Oasis' critically acclaimed documentary, Don't Look Back In Anger, is scheduled to hit streaming on Friday, October 9, and you can get a front-row seat to the action via a Disney+ or Hulu subscription.

Focusing on the band's return to the live stage in 2025, it includes never-before-seen footage from an interview with Liam and Noel Gallagher, as well as full performances of classic tracks like Wonderwall, Slide Away, D'You Know What I Mean?, and Half The World Away.

The film has already been a hit at the UK and Ireland box offices earlier this month. It's proven a hit with audiences and critics, earning a 97% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience rating of 98.

Read on to find out how to watch Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger for yourself, no matter where you are in the world.

How to watch Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger

To watch Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger, you'll need a Disney+ or Hulu subscription. Here's the latest US and UK prices:

• 🇺🇸 $9.99 - Disney/Hulu bundle
• 🇺🇸 $19.99 - Disney/Hulu Premium bundle
• 🇬🇧 £5.99 - Standard with ads
• 🇬🇧 £9.99 - Standard
• 🇬🇧 £14.99 - Premium

Unfortunately, there's no free trial for Disney+ or Hulu, but there are often special offers on the services throughout the year, so keep an eye out.

How to watch Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger from anywhere

If you're traveling for work or happen to be on holiday, you can still catch the action by using a VPN.

A VPN changes your IP location, allowing you to watch the film no matter where you are in the world. At Guitar World, we recommend NordVPN. It's currently reduced by 75%, so it's a great time to sign up, and you get a 30-day money-back guarantee for peace of mind.

How to use a VPN

1. Install your VPN. As we've mentioned above, Nord VPN is Guitar World's favorite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN. If you're currently outside of the country and don't want to miss out on seeing Don't Look Back In Anger as soon as it arrives, just select your country from the list, then log on to your Disney+/Hulu account as usual.

3. Kick back and relax: That's it, you're all set to watch this critically acclaimed documentary as you prepare for the Oasis 2027 tour!

Watch the trailer

Oasis '27 Tour Dates

May 21: Glasgow Celtic Park, UK
May 23: Glasgow Celtic Park, UK
May 25: Glasgow Celtic Park, UK
May 28: Glasgow Celtic Park, UK
May 29: Glasgow Celtic Park, UK
Jun 04: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 06: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 08: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 11: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 12: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 15: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 18: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 19: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 22: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 25: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jun 26: Manchester Etihad Stadium, UK
Jul 02: Munich Allianz Arena, Germany
Jul 03: Munich Allianz Arena, Germany
Jul 06: Munich Allianz Arena, Germany
Jul 10: Barcelona Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, Spain
Jul 11: Barcelona Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, Spain
Jul 16: Amsterdam Johan Cruijff ArenA, Netherlands
Jul 17: Amsterdam Johan Cruijff ArenA, Netherlands
Jul 20: Paris Stade de France, France
Jul 24: Paris Stade de France, France
Jul 26: Rome Stadio Olimpico, Italy
Jul 29: Rome Stadio Olimpico, Italy
Jul 30: Rome Stadio Olimpico, Italy

Aug 10: Boston Gillette Stadium, MA
Aug 13: Boston Gillette Stadium, MA
Aug 14: Boston Gillette Stadium, MA
Aug 20: Las Vega Allegiant Stadium, CA
Aug 21: Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium, US
Aug 24: Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium, CA

Sep 04: Slane Castle, Ireland
Sep 05: Slane Castle, Ireland
Sep 11: Knebworth Park, UK
Sep 12: Knebworth Park, UK
Sep 18: Knebworth Park, UK
Sep 19: Knebworth Park, UK
Sep 25: Knebworth Park, UK
Sep 26: Knebworth Park, UK

What else is on Disney+

Disney+ is one of the many streaming services available, and it has a small number of quality music documentaries to tune into once you're done watching Oasis.

The service features the likes of Peter Jackson's Beatles doc Let It Be and the three-part Beatles series Get Back. Other musical highlights include the brilliant Travis Barker documentary Louder Than Fear, Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Summer ’82: When Zappa Came To Sicily, Abbey Road: If These Walls Could Sing, Hip-Hop And The White House, and the 2024 biopic The Beach Boys.

For a lot of people, the real draw of Disney+ and the reason many have subscriptions for years is that it's home to the entire Star Wars universe – all the classic movies are here, alongside spin-offs such as The Mandalorian, Andor, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Clone Wars animated series. There's even an option to watch everything in timeline order.

Marvel content is another draw, and like the Star Wars content, it's crammed with flicks, series, and shorts – and the ability to binge on the entire MCU complete timeline.

Over the weekend, Tom Morello made Maryland his home for his inaugural Power the People festival, and the stage was a hotbed for six-string talent.

The event was described as “a day of peace, love, justice and music,” and Morello wasn’t shy in asking his industry friends to back his cause. From rock heavyweights Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, and Soundgarden, to Dave Matthews and oodles of special guests, it was a day full of highlights at the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Dave Grohl led the Foos through a seven-song set of classics. But they also had a surprise up their sleeve, covering Mose Allison’s Young Man Blues with the Preservation Hall Jazz Bands Ben Jaffe.

Dave Matthews’ short, acoustic set was bookended with a cover of Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology). Springsteen too got in on the covers, bringing Matthews out for a run of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Fortunate Son.

Matthews remained on stage as Grohl stepped in, his signature ES-335 in hand, to cover Neil Young’s Rockin in the Free World. He had also covered Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom with Joan Baez, and the Clash’s Clampdown with Tom Morello.

Practically every big name involved was on the stage for Springsteen’s finale, a cover of the John Lennon song that gave the festival its name. Posting a clip of that spot on its socials, the festival page said it was “a stage of one too many legends to count.”

Then there were more surprising crossovers, like Jack Black putting on a full Black Sabbath tribute set with Geezer Butler, fresh from his appearance on the new Mastodon record. They were joined by Roman Morello (Tom’s son), who was playing a Randy Rhoads-inspired polka dot V. Anthrax’s thrash wizard Scott Ian, meanwhile, gave Cypress Hill a little more cut and thrust.

Having played an NFL halftime show in their native Seattle last month, Soundgarden – billed here as the Sons of Soundgarden – made another appearance. Morello filled in for the absent Kim Thayil, wielding both his Arm the Homeless guitar, and an Iommi-esque black Gibson SG for cuts like Spoonman and Outshined.

“To every artist, activist, organization, partner, volunteer and fan who made Power to the People possible, thank you,” Morello wrote on Instagram after the event.

His own set included covering Kiss with Dave Grohl, and Audioslave’s Like a Stone with Serj Tankian. Oh, and he smashed through Killing in the Name with his son.

“The music may be over,” he added. “But the work continues.”

Money raised from the event is set to help fund pro-democracy and voting rights organizations, grassroots organizing, and mutual aid groups.

The event came after Morello curated Ozzy’s final show, Back to the Beginning, and teamed up with Al De Meola to stand against ICE.

Stage curfews in New York are serious business. The watchful minders of the city’s imperious Radio City Music Hall are getting visibly nervous – it’s almost 11, and Buddy Guy and Bobby Rush are piling one blues classic on top of another. The biggest names on the guest list haven’t even done their numbers yet.

One of the Secret Service-like pros snakes onstage and whispers something in the ear of the leader of the evening’s house band, the veteran drummer Steve Jordan. From a distance, he seems indifferent.

Ever the wily frontman, Rush keeps egging Guy on. 90 years young, Guy is in his element – he’s got a stinging answer on his Strat for all of his old friend’s exhortations, and the Cheshire Cat grin on his face keeps getting bigger. He shouts, “Y’all wanna hear another one?”

The gig in question – held on Thursday, October 1 – was officially titled Buddy's Got The Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration. The blues guitar legend – the last major living link to the origins of the form, the last big, theater-filling name in the genre who grew up on the wrong side of the hellish Jim Crow south – actually turned 90 three months ago, but the cavalry came in to celebrate either way.

And we do mean the cavalry. John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, Samantha Fish, Eric Gales, Billy Gibbons, Robert Randolph, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jimmie Vaughan, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and Ally Venable all took their turns onstage. And that list doesn’t even include Eric Clapton, who was listed on the bill but unable to perform due to illness.

For all that fanfare, Guy opened the proceedings in the simplest way possible. He, house band guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, and Derek Trucks sat next to each other, plucking away at I’m In the Mood. It had the ease and sweetness of a low-stakes front porch jam – three guys playing to an audience of none but crickets and fireflies.

That was until Trucks busted out some otherworldly slide licks on his resonator – that keyed the faithful into what was in store for the next three or so hours.

One after the other, three generations of virtuosos put their own spins on Guy’s voluminous body of work – channeling the raw spirit and knockout power of the originals and imbuing them with their own DNA.

One might call it a “dessert for every meal” situation. Ingram wailed away on a red polka dot Strat for his sharp-as-a-tack version of Crosscut Saw, and traded blistering, quickfire jabs with steel king Robert Randolph on a rendition of Shake Your Money Maker so spirited that it got even some of those in the “Google me” seats up and moving.

