come in from a local hospital and tested the entire crew — the truck drivers, our backstage lineup, the band and everything. Everybody tested negative; Paul tested positive. Now we’re quarantining ourselves — all of us; the band, the crew and everybody — for at least five days, just to make sure that we’re not carrying it even though we’re not experiencing anything. I feel great. We can do shows. My voice is great. Paul is not feeling great. And to be safe for everybody else, we’re making sure.”

KISS kicked off the summer 2021 leg of its “End Of The Road” farewell tour on August 18 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The concert marked the band’s first full-length live appearance in front of an audience since March 2020.

KISS’s farewell trek was launched in January 2019 and was originally scheduled to conclude on July 17, 2021 in New York City but is now expected to last well into 2022.

KISS’s current lineup consists of original members Stanley and Simmons, alongside later band additions, guitarist Tommy Thayer (since 2002) and drummer Eric Singer (on and off since 1991).

Formed in 1973 by Stanley, Simmons, Peter Criss (drums) and Ace Frehley (guitar), KISS staged its first “farewell” tour in 2000, the last to feature the group’s original lineup.

Some really rough days behind and hopefully just a few more ahead. Then… I’M COMIN’ OUT THERE TO SEE YOU!!!! pic.twitter.com/jTCV5DZop6
— Paul Stanley (@PaulStanleyLive) August 27, 2021

Tomorrow’s Raleigh #KISS show is being rescheduled. Stay tuned for updated info soon. https://t.co/u6rMPsMnVw
— KISS (@kiss) August 27, 2021

For reasons that will become more than apparent when you hear “Wallflowers”, JINJER are currently being touted as metal’s next big thing. And that, in itself, is cause for celebration. Because while the Ukrainian quartet undoubtedly tick plenty of modern metal boxes, their fourth album displays the exact same disregard for convention or expectation that made them so interesting in the first place. Far from a big label push toward commercial acceptance, “Wallflowers” is a brave and adventurous thing, with multiple moments of monstrous brutality and elegant, progressive ingenuity. If JINJER’s first three albums didn’t make it plain enough, this sonically immense leap forward proudly proclaims the band’s inherent oddness.

Opener “Call Me A Symbol” offers an uncompromising reminder of JINJER’s extreme instincts. Its first half, a blur of churning deathcore riffs and angular about-turns; its second half, a swirling, ethereal post-metal detour. “Colossus” is even more savage, with vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk demonstrating how ridiculously powerful her growls and screams have become over the years, but with those sweet, melodic refrains wrenching the rug from under listeners’ feet with tangible glee. Shmayluk adds soaring but skewed melodies to most of these songs, and there are certainly moments that, at first glance, seem to be a shade or two more commercial than any previous JINJER material. But even the intermittently hummable likes of “Vortex” and “Disclosure!” have their wild and intricate moments of brute force: the former ends with a disgusting, staccato death metal riff that will have most diehard metalheads pulling the face, while the latter has a bona fide, singalong chorus woven into a dense maze of wonky riffs and textural shimmer.

“Wallflowers” reaches a peak of efficacy on the righteously slamming “Sleep Of The Righteous”, which switches seamlessly from groove metal attack to atmospheric drift and back again, Shmayluk’s incisive vocals effortlessly cutting through the churn. In contrast, Wallflower” is a more delicate, spectral affair. Both the most overtly prog-friendly song on the record and arguably its most accessible, it’s still driven by JINJER’s cracked-mirror musical ethos and steadily mutates into a volcanic melodrama with Shmayluk’s untamed versatility a gripping vocal point. Similarly, “As I Boil Ice” is at least 50 percent gorgeous and otherworldly, its darker moments highlighting the Ukrainians’ exquisite grasp of dynamics and their emotional power.

The closing “Mediator” is an almost perfect encapsulation of the fluid formula that has reached peak potency here: initially bewildering but, a few listens in, as rich and rewarding as fans will have hoped, it’s a triumph for ideas, instinct and individuality, with massive riffs erupting from every angle and one of the finest vocalists in metal letting rip with enhanced authority. Never mind the hype, JINJER are obviously brilliant, and “Wallflowers” is an ambitious and creatively honest modern metal record that we can all believe in.