Asked to salute Stevie Ray Vaughan, Shepherd dug in on his Strat with a version of the Guy-via-SRV classic, Let Me Love You Baby. The ever-studious Bonamassa didn’t put a foot out of place in his version of A Man of Many Words, and sat perfectly in the rhythm slot while Gales took Let the Good Times Roll onto another planet.

Gales, in turn, singed eyebrows with Fish, while Gibbons and Jimmie Vaughan churned out Texas-sized grooves together and on their own. Guy and Mayer, meanwhile, took their high-profile sparring time in a funky direction. And of course, it had to end with the whole gang coming together for Hoochie Coochie Man and Got My Mojo Workin’.

That particular jam will likely draw the headlines and YouTube views, but, in the end, this was about Buddy Guy.

For all of the magnificent, fretboard-scorching, bows-from-the-crowd inducing 12-bar breaks the audience took in over the course of the three-and-a-half-plus hour show, it was Guy who really had the magic wand.

He can’t play torrents of notes anymore, obviously, but man, what he did with the ones he did play. He’d sting them, hit something and leave it for five, even 10 seconds while feedback curdled around.

When Guy was at his loosest, jamming on the likes of Boom Boom and I Just Want to Make Love to You with Rush, all the big names and bright lights fell away. Two guys, two of the last of their kind, running through the songs that they love, the songs that they can do more faithfully than anybody.

They’re getting carried away, they’re taking too long. Employees need to clock out, people need to go home. But Buddy Guy, 90 years old, is still playing. And neither Father Time nor a curfew is gonna stop him.

Right, it’s fair to say most of us will never make it to our 90th birthday, let alone still be playing sold-out shows with a polkadot guitar in hand – but blues legend Buddy Guy will be doing just that this week.

For more than seven decades, Buddy Guy has defined the sound of the blues. His innovative guitar work has inspired generations of musicians, from Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan to Eric Clapton and John Mayer. Now, for his milestone birthday, some of music's biggest names are coming together for a once-in-a-lifetime concert to honor this living blues icon.

Buddy’s Got The Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration is a star-studded event promising a night of unforgettable performances and emotional tributes in honor of a living legend and you can stream the whole thing at Nugs.net.

The lineup reads like a who’s who of contemporary blues and rock, with everyone from Eric Clapton to John Mayer, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, as well as Jon Batiste, Aloe Blacc, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Samantha Fish, Eric Gales, Billy Gibbons, Ivan Neville, Robert Randolph, Bobby Rush, Isaiah Sharkey, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jimmie Vaughan, Ally Venable, Willie Weeks, and Kim Wilson.

To top it off, current Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan will serve as the show's musical director.

Speaking about the event, Guy says, “Can't wait to celebrate 90 years of living, loving, and playing the blues with all my friends. We’ll make it a night not just for me, but for the folks who taught us, the friends we’ve played with, and the ones coming up behind us.”

So, whether you’re a lifelong blues fan or just discovering Buddy Guy’s music, this concert offers a rare opportunity to see so many celebrated artists share the stage in a heartfelt salute to one of their heroes.

How to watch from anywhere

Perhaps the best part is you don’t have to be in the audience at the venue to experience the show. The event will be streamed worldwide, giving fans everywhere the chance to join the celebration from the comfort of their own homes.

Hosted by nugs.net, the livestream ensures that Buddy’s 90th birthday is truly a global affair. All you need is an internet connection and a ticket from nugs.net/BuddyGuy to tune in.

Tickets cost $39.99 for HD or $49.99 for 4K, but you get a 25% discount if you subscribe to the site.

Better yet, a portion of the livestream proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society, continuing Buddy’s tradition of using his platform to give back and make a difference.

What is nugs?

Nugs is a premier online platform for live music streaming, offering fans access to thousands of concerts and exclusive recordings from legendary artists and emerging acts alike.

Founded in 1997, Nugs began as a resource for fans to access high-quality live recordings of their favorite bands. Over the years, it has become the go-to destination for music lovers who want to relive the magic of the live concert experience from anywhere in the world.

One of the platform’s strongest features is its vast library. Nugs partners with a wide array of artists to provide official concert recordings, both recent and archival. Subscribers can stream or download shows in HD and even 4K, often just hours after the performance.

Whether you’re a fan of Buddy Guy, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Dead & Company, Metallica, or Phish, the catalog is constantly expanding with new live content added regularly.

The platform is available on web and mobile apps, and can be streamed to your smart TV, making it easy to enjoy concerts without leaving the comfort of your living room – and unless you have a particularly hostile roommate, no one will throw a pint of what you hope is beer over you while you wait for the main act to start.

Of course, you don't need to sign up for a full-on subscription, but doing so unlocks unlimited streaming access to the entire catalog, letting you explore decades of concerts.

Subscribers often receive discounts on special events and pay-per-view livestreams – such as Buddy Guy’s 90th birthday concert – and early access to exclusive releases.

See the full line-up

Fresh from his performance at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, John Mayer has just announced his return to the Sphere in Las Vegas next year for a run of shows featuring three distinct sets.

Set to take place in April 2027, the event will see Mayer perform solo, with a full band, and with the John Mayer Trio, showcasing the guitarist and singer-songwriter’s stylistic palette across each set. His solo performance will feature acoustic guitar and, at times, piano and electric guitar, while the Trio will see him explore his blues-rock side alongside bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan.

It’s Mayer’s first time performing at the Sphere as a solo act. However, he’s more than familiar with the venue following his two residencies with Dead & Company in 2024 and 2025.

For last year’s residency, Mayer famously decided against ditching his prized Dumbles and Fenders for modelers, despite the venue’s well-known shortcomings for onstage amps, instead stashing them backstage.

As for his highly anticipated return with the Trio, Mayer will perform with Palladino and Jordan for the first time since 2023.

The trio reunited at that year’s edition of Love Rocks Benefit Concert for their first gig together in six years, with Mayer fully embracing his roots by pulling out a Fender Monterey Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster.

The residency will kick off on April 8, with shows on the 10, 11, 15, 17, and 18. Pre-sale begins on October 7 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, while general tickets go on sale on October 9 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET.

For more information, visit John Mayer’s official website.

The seventh edition of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival blazed into life over the weekend, with one of its strongest line-ups bringing firepower galore.

First conceived in 1999, it's been an opportunity for Clapton to celebrate the players he loves, all while raising funds for his Crossroads addiction recovery facility.

This year, the festival marks the 28th anniversary of the center in Antigua, and though Pete Townshend was forced to pull out of proceedings, there was plenty of talent on the lineup.

Yet for all the bill’s six-string slingers, it was actor Bill Murray who got the party started, performing Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues.

Later on, a powerful holy trinity of blues guitar in Clapton, the evergreen Buddy Guy, and Jimmie Vaughan shared the stage for a triple Strat attack. Clapton’s tone here was particularly glassy, but he and Vaughan are shushed by Guy at one point. He’s probably the only man on the planet who could get away with it.

Elsewhere during the weekend, John Mayer made his Incline Blue PRS Silver Sky, made to raise money for Crossroads, sing with the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Watching Mayer and Trucks trade licks was a standout moment of the festival.

The Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi-powered band also invited Trey Anastasio – who traded off phenomenally with Mayer, it should be said – Doyle Bramhall II, and, of course, Eric Clapton, up for jams. It made for one of the most action-packed sets of the weekend.

But it wasn’t just the established guard bringing their A game, as Gibson artist Marcus King and bluegrass picker Sierra Hull joined forces for the first time in their careers, playing King's slinky and smoky cut, Falling for the Devil., amongst others.

After that, King tapped up Joe Bonamassa for a surprising-but-exceptional cover Led Zeppelin's How Many More Times. He also brought Trucks and Tedeschi out for his set closer, a cover of Blind Faith's Had to Cry Today.

“I like to use the festival platform as a way of getting [musicians] to come and play to a big audience, maybe for the first time,” Clapton said of the festival in 2019. “I think it's quite nice for the other musicians to meet them, too. I like cross-fertilization. I mean, that was a fascinating thing for me, the fantasy. And it worked.”

The festival was also the first time fans could get their hands on Epiphone's new Eric Clapton ES-335 signature, after Guitar Center launched a slew of Crossroads models earlier this year.

Ed Sheeran has continued his controversial Loop Tour with a new backing band after Irish folk group Beoga withdrew in solidarity with Macklemore, along with the rest of his opening acts.

Rapper Macklemore was forcibly removed from the tour by promoter Messina Touring Group after voicing support for Palestine onstage, following calls led by billionaire businessman and stadium owner, Robert Kraft. Sheeran and his team allegedly failed to stand up to Kraft and the stadium owners he rallied.

Now, Sheeran has stepped on stage for the first time since the controversy and opened his solo concert in Philadelphia on September 19 by addressing what ensued over the past couple of weeks.

“I've had to take, and make, difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I'm so, so sorry for them,” Sheeran said.

“I don't want to disappoint fans, and I've never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet.”

He described “what happened in Israel and at the Nova music festival on October 7 [2023]” as “horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain”.

“What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate,” Sheeran continued. “My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians' lives, children's lives.”

He also stated he is “deeply worried” by the idea that performers and their content need to be “pre-approved” by venues and their owners.

“Everyone is telling me to cancel, and I'm feeling all of my friends and family and people I know abandon me, and I look at the end of the week, and I see 50,000 people who haven't abandoned [me]. The world is a scary place right now. America is a scary place right now. This gives hope.”

Sheeran is keeping the show going by replacing Beoga, the band that used to join him for several songs each night, with other musicians. The new band includes close collaborator Alicia Enstrom, a violinist, composer, producer, and multidisciplinary performer.

“There are certain songs that just don’t work on the loop pedal,” he said. “So, when my friends dropped off this show, I was thinking, ‘How am I going to keep the show the same? And ‘How am I going to get musicians to stand on stage with me in a week where no-one wants to stand on stage with me?’”

Sheeran continued, “I rung up a friend of mine; she’s a superb human, and I toured with her all of last year [on my Mathematics Tour] and the one the year before that. I said to her, ‘Would you stand on stage with me?’ And she said, yes. I asked her if she knew some musician friends, and she said yes, and they’ve had three days to learn these songs.”

The British superstar introduced the rest of the band as simply, “Mike on drums, CJ on keys, Eric on bass, Clay on guitar.” Their surnames haven’t been revealed to the public.

“I just want to say before they come onstage, they said yes to being onstage with the knowledge that the world thought I was a certain type of person,” he asserted.

“They said yes with the knowledge that the world may hate them too for standing on stage with me, and I am so grateful for them being here tonight and standing on stage with me in front of you guys.”

Sheeran hasn’t confirmed whether this new group of musicians will join him for the rest of his dates. The tour continues on September 25 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

UPDATE (09.18): Guitar Center has commented on the illegitimate entries it has removed from the competition.

“Guitar Center has long been committed to supporting musicians at every stage of their journey and creating opportunities for artists to share their talent with the world. The ‘Open for Legends’ competition series was developed months ago as part of that broader commitment and is designed to create opportunities for musicians to perform on major stages alongside a range of artists.

“As with any open submission process, we received entries that were not legitimate applications to participate in the program. Those submissions will not be considered so that the opportunity can remain focused on musicians who are seeking to showcase their talent.

“We’re continuing to review and manage the program in accordance with its intended purpose and look forward to recognizing and supporting talented musicians through the initiative.”

On the same day (September 14) that Macklemore was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s now-embattled Loop Tour, a contest launched in August inviting hopefuls to open for the British superstar received renewed attention.

Guitar Center organized the competition as part of its new “Open for Legends” initiative, and the winner will get to support Sheeran in Mexico City on December 11.

According to submission guidelines, competitors must be at least 18 years old, hold a valid U.S. passport, have experience performing live, and submit original music. Bands hoping to submit are limited to a maximum of five members, and auditions must not exceed five minutes. The submission deadline is October 7.

However, according to Entertainment Weekly, up till yesterday (September 16), the website has been flooded with memes and non-musical content in support of Palestine, with just a handful of genuine videos. At the time of writing, Guitar Center appears to have removed these videos from its site.

Macklemore was forcibly removed from Sheeran’s tour after voicing support for Palestine at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on September 4 and 5. According to Sheeran, the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner, billionaire Robert Kraft, pushed the other stadium owners to advocate for his removal.

Messina Touring Group, the promoter responsible for Sheeran’s US dates, confirmed his removal in a statement to Rolling Stone.

“As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s US Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming US tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Shortly afterwards Sheeran’s own backing band, Beoga, as well as his other support acts, including FINNEAS, Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe, announced they had withdrawn from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

Kraft is now claiming Sheeran asked him to match a $2 million donation for “aid in the region.” His statement came after Macklemore publicly stated that he will be donating the entire $1 million of his net earnings from the Sheeran tour to organizations “working directly to support Palestinian people,” and urged Kraft to match him.

Kraft hasn’t publicly confirmed whether he has agreed to the donation. Artists including Roger Waters and Billy Bragg have since called for Sheeran to scrap the tour.

Guitar World has reached out to Guitar Center for comment.

See Open for Legends for more info on the competition.

Power to the People, the festival curated by Tom Morello, has added Nathaniel Rateliff, Stephen Stills, Mike McCready, Geezer Butler, State Radio, Scott Ian, and The Last Internationale to the lineup.

The self-described “once-in-a-lifetime day of peace, love, justice, music and community” is taking place on October 3, 2026, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

Aside from these names, the festival features a noteworthy lineup of artists and activists. This includes Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Brittany Howard, Dropkick Murphys, Jack Black (featuring Roman Morello, Revel Ian, Yoyoka Soma and Hugo Weiss), Serj Tankian, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, grandson, The Neighborhood Kids, Taylor Momsen, Matt Cameron, The Linda Lindas, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and Tom Morello, and a DJ set by legendary artist Shepard Fairey.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to engage with non-profit organizations and community groups in the festival’s Freedom Village, encouraging “civic engagement, grassroots organizing, education, mutual aid, and social impact initiatives.”

Morello wears his activism on his sleeve, having championed numerous causes throughout his career – from protesting the parental advisory sticker, through to supporting workers’ rights and the Occupy movement.

Perhaps the most obvious statement, though, is his ‘Arm the Homeless’ guitar, which has become synonymous with the Rage Against the Machine firebrand.

“I scrawled the words on it at a Rage show,” he told Guitar World last year. “It was the afternoon. We were playing at the Whisky [a Go Go] that night. We were opening for two other bands at the Whisky that night, and that would have been in probably early ’92.

“I was sitting on the dirty carpet in my little apartment in West Hollywood, and there were a couple of markers around. They happened to be black and red, or it would have been something else at the time. I like slogans that are provocative.”

Tickets for Power to the People have sold out, but the festival has announced a Face Value Ticket Exchange program in partnership with CashorTrade.

For more information, visit the festival’s official website.

Ed Sheeran has been at the center of controversy after opening act Macklemore alleged that he was removed from Sheeran’s US Loop Tour over onstage comments about Palestine. Now, Sheeran’s own backing band, Beoga, has dropped out of the tour.

Beoga, an Irish folk group that previously collaborated with Sheeran on his 2017 album ÷ (Divide) and the hit Galway Girl, was the superstar’s backing band on these tour dates, which include performances at multiple stadiums across the United States.

They announced their withdrawal from the tour, alongside a statement on social media that reads, “We are a traditional Irish band who never saw ourselves playing in stadiums of that size and that opportunity is not lost on us. We have been friends with Ed for over 10 years now and will continue to be. We believe in dialogue as a means of progressing the plight of the Palestinian people.

“As musicians, playing to those crowds every night is the stuff of dreams but to play in venues that silence anyone advocating for a Free Palestine is simply not an option for us.”

Macklemore was booted off the tour after his two-minute speech on September 4 and 5 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which advocated for a “free Palestine,” “the occupied West Bank,” and criticism of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

This led to a petition organized by the Israeli American Council and billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. Their actions subsequently led other venue owners to push for Macklemore’s removal.

“Based on Macklemore's recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran's shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th shows would not be permitted,” Kraft shared in a statement made to ESPN.

Tour promoter Messina Touring Group confirmed Macklemore’s removal from all remaining U.S. dates. Following this development, the rapper posted that he is not the victim in this situation. “We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world,” he wrote.

“Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families. The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence.”

Yesterday (September 15), Ed Sheeran posted his own statement, saying that while he is “appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine,” and that he respects Macklemore “as an artist” and doesn’t interfere in support acts’ setlists, “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision” and not his own.

“I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living.

“I have spent this week trying to build bridges, to find a solution and unfortunately, was unable to do so. I know who I am, both as a person and as an artist, and those who know my heart know my values too.”

The rest of the tour's support acts, including FINNEAS, Lukas Graham, and Aaron Rowe, have all withdrawn from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

At the time of writing, Sheeran's US tour is due to resume on September 19 in Philadelphia.

Yesterday (September 9), Soundgarden made their highly anticipated comeback during the Seattle Seahawks vs New England Patriots game at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington.

The Pretty Reckless’ Taylor Momsen and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready joined the band on vocals and guitar, respectively, for the one-off performance, which featured a medley of Outshined and Spoonman. The latter was a significant addition to the two-song setlist, considering it hadn’t been played live since 2017, the year Chris Cornell died.

Both Momsen and McCready had already shared the stage with guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd, and drummer Matt Cameron. The Pretty Reckless frontwoman previously sang with the band at the 2019 Chris Cornell Tribute and reunited with them at the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony.

Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron also lent their guitar and drumming chops to The Pretty Reckless’ 2021 album Death By Rock and Roll, contributing to the track Only Love Can Save Me Now.

As for McCready, he also joined Soundgarden onstage at their Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Along with his two-song performance with the band, the Seattle native also wielded his heavily worn 1960 Fender Strat to perform a Jimi Hendrix-inspired version of the national anthem right before the game.

Speaking about the opportunity in an interview for the Seahawks' official website, McCready said, “It's way scary in a way, because I want to do it right and I don't want to mess it up, so that's going through my head every time. I've done it a bunch of times; I just want to do it how I do it, and hopefully it means something, and I do it right, so there's pressure there.”