America’s only Trappist brewery, Spencer, has a new witbier with a long and storied history—albeit not a traditional Trappist brew.
The post No Corporate Beer Review: White appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

A new four-minute video in which IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson discusses the making of the band’s upcoming 17th studio album, “Senjutsu” can be seen below.

“It was just under two years ago when we finished this album,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “How nuts is that?

“The album itself… Steve [Harris, bass] came up with a lot of stuff that he was… He buried himself away and then would say, ‘This is about that. Here’s the song.’ Adrian [Smith, guitar] and I wrote a couple of things — three things, actually — one of which turned out to be the first track, for which there is the video, obviously. And we wrote those sort of the way we normally wrote them, except instead of writing them in somebody’s bathroom or at somebody’s house, we were just in the studio, on our own, him with a guitar, me singing away, trying out some melodies and me going, ‘Hmm, I think I can see what this might be all about.'”

Dickinson also spoke in more detail about the songwriting process, saying: “Actually, the love for creating things is the only thing that gets me in the studio. I basically don’t like studios. They’re nice to sit around and drink coffee, but unless there’s something creative going on, they’re sort of dead. It’s the creativity that brings everything in the studio to life, and then it’s animating the creativity and recording it. So that’s the bit that gets me. Now, the bit that I really love is when you hear something that inspires you — a guitar riff, whatever it is — it suggests a melody, and from that melody we then write a verse and a bridge, and suddenly we’re searching for what you might call a chorus, what you might call a hook — whatever — and it arrives. Bingo. ‘Woah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And that, for me, is the ‘come to Jesus’ moment — it’s, like, ‘Yes!’ And I love those moments. There’s nuggets like that in every aspect of anything creative — whether it’s doing a movie, whether it’s doing a video, whatever it is — there’s something in there, there’s a moment where you go, ‘Brilliant. This is what makes it different. This is what makes it work.'”

Regarding the overall musical direction of MAIDEN’s new LP, Bruce said: “So I listened to it after it’d been mastered and then got a copy on my laptop so I could listen to it at home. And I thought, ‘This is really bloody good.’ And there’s some stuff on it that is gonna absolutely blow people’s minds. I mean, there’s stuff on there that you go, ‘Hang on a minute. Is that THE MOODY BLUES suddenly crashing into an IRON MAIDEN album.’ Honestly, there’s some really, really cool bits. So I don’t think MAIDEN fans are gonna be disappointed. And even people who are not MAIDEN fans might be surprised by one or two things they might like. I really think it’s a cool album. And Nicko’s [McBrain] drums on it are sensational, actually, as well, I have to say.”

BMG will release “Senjutsu”, IRON MAIDEN’s first album in six years, on September 3. It was recorded in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Harris. It was preceded on July 15 by an already highly acclaimed animated video for the first single “The Writing On The Wall” made by BlinkInk based on a concept by Dickinson with two former Pixar executives. It followed a month-long teaser campaign and global “treasure hunt” for clues about the track title and concept.

For “Senjutsu” — loosely translated as “tactics and strategy” — the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris. With a running time of a little under 82 minutes, “Senjutsu”, like their previous record “The Book Of Souls”, will be a double CD/Triple vinyl album.

IRON MAIDEN hadn’t released any fresh music since 2015’s “The Book Of Souls” LP, which was recorded in late 2014 in Paris, France with Shirley.

“The Book Of Souls” was the longest MAIDEN album, clocking in at 92 minutes, with lyrics heavily based in the themes of death, reincarnation, the soul and mortality.

“Senjutsu” marks MAIDEN’s sixth album to be produced by Shirley, who has worked with MAIDEN for the past two decades.

In addition to MAIDEN, Shirley has collaborated with dozens of notable acts, including Joe Bonamassa, JOURNEY, DREAM THEATER and LED ZEPPELIN.

During the making of “The Book Of Souls”, Dickinson was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor at the back of his tongue. He recorded all the vocals for the album with the tumor before undergoing treatment and making a full recovery in time for the LP’s release in September 2015.