Soundgarden’s comeback comes amid bigger news for the legendary band: the release of their final album with Cornell. After a multi-year legal battle, his widow, Vicky Cornell, agreed to give the remaining band members the vocal tracks the frontman recorded between 2015 and 2017.

“It’s emotionally draining, and there are things about it that are sad and melancholic,” Thayil told Guitar World in a recent interview.

“But at the same time, it’s exciting to finish the work that we started with Chris. It’s a tribute to Soundgarden and a tribute to Chris. To not do this would be a great disservice to everyone, including the fans who knew we were in a writing cycle while we were touring.”

And while Thayil didn’t confirm a release date, Cameron did reveal that the album was in the process of being mixed when he appeared on the Let There Be Talk podcast in July.

“We’re just gonna try to get this thing mixed,” he said. “Get it over the finish line, and then hopefully we’ll have a better idea what’s gonna come next. We’re just taking it one step at a time ’cause it’s been kind of a long process just to get to here.”

Newly formed supergroup Cretin Family, featuring Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and Blink-182’s Travis Barker, came together on August 30 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of the Ramones’ self-titled debut album.

The tribute set also saw late-era Ramones bassist C.J. Ramone joining the lineup, as well as special guests Billy Idol, The Linda Lindas, and comedian Fred Armisen. The supergroup’s name serves as a clever nod to classic Ramones tracks Cretin Hop and We’re a Happy Family, both from 1977’s Rocket to Russia.

The all-star performance took place at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, where guitarist Johnny Ramone, who died in 2004, is buried.

It kicked off with the short instrumental track Durango 95 from 1984’s Too Tough to Die, before launching into Rockaway Beach, from Rocket to Russia.

The 19-song set included crowd favorites I Wanna Be Sedated, Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment, Sheena Is a Punk Rocker, and Do You Wanna Dance. Gen Z punk rockers The Linda Linda hopped on I Wanna Be Sedated and the Ramones cover of Joe Jones’ California Sun.

Idol – whose first band, Generation X, was heavily inspired by the punk legends – lent his chops to Beat on the Brat, Generation X’s Ready Steady Go, and Blitzkrieg Bop.

In fan videos of the event, the Green Day frontman revealed that the Ramones tribute set was the first time he had ever played with Barker. He also raved about taking the stage with “a goddamn Ramone,” referring, of course, to 60-year-old C.J. Ramone, who held down the low-end for the band between 1989 and 1996.

As for the gear, Billie Joe wielded a Rock N Roll Relics Thunders Custom for the occasion, coupled with his newly launched signature Marshall 1959BJA head and the Marshall JCM800 Sex Pistols 50th Anniversary half-stack. The other Armstrong opted for a vintage Gretsch 1971 Country Club, while, in true Ramones fashion, the veteran bassist donned a Fender Precision.

Speaking about the importance of the event to Rolling Stone, the Green Day icon noted that, “The spirit of the Ramones is alive in every backyard punk show, punk club, and festival.

“Generation after generation of cretins and weirdos become Ramones lovers. Kids are influenced by the Ramones, and they don’t even know it yet.”

The full setlist is below.

1. Durango 95
2. Rockaway Beach
3. Cretin Hop
4. Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
5. Do You Wanna Dance? (Bobby Freeman cover)
6. The Crusher (Dee Dee King cover)
7. R. A. M. O. N. E. S. (Motörhead cover)
8. Danny Says
9. Sheena Is a Punk Rocker
10. Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?
11. California Sun (Joe Jones cover)
12. I Wanna Be Sedated
13. Commando
14. Havana Affair
15. Oh Oh I Love Her So
16. Surfin' Bird (The Trashmen cover)
17. Beat on the Brat
18. Ready Steady Go (Generation X cover)
19. Blitzkrieg Bop

Rush have just added more shows to their Fifty Something reunion tour, with extra dates in Houston (October 1), St. Louis (October 21), Cincinnati (October 23), and Pittsburgh (November 15).

Speaking about the unexpected additions, Lee and Lifeson commented, “When we initially booked this tour, we didn't know how well we would hold up to the rigors of the road – so we played it safe with lots of days off to recover – but life is nothing if not surprising and we're doing fine and having a blast, so why not try to hit a few more of the cities that have always treated us so well.”

Rush’s reunion tour kicked off on June 7 at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum and marked the return of the beloved prog legends, with drummer Anika Nilles stepping in for the late Neil Peart. It is now scheduled to end in April 2027, with the tour covering North America, Central America, South America, Europe, and the UK.

Asked by Chile’s Radio Futuro how the two Rush icons feel about this tour so far, Lifeson said, “I don't know that we were quite prepared for the reaction. We thought that coming back after 11 years, being away, there were a lot of Rush fans that were maybe unhappy with the way things sort of ended, and never thought they'd see us again. And then we started the tour, and the response has been – you go online, and it's crazy. People are so excited and so happy.”

Lee noted that he’s “having a ball” and admits that preparation for this tour was “intense” and “years in the making”.

“People think you can just walk up on stage and play three hours' worth of those songs. I've got news for you – even the guys that wrote those songs have to work really hard to perfect them.” The two noted that there were roughly 14 months of preparation, with a tough rehearsal schedule.

“I think the last month, as Alex alluded to, we played a full show 24 nights out of 27 days. We've never worked that hard in our entire lives. And I'm thankful for it because opening night, we were all a bit of a nervous wreck. And all that rehearsal paid off.”

Tickets for the new dates go on sale on September 4 at 10 a.m. local time, with pre-sales beginning today (September 1) at 10 a.m. local time.

The new dates are below. Head to Rush's official website for more details.

• October 1, 2026 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center
• October 21, 2026 – St Louis, MO – Enterprise Center
• October 23, 2026 – Cincinnati, OH – Heritage Bank Center
• November 15, 2026 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena

Pete Townshend has pulled out of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival due to injury.

The Who legend was set to share the lineup for this year’s annual Crossroads with an all-star cast of guitar heavyweights. However, complications surrounding knee replacement recovery have forced him to pull out.

"I'm so sorry to say that due to damage to my left foot, and subsequent issues with my balance, I cannot commit to travel to appear at the upcoming Crossroads Festival in Austin,” he said in a statement.

“I so desperately wanted to appear, and have battled to get in shape, and I am improving, but the long flights from London, and the jetlag on my return, would cause backtracking I really can't afford.”

It’s not the first time Townshend has had to pull out of Crossroads due to unforeseen circumstances. However, he’s holding out hope he will finally get to feature one day.

“I am making a $50,000 donation to the festival cause from my charity Double O,” he continues. “One day I hope I can accept Eric's invitation to appear with him. He has now asked me several times.

“There has always been some issue, in this case it is my recovery from my knee replacement in February of 2025, and some complications.

“I want to especially thank Derek Trucks and Susie Tedeschi for their offer to support me as my backing band. Wow! That is something I can only dream about, and maybe one day it will happen.”

In his statement, Townshend also quietly confirmed plans for a Who reunion are in motion, days after Roger Daltrey revealed the band were back in rehearsals.

“Meanwhile I will keep working on getting well so I can work with Roger and The Who in future,” says Townshend.

Crossroads Guitar Festival 2026 is set to take place in Austin, Texas, on September 26 and 27. The lineup will feature Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Tedeschi Trucks band and more.

To celebrate the festival, Guitar Center has launched a run of limited-edition acoustic and electric guitars.

Visit Crossroads Guitar Festival website for more info.

Rolling Stones veteran Ronnie Wood has added some extra star power to the Hollywood Vampires as they kicked off their European tour in London.

The horror-tinged supergroup, which sees Alice Cooper flanked by guitarists Joe Perry, Tommy Henriksen, and actor-cum-rockstar Johnny Depp, already have plenty of appeal. But when they have a little black book as prestigious as they do, it would be rude not to make the most of it.

Wood, fresh from dropping the Stones’ 25th album, Foreign Tongues, joined the band for the first two songs of a three-track encore. First, he spearheaded a cover of Tiny Bradshaw’s blues classic The Train Kept A-Rollin’, a song made famous in the British blues boom of the 1960s by the Yardbirds. Then he headed up a take on Brown Sugar, a track that predates his stint in the Stones. Imelda May also featured on vocals.

While Wood handled two songs he knows all too well with the cut and thrust you’d expect from a man used to entertaining large crowds, his choice of electric guitar caught the eye. He opted for his left-of-center signature guitar, the Duesenberg Starplayer TV Ronnie Wood, which has become a regular feature with his main band.

The guitarist’s appearance continues a run of form for the band, using London dates to wheel out their friends in high places, with Tony Iommi’s 2023 appearance to play a Sabbath classic a notable example.

Wood disappeared for the final track, a cover of his former bandmate Jeff Beck’s instrumental classic, Hi Ho Silver Lining. Beck’s final studio album was a 2022 collaboration with Depp.

The Hollywood Vampires have dates across Europe over the next few months, concluding in Łódź, Poland, on September 10. Their new live album, At Montreux Jazz Festival, is out today (August 14).

King Crimson offshoot BEAT have announced a US tour for Fall 2026, for which they’ll be joined by a new member.

The upcoming tour will also expand on the breadth of King Crimson material they’ll be drawing from.

The supergroup was formed by King Crimson alumni Adrian Belew and Tony Levin in early 2024. Steve Vai was recruited to take on the mammoth task of assuming Robert Fripp’s role.

Since their inception, BEAT have been playing music from the band’s 1980s records with Fripp’s blessing and guidance. But changes are afoot for their next run of shows.

Notably, Danny Carey has been replaced by former Frank Zappa and U.K. sticksman Terry Bozio due to the former’s commitments with Tool.

It’s also been announced that tracks from King Crimson’s 1995 album, Thrak – which featured both Belew and Levin – will make their way into the set.

“We feel this will result in a new experience for our audience,” Belew believes. “We’re very excited to play for you again.”

Previously, the band’s material had focused on Crimson’s 1980s trio of records, Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair. Vai had been put through the wringer learning some of Fripp’s most physically demanding parts.

They’ve toured across the US, Mexico, South America and Tokyo, and have just completed a tour of 31 European cities. The boss, Fripp, was in attendance in Tallinn, Estonia.

This next chapter means that Vai now has some more learning to do, with Thrak’s more industrial clangor adding a new dimension to their upcoming shows. It also means he gets to share more stages with the “underrated” Belew.

“Being a part of this ensemble is an extraordinary privilege and opportunity to perform some of the most beloved, timeless, and monumental music with truly inspired musicians,” Vai purrs. “This music resonates deeply with me.

“Father Robert Fripp is one of our historical geniuses. His highly specific and exceptionally brilliant guitar technique is studied and revered.”

Speaking to Guitar World previously, BEAT’s virtuosic guitar tandem assured fans that they don’t see themselves as the new King Crimson, but they do believe there’s a good degree of legitimacy to their performances.

Given that King Crimson remains quiet despite rumors of a new album, they’re filling an important void.

Tickets go on sale Friday, August 7 at 10 AM local time.

See BEAT for more.

Tour Dates

• 10/09 Santa Cruz, CA - Quarry Amphitheater
• 10/10 Napa, CA - Blue Note Napa Summer Sessions at Meritage Resort
• 10/11 San Diego, CA - Civic Theatre
• 10/13 Las Vegas, NV - Theater at Virgin Hotel
• 10/14 Phoenix, AZ - Celebrity Theatre
• 10/16 Denver, CO - Bellco Theatre
• 10/17 Omaha, NE - Orpheum Theater
• 10/18 Waukee, IA - Vibrant Music Hall
• 10/19 Milwaukee, WI - The Riverside Theater
• 10/21 Chicago, IL - Copernicus Center
• 10/22 Madison, WI - Orpheum Theater
• 10/23 Saint Charles, MO - The Family Arena
• 10/24 Prior Lake, MN - Mystic Lake Casino Showroom
• 10/26 Cincinnati, OH - Taft Theatre
• 10/28 Columbus, OH - Palace Theatre
• 10/29 Detroit, MI - Masonic Temple Theatre
• 10/30 Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre
• 11/01 Toronto, ON - The Theatre at Great Canadian Toronto
• 11/02 Montreal, QC - Theatre St-Denis
• 11/04 Huntington, NY - The Paramount
• 11/05 Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
• 11/06 Boston, MA - Boch Center Wang Theatre
• 11/07 Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
• 11/09 Newark, NJ - Prudential Hall at NJPAC
• 11/10 Washington, DC - MGM National Harbor
• 11/11 Rochester, NY - Kodak Center
• 11/13 Virginia Beach, VA - Sandler Center
• 11/14 Reading, PA - Santander Performing Arts Center
• 11/15 Philadelphia, PA - Academy of Music
• 11/17 Durham, NC - DPAC
• 11/18 Nashville, TN - Grand Ole Opry House
• 11/21 Charlotte, NC - Ovens Auditorium
• 11/22 Daytona Beach, FL - Peabody Auditorium
• 11/24 St. Petersburg, FL - Mahaffey Theater
• 11/25 Atlanta, GA - Cobb Energy Center
• 11/28 Houston, TX - 713 Music Hall
• 11/29 Austin, TX - ACL Live
• 11/30 Dallas, TX - Music Hall at Fair Park
• 12/02 Inglewood, CA - YouTube Theater
• 12/03 Riverside, CA - Riverside Municipal Auditorium

The Smashing Pumpkins reunited with former bassist Melissa Auf der Maur during their Lollapalooza set this past weekend. It also marked their first performance at the festival since its traveling edition back in 1994.

Billy Corgan and co. – guitarists James Iha and Kiki Wong, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, and touring bassist Jack Bates – went head to head with headliner Charli XCX. They delivered a 17-song set that paid homage to their most beloved records.

Opening with 1979 from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), they dove straight into Bullet with Butterfly Wings from that same album, and Today from 1993’s Siamese Dream.

The Pumpkins balanced nostalgia with their more recent era by incorporating Edin, War Dreams of Itself, and Pentagrams from 2024’s Aghori Mhori Mei.

Speaking of contemporary, Olivia Rodrigo – albeit guitar-less – joined the band for Thirty-three, their fifth and final single from Mellon Collie.

Ozzy Osbourne protégé Yungblud was also summoned to the stage to take over vocal duties on Luna from Siamese Dream.

The previous evening, the fast-rising rock star – wielding his vintage “voodoo” ES-330 – shared the stage with a Flying V-laden Corgan at his own Lollapalooza aftershow at Chicago’s Riviera Theater. They performed a live rendition of his track Zombie, which the two had collaborated on earlier this year.

However, the biggest surprise for Pumpkins fans came by way of a lineup addition on bass.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have one more special guest – our former bandmate, a former member of Hole, Miss Melissa Auf der Maur,” Corgan told the audience. Auf der Maur held down the low end on The Everlasting Gaze, from 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God.

It was a fitting choice, considering the single's music video was the first to feature Auf der Maur following the departure of original bassist D'arcy Wretzky.

The band had road-tested the collaboration at their July 29 pre-Lollapalooza show at the Riviera Theatre, marking a reunion that came just over a year after the bassist performed with the band in Montreal for the first time since 2000.

In a Bass Player interview earlier this year, Auf der Maur referred to her stint with the Pumpkins as her “‘Master’s in Music’” – a notion she details in her recently released memoir.

As for the Pumpkins, they’re about to embark on The Rats in the Cage Tour – kicking off on September 30 in Columbus, Ohio – which celebrates the career-defining Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Before the arena run, Corgan will also set out on his own European tour – dubbed A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness – which promises to be an operatic and orchestral rendering of the album.

Legendary Australian composer Mick Gordon is to perform his seminal Doom video game soundtrack live for the very first time when he headlines the UK’s RADAR Festival in 2027.

For a generation of metal guitar nerds weaned on the claustrophobic brutality of the first-person shooter, this is like not only finding the Ark of the Covenant but breaking its seal, opening it and finding all of the secrets to his Meshuggah-through-the-event-horizon sound.

Gordon will be joined by a full band – and an orchestra – and of course he will be bringing his Doom Machine along for the performance.

“This isn’t a DJ set, and it isn’t a tribute act,” says RADAR Festival. “It’s the actual composer, the actual score – the riffs played properly loud in a room that can withstand all the ripping and tearing.”

We predict that sales of Schecter Damien 9-string guitars will rocket in the Greater Manchester area in the weeks following Gordon’s performance (though an Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci JP7 and a Mayones 8-string guitar were just as important to the Doom sessions).

Gordon’s Doom soundtrack is one of the foundational texts of progressive modern metal. It’s ugly, brutal, rhythmically audacious, super aggressive and yet still manages to send a chill down the spine with its post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

It’s the kind of headphones record that has you checking the corners upon entering a room. Heck, it’d make a municipal parking lot complex feel like hell itself.

Gordon probably won’t take to the stage in a powdered wig, red velvet jacket and gold brocade but he nonetheless has a Mozart-esque command over his sound, and an electric guitar tone that is far beyond electric, squished through layers of compression (the Origin Effects Cali76-TX was used extensively when making Doom).

He told Origin Effects that he saw “guitars as a flavour rather than a genre”. In his pursuit of modernism he had to almost destroy tone to reconstruct it for the Doom world.

“Well, you take angry 7, 8 and 9-string guitars, vintage Soviet synthesizers and punch-knuckle-smacked drums,” he told Bethseda. “Then, you spice it up with burning valve distortion, electrically starved transistors, dusty ancient reel-to-reel tape machines, bleeding feedback arrays and gut-grinding sub-woofers. Finally, you smash all these elements together, give the player a shotgun and let the hunt begin!”

Earlier this year, Gordon famously did give away all of his secrets, or at least those he saved down onto his Fractal, when he sold the Axe-Fx unit he used on the Doom soundtrack. The amp modeler also had his presets from Wolfenstein, Prey, and LawBreakers soundtracks.

So, gamers, djent-heads and fiends for quasi-mechanised chug, the time is almost nigh when you can hear this all live and in concert. Let’s just hope it isn’t a harbinger of things to come on this Toilet Earth of ours. We’ll keep the chain gun locked up in its gig bag for now.

RADAR Festival 2027 is hosted over the weekend of July 30 to August 1st, and Super Early Bird tickets are on sale from August 7. Sign up at RADAR Festival.

There is a distinct difference between watching a band work through a setlist and that rare experience of witnessing virtuosos caught up in pure, unadulterated joy.

On night one (7.28.26) of their four-night stand at Madison Square Garden, Rush delivered two-and-a-half hours of the latter – a rapturous jubilee that felt less like a choreographed arena rock show and more like master musicians kicking back and letting it rip – simply because they can.

From the opening swells of Xanadu, the energy inside the arena was beyond juiced – and it never let up. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson spent the evening trading “holy shit” grins and laughing out loud, visibly drinking in the deafening waves of adoration from the tri-state crowd, making decades of formidable prog-rock mastery feel like second nature.

Lifeson was sparkier and more unruly than ever. He knows the holy texts, of course, and he gave fans the brilliant, note-for-note solos on Tom Sawyer and Limelight they knew by heart. But for much of the night, he went off on his own loose-limbed benders, taking madcap detours and stretching out phrases just to see where they’d land. It was fretboard swagger at its most generous.

And Lee! After all the hand-wringing over his June bronchitis scare down in Texas, he came to rumble. There was no tentative easing-in, no cautious vocal pacing. He hit the microphone full-throated, leaning into his bass with a physical, nimble crunch. Whatever resting period that forced hiatus gave him, it worked – his voice had a bright, soaring punch that reached for the high rafters without a flicker of strain.

Then, of course, there's Anika Nilles. Stepping into the drum throne of the beloved Neil Peart (who passed away in 2020) is a monumental – and some would say, unenviable – task, but the German-born drummer proved to be a dream behind the kit: fast and fluid, swinging with a luscious, elastic groove that gives even the oddest of odd-time signatures a supple, human heartbeat.

In the time since the Fifty Something tour debuted at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA, in early June, cellphone videos of Nilles acing the around-the-kit tom fills to Tom Sawyer have been shared millions of times, but those viral clips don't prepare you for the physical impact of seeing her do it live – it’s the intoxicating spectacle of a genius executing genius things, and with a high-beam smile, no less.

Overhead, poignant video tributes to Neil Peart wove throughout the show, grounding the night’s jubilation in tender, warm remembrance. Rather than heavy eulogizing, the visuals captured Peart's humor, artistry and legacy, elevating the performance into a true-life celebration.

Setlist

Set One

• Xanadu
• Limelight
• Far Cry
• Subdivisions
• Freewill
• Bravado
• Headlong Flight
• La Villa Strangiato
• Vital Signs
• The Spirit of Radio

Set Two

• 2112 (Overture, the Temples of Syrinx, Grand Finale)
• Distant Early Warning
• Red Barchetta
• Dreamline
• Natural Science
• Time Stand Still
• Red Sector A
• YYZ
• The Garden
• Tom Sawyer

Encore

• By-Tor and the Snow Dog
• Working Man

Polyphia have announced a world tour, for which the modern virtuosos will be bringing some of the finest guitar talent on the scene with them.

The boundary-pushing band, led by Tim Henson and Scott LePage, have just put out their new house-music-gone-heavy track, CAN YOU FEEL IT, the first single from what will be their fifth studio album. They’ll soon be hitting the road to promote it.

They'll be joined by some of the biggest names in guitar playing with them. Australian prog-fusion maestro Plini and Intervals – the djent- and prog-metal-coded project from Wolfgang Van Halen’s favorite shredder, Aaron Marshall – will feature on select North American dates.

Plini has just released his latest album, An Unnameable a Desire, which sees him responding to a call of the wild as he explores new stylistic frontiers, and Intervals are fresh off the road supporting Karnivool.

Elsewhere, solo guitarist RJ Pasin – CAN YOU FEEL IT's do-producer, who has a similarly genre-defying style mixing metalcore, hyper pop, and electronic music – will play on all dates across North America, Europe, and the UK.

Ladrones, who use eight-string Strandberg guitars to mesh together metal, hip-hop, and regional Mexican music, are another act impressing Polyphia’s guitarists, and they’ll join for all North American dates.

It’s an assembled lineup that will stand as both a celebration of forward-thinking guitar playing, featuring some of the most innovative players around. But it’s also a tour that will kick-start a new era for Polyphia.

CAN YOU FEEL IT, which sees the band creating a wholly new style of music, has got the guitar community’s tongues wagging and sets the scene for their hotly anticipated new album.

They’ve already confirmed a host of guest stars. Henson’s new favorite guitar player is producing the record, which they’ve promised will be heavy.

French electronic genius, Perturbator, meanwhile, will join RJ Pasin on all European and UK dates as the band seemingly doubles down on the electronic party-music side of their evolving sound.

Tickets for the tour will be available starting with VIP and Artist Presales beginning Tuesday, June 16, at 11 am ET / 4 pm BST.

Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general on-sale beginning Friday, June 19, at 10 am local time.

See Polyphia for more.

North America Tour Dates w/ Ladrones & RJ Pasin

> w/ Intervals
< w/ Plini

• Sept 5 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
• Sept 8 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel Entertainment Center
• Sept 10 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
• Sept 12 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
• Sept 13 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
• Sept 16 – Salt Lake City – The Union Event Center
• Sept 18 – Denver, CO – JUNKYARD
• Sept 20 - Waukee, IA – Vibrant Music Hall
• Sept 21 – Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
• Sept 22 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory
• Sept 24 – Chesterfield, MO – The Factory
• Sept 25 – Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
• Sept 26 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
• Sept 28 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
• Sept 29 – Toronto, ON – Great Canadian Casino >
• Oct 1 – Montreal, QC – L’Olympia >
• Oct 3 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• Oct 5 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
• Oct 7 – Wallingford, CT – Toyota Oakdale Theatre
• Oct 8 – Washington DC – Echostage
• Oct 10 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore
• Oct 11 – Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome by Rutter Mills
• Oct 13 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater <
• Oct 15 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – War Memorial Auditorium
• Oct 16 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
• Oct 17 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
• Oct 18 – Nashville, TN – The Truth

Europe/UK Tour Dates w/ Perturbator & RJ Pasin

• Nov 18 – Zurich, CH – Halle 622
• Nov 19 – Lyon, FR – Le Radiant
• Nov 20 – Toulouse, FR – Interference
• Nov 22 – Barcelona, ES – Razzmatazz
• Nov 23 – Madrid, ES – Sala La Riviera
• Nov 25 – Milan, IT – Alcatraz
• Nov 27 – Munich, DE – Zenith
• Nov 28 – Prague, CZ – SaSaZu
• Nov 29 – Warsaw, PL – Progresja
• Nov 30 – Leipzig, DE – Haus Auensee
• Dec 2 – Hamburg, DE – Docks
• Dec 4 – Copenhagen, DK – Amager Bio
• Dec 5 – Berlin, DE – Tempodrom
• Dec 6 – Oberhausen, DE – Turbinenhalle
• Dec 7 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
• Dec 8 – Amsterdam, NL – AFAS Live
• Dec 9 – Paris, FR – Zenith Paris
• Dec 11 – Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
• Dec 12 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
• Dec 15 – Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
• Dec 16 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton

Eric Clapton brought a show in Madrid, Spain, to a premature end after he was hit by an object thrown by an audience member.

As captured in footage from the show, Slowhand was nearing the end of his performance at the Movistar Arena last Thursday (May 7) when what appeared to be a vinyl record was thrown, hitting the guitarist in the chest.

Clapton was winding down the set at the time, having just finished performing his cover of J.J. Cale’s Cocaine. Because of the incident, he didn’t return for the expected encore, which would have been Before You Accuse Me.

“Very sad image today in Eric Clapton concert in Madrid,” wrote on X account. “Some guy threw something to EC at the end, ending with no encore.”

Clapton was in the middle of an EU tour, which is set to conclude in Germany this week with shows at the SAP Arena in Mannheim (May 13); Lanxess Arena in Koln (May 15); and Olympiastadion München (May 17).

The blues guitar icon will return to the US later this year for a six-date tour of North America, kicking off September 6 in Detroit and wrapping up in Kansas City on September 17.

Like the Europe shows, Clapton will be joined by his usual backing band comprising Doyle Bramhall II and Nathan East, as well as drummer Sonny Emory, and keyboardists Chris Stainton and Tim Carmon.

Visit Eric Clapton’s website for a full list of dates and tickets.

Since its inception in 1999, Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival has featured the crème de la crème of guitarists who, in one way or another, have earned the blues-rock legend’s respect.

Now, the seventh edition of the festival will be held on September 26 and 27 in Austin, Texas, at the Moody Center, marking the 28th anniversary of the 1998 founding of the Crossroads Centre Antigua, the drug treatment facility spearheaded by Clapton himself.

Among the numerous Crossroads veterans returning this year will be Joe Bonamassa, Billy Gibbons, Buddy Guy, Gary Clark Jr., Sonny Landreth, John Mayer, the Del McCoury Band, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Jimmie Vaughan, as well as Clapton himself, who will be performing on both nights. Meanwhile, Trey Anastasio, Tommy Emmanuel, Julian Lage, and Pete Townshend will all be making their festival debut.

Guitar Center was also announced as the exclusive retail partner of the festival, and, in addition to onsite retail, there will also be a rare showcase of its Legends Collection. This includes Clapton’s 1956 Fender Stratocaster, “Blackie,” the 1964 Gibson ES-335 he played in Cream, and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s iconic 1965 Fender Stratocaster, “Lenny.”

Speaking about the festival in a 2019 interview with Guitar Center, Clapton said, “My identity is always going to be linked to Crossroads. I can't walk away, so I've come back to do the thing I know how to do best, which is play, and also invite people that I have high admiration for in the music world.”

He continued, “I like to use the festival platform as a way of getting [musicians] to come and play to a big audience, maybe for the first time. I think it's quite nice for the other musicians to meet them, too. I like cross-fertilization. I mean, that was a fascinating thing for me, the fantasy. And it worked.”

Tickets for the event will go on sale on April 3 at 10 a.m. CDT. For more information, head to the official Crossroads Guitar Festival website.

Slash reunited with his former Guns N’ Roses bandmate Gilby Clarke at a charity show in West Hollywood on Monday night, and they tore through a classic hit.

The pair, alongside longtime GNR bass player Duff McKagan, former drummer Steven Adler, and Faster Pussycat vocalist Taime Downe, performed the swaggering Appetite for Destruction cut, It’s So Easy at the Troubadour as the Rock For Jennifer – Loud And Legendary fundraiser.

The show was organised to honor the legacy of Jennifer Perry, the venue’s chief booker during the 1980s. That was a time when GNR made it their stomping ground, who passed away in February. She was also a vocal supporter of Poison and Warrant before they blew up, and was heavily involved in numerous editions of Ozzfest.

It felt right, then, that this throwback reunion of GNR alumni from various eras would be the feather in the night’s cap. And as video evidence from the night suggests, they nailed it.

“This is pretty cool,” Slash had said before McKagan propelled the group into the punk-tinted smash. “Jennifer would have wanted to be here.”

Clarke appeared on the band's covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?, but departed in 1994. Slash followed him out the exit in 1996, leading to a revolving door of players in his wake, which included Buckethead, DJ Ashba, and Bumblefoot.

The Slash-Clarke partnership continued into their collaborative project, Slash’s Snakepit, with Clarke left to dwell on what could have been had they stayed in the band.

“Slash went through the same thing as me – he had all these songs, but Axl wanted to go in a different direction,” he told Guitar World in 2024. “The truth is, between my songs and Slash’s, we could have had the next Guns N’ Roses record.”

More recently, Clarke was emergency cover for Alice Cooper after Nita Strauss had to step back from a tour, only for her stand-in, Orianthi, to be sidelined on the eve of the shows.

Slash, meanwhile, who paid tribute to Ozzy at the Grammys, has also teamed up with Joe Bonamassa for a special charity show, but the pair were shown up by a youthful shredder who appeared alongside them.

Eric Clapton has announced a run of US tour dates, which will take place later this year.

The six-show run is set to kick off on September 6 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, and will see Slowhand visit Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, before wrapping things up in Kansas City on September 17.

Fellow blues electric guitar hero Jimmie Vaughan will serve as the special guest at each show. Clapton’s band will feature Doyle Bramhall II and Nathan East, as well as drummer Sonny Emory, and keyboardists Chris Stainton and Tim Carmon.

The upcoming tour will commence almost a year to the date that Clapton last played in the US, after shows in New York and Uncasville in September 2025. The news follows the announcement that Clapton will be performing across a run of dates in Europe.

This will see Clapton perform in the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland Spain, Germany and more, with a headline show at the Sandringham Royal Estate completing the run on August 23.

Artist pre-sale for the US dates goes live today (March 3), with a Live Nation pre-sale scheduled for March 5. General sale tickets for the shows will go on sale March 6 at 10am local time.

Head over to Eric Clapton’s website to find out more. A full list of dates can be found below.

• September 6 – Detroit, MI, Little Caesars Arena
• September 8 – Cincinnati, OH, Heritage Bank Center
• September 11 – Chicago, IL, United Center
• September 13 – Milwaukee, WI, Fiserv Forum
• September 15 – St. Paul, MN, Grand Casino Arena
• September 17 – Kansas City, MO, T-Mobile Center

Metallica have announced an upcoming residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.

The news comes after months of speculation surrounding the band, with many fans theorizing that Metallica would continue their M72 World Tour with a stint at the world’s most advanced live music venue.

As such, the Life Burns Faster residency is set to kick off in October later this year, and will continue the ‘No Repeat Weekend’ tradition that the M72 tour established. In other words, no songs will be repeated on each Thursday and Saturday through the course of the run.

Unsurprisingly, the eight-date residency is promising to expand Metallica’s live set and push it in all-new directions. In fact, it’s being dubbed as “a wholly unique and entirely new Metallica experience for all who attend – including James, Lars, Kirk and Robert”.

What presumably won’t be new to the band, though, will be the live rigs they take to the Sphere. After all, the Sphere is notorious for its rig requirements, owing to the way the venue has been physically designed. Loud stages with actual tube amps simply don’t work.

It’s proven to be quite the obstacle for guitarists in the past. It prompted Bob Weir to ditch his tube amps for an amp modeler, forced John Mayer to find a workaround to run his regular amp setup, and famously led The Edge to run through Universal Audio UAFX pedals.

Heck, Trey Anastasio – who also had to bury his amps off-stage for Phish's residency at the venue – once said it was impossible to play with onstage amps at the Sphere.

Metallica won’t face such issues, though. As a band that has already been converted to an all-digital live setup (they switched to Axe-Fx around 2013), they should have no problem with inserting their existing live setup into the Sphere’s notoriously quiet stage.

Whatever the case, Life Burns Faster has become a long time coming, and the seeds of the residency were sown during the venue’s opening night.

“About 12 seconds into the opening night of Sphere with U2 back in ’23, I thought, ‘We have to do this, it’s completely uncharted territory!’” ’Tallica drummer Lars Ulrich says.

“This residency gives us another chance to reinvent how we interact with our fans in a live setting. We are beyond excited to share this with the world in six months’ time, and way fuckin’ psyched to go next level!”

Life Burns Faster kicks off on October 1, with further dates slated for 3, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29 and 31 of that month. Tickets will go on sale on March 6 at 10am PT.

To register for tickets and for more info in the meantime, head over to Metallica’s website.

Fresh from his Album of the Year Grammy win, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny – Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – lit up the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show last night at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

The 13-minute set went down in history for several reasons: Martínez Ocasio became the first male solo Latino artist to perform the halftime show and the first to perform a set entirely in Spanish.

It was a spectacular celebration of Puerto Rican – and, by extension, Latino – culture, one in which the guitar is so deeply embedded that it would have been remiss not to include the instrument in one way or another. In fact, at roughly the 9:24 mark, Bad Bunny's band member, José Eduardo Santana, is shown playing a cuatro.

The guitar-like instrument is Puerto Rican's very own national instrument, and Santana plays a heartfelt solo to introduce fellow Puerto Rican music legend Ricky Martin's interpretation of Bad Bunny's LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii, from his latest award-winning album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.

Unlike your typical six-string guitar, the modern cuatro typically has five double-strings – although some musicians add up to six metal strings to flex their virtuosity.

Although it's closely related to other Latin American string instruments, the Puerto Rican cuatro is wholly unique, tuned in fourths from low to high, with B and E in octaves; and A, D, and G in unisons: B3 B2 – E4 E3 – A3 A3 – D4 D4 – G4 G4. It also has a body typically sourced from endemic woods such as guaraguao, laurel, maga, algarrobo, cedro macho, and roble blanco.

The guitar-like instrument is also far from one-size-fits-all. It exists in a variety of forms, including the cuatro soprano, cuatro alto, cuatro tradicional (the standard variant), and cuatro bajo (bass), depending on the player’s preferences.

As Puerto Rico’s national instrument, it’s a staple of folk genres such as jíbaro music, plena, trova, aguinaldo, and seis. However, as demonstrated by Bad Bunny, it has also been given a new lease on life by a younger generation of artists who blend traditional folk with contemporary genres such as reggaeton.

Bad Bunny had previously employed the cuatro as a key part of his set during performances like his long-anticipated Tiny Desk concert, which featured cuatro player Fabiola Méndez, as well as a recent viral concert in Chile, which saw the artist, aided by his cuatrista Santana, pay homage to Chilean folk singer, Victor Jara through his own rendition of the 1971 protest song El Derecho de Vivir en Paz.

The guitar – and guitar-like instruments – featured heavily across all genres at this year’s Grammys, with standout moments including Justin Bieber wielding a 1988 Yamaha RGX 612S and Slash and Ozzy producer Andrew Watt repping Gibson during a star-studded tribute to Ozzy.

After last July’s Ozzy Osbourne farewell show, Back to the Beginning, high estimates were reported for how much the mega-event raised for its chosen charities: Acorns Children’s Hospice, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Cure Parkinson’s.

Media reports, as well as musical director Tom Morello, suggested that Back to the Beginning had grossed over $190 million for the three charities. However, it appears that the reported donation amount has been inflated, with Ozzy Osbourne's son, Jack Osbourne, recently clearing up the rumors on the Punk Rock Sober and Painful Lessons podcast.

“This is how you know the news is probably 90% bullshit, 'cause it was, like, CNN and New York Times was saying ‘Ozzy raised $150 million.’ And it wasn’t that,” he says.

“I think what it came down to was, like, when all was said and done, because it was a charity gig, you still have to pay for the actual gig. No bands got paid, and most of the crew donated their time.”

Osbourne asserts that “when all was [said] and done, each charity got, like, one and a half or two million pounds [approximately $2.7 million] each. So, it was, I think, six or seven million pounds [approximately $9.4 million].”

He continues, “That’s what was donated to the three charities. I mean, we would’ve loved it if it was hundreds of millions. We would have been, like, 'Fuck yeah.’”

Nonetheless, it is still an admirable feat – and Back to the Beginning has gone down in history as arguably the greatest one-day lineup of rock and metal bands ever assembled.

Shred phenom Hedras Ramos has enlisted two of his contemporary virtuosos under the Apex Breed Project banner, and they’re set to tour the US this January.

Described by the Guatemalan guitarist as “a dynamic musical initiative dedicated to showcasing original music and advanced improvisation by leading modern guitarists,” the trio is rounded out by Italian talent Daniele Gottardo and dextrous Eddie Van Halen disciple Filipe Rosset.

Steve Vai once called Gottardo his “favorite new young guitar player” and is prominent as a solo artist and as a shredder with jazz-rock outfit, the Nuts. His tapping game is off the charts.

Rosset, meanwhile, has been baffling the internet with his one-handed covers of Van Halen songs, which is no easy task. It's quite the billing.

Hedras, meanwhile, is a signature Cort artist; his latest model, the Mutility II, dropped in January, and his latest solo album, Front Line, followed quickly in its wake. During a candid chat with Guitar World about the record, he spoke about teaching Tosin Abasi tapping techniques, and hit out at “dishonest” Instagram fakers.

The trio will kick off the tour at Winstons in San Diego, CA, on January 20, with the eight-date run ending at The Starlighter in San Antonio, TX, 10 days later. All dates are happening in the California and Texas areas.

Support comes from technical guitarist and wielder of a rather bonkers Forshage guitar, Euphonia, and instrumental jazzers Huney Knuckles. They're two bands with plenty of talent of their own. No wonder Hedras' announcement of the tour on social media has the likes of Kiki Wong, Jordan Rudess, and Angel Vivaldi dropping excited comments.

This is the third edition of the Apex Breed Project, which presents a G3-like line-up of fretboard burners. Jack Gardiner is a notable alumnus, while Gottardo becomes the first name, excluding ringerleader Hedras, to make a second appearance.

Hedras's affinity for the G3 tour, organized by Joe Satriani, has been well-documented. In 2021, he posted a cover of a classic Dream Theater solo but, inspired by Petrucci's G3 appearance, added plenty of extra spice to it.

Head Bands in Town for tickets.

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai's maiden European tour as the SatchVai Band this past June and July was a milestone moment for the guitar world.

Now, the two are bringing their band to the States for a new leg of the aptly-titled Surfing with the Hydra tour in April and May 2026, with Animals as Leaders as support on all dates.

Speaking about the two’s first-ever collaborative States-wide tour, Vai says, “The SatchVai Band summer Euro tour of 2025 far exceeded anything I could have imagined. Joe and I struck pure jammin’ gold night after night.

“Being in the same band with Joe, playing songs we actually wrote together on stage, in real time, felt like watching a childhood fantasy step out of my teenage brain and stroll onto the stage. And somehow, it was even more rewarding, satisfying, and downright fulfilling than I ever thought possible.”

Alongside Satriani and Vai, the lineup is rounded out by drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza, and guitarist Pete Thorn. They will not only be performing the collaborative releases the duo have put out so far, but also new material from a forthcoming Satch/Vai album and favorites from the pair’s prolific catalog.

Pre-sale tickets for the tour have just kicked off today with an Artist Presale, followed by local pre-sales tomorrow (December 11) and public on-sales on December 12.

For more information, head to the SatchVai Band's official website.

Earlier this year, the electric guitar titans released their sophomore collaborative single, the ’70s-flavored I Wanna Play My Guitar, with Glenn Hughes on vocals, which continued to tease what fans can expect from their upcoming album.

The 40th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony took place over the weekend (November 8), and as usual the event was filled with star-studded collaborations.

The White Stripes, Bad Company, Soundgarden, Carol Kaye, Cyndi Lauper, Joe Cocker, Outkast and Chubby Checker were all among the Rock Hall’s Class of 2025, along with Warren Zevon, Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins, Lenny Waronker and Salt N Pepa.

Soundgarden were inducted by Jim Carrey, who paid tribute to the band’s late singer Chris Cornell, remembering the time they crossed paths on Saturday Night Live – and was gifted a prized electric guitar signed by all Soundgarden members.

“I met the band in 1996 when I was hosting Saturday Night Live for the very first time, and I insisted on Soundgarden as the musical guest,” Carrey remembered. “By then, the lineup was Chris [Cornell], Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron on drums, and Ben Shepherd on bass. They launched into the dark, epic beauty of Pretty Noose.

“I stood right in front of them, letting the waves of electricity wash over me, like an audio baptism. They pushed me under and when I came up I was free.

“After the show, they handed me what is to this day, one of my most prized possessions. The Fender Telecaster Chris played on the show, signed by the whole band.

“Tonight, we make sure that Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Hiro Yamamoto, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd go down in history as one of the most majestic, powerful and influential bands ever to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Long live Chris Cornell. Long live Soundgarden.”

Carrey’s tributes to Cornell and Soundgarden were accompanied by a performance from the surviving members of the band, who were fronted by Taylor Momsen and Brandi Carlile for covers of Rusty Cage and Black Hole Sun, respectively.

It was a heroic outing for grunge music. For Soundgarden’s set, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready – wielding a Gibson Les Paul for the occasion – doubled up Thayil’s riffs on Rusty Cage, while Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell layered up the leads for Black Hole Sun with his G&L Rampage.

It wasn’t the only performance dedicated to Soundgarden and Cornell. Toni, Chris’ daughter, was joined by Nancy Wilson for an acoustic rendition of Fell on Black Days, performed underneath an in memoriam photograph of the late vocalist.

Elsewhere on the docket, The White Stripes were honored by pop-rock duo twenty one pilots, who performed Seven Nation Army, and Olivia Rodrigo, who – fresh from her festival-stealing Glasto headline set – joined Feist with her acoustic guitar to sing We’re Going to Be Friends.

Flea also played bass for Stevie Wonder on a cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s Dance to the Music, and The Killers honored Warren Zevon with a performance of Lawyers, Guns and Money. Zevon was inducted by David Letterman, who, in his own speech, also recalled the time Zevon had gifted him a guitar.

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi closed out the show with a cover of The Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends. Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper and Chris Robinson were among the song’s guest stars.

Trucks and his trusty Gibson SG were on guitar duty for the song, and though the spotlight was firmly on the singers, he still found room for some trademark fingerstyle licks sans slide.

You can catch up on the 40th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and rewatch all the action at Disney+.

Heart's career-defining hit Barracuda is now being introduced to a new generation thanks to Chappell Roan, who has included the 1977 hit as one of her tour staples this year.

On September 21, Nancy Wilson gave Roan her stamp of approval by joining her onstage at Forest Hills Stadium in New York for a surprise collaborative rendition of the Heart classic.

Armed with her one-of-a-kind purple sparkle baritone Telecaster – which was stolen and later retrieved just a couple of months ago – Wilson, alongside Roan and her band, delivered a powerful rendition of the track, arguably living up to Roan's comments that it is among the greatest songs, perhaps even the greatest song, ever recorded.

“It gives me hope and positive appreciation for where the culture is going,” Wilson tells Vulture. “I was completely honored to do that for Chappell.”

As for how the two met, Wilson continues, “It was one of those things where, when we met, she was the sweetest person on earth. She said, ‘It’s an honor to be here and meet you.’ It was like, Where’s Chappell Roan? I thought she was going to be some big diva, but she’s this wonderful, sweet-hearted person, intelligent and funny.

“We went our separate ways, and she kept doing Barracuda on her tour. My hubby, Jeff said, ‘Well, maybe she’d want you to play with her sometime.’ So we put the idea out there and her team responded, ‘Whoa, would you really do it?’ I never would’ve thought of insinuating myself into her show, but it was natural, since she does Barracuda every night.”

At the show, Roan even mentioned that it's one of the songs she wishes she wrote, which doesn't go unnoticed by Wilson.

“I think she relates to the song for the reason of what it’s all about – the song kicks the asses of slimy guys in the culture,” Wilson observes.

“They’re still everywhere. They haven’t gone away. If anything, it’s worse now than it was in the ’70s. I think she’s really reactionary and intelligent about her own sexuality and her place in a culture regarding her individual personhood. Barracuda speaks to her, and she’s a radical and intelligent thinker.”

As for Barracuda and Heart's legacy, Wilson believes there is currently a shift happening among the younger generation toward rock and the rediscovery of classic rock.

“I’ve seen, even at the Heart shows, 9-year-old kids playing air guitar when we do Barracuda and Crazy on You,” she relates. “There’s a lot of singing along from college kids, and the original Heart fans always show up like the loyal fans they’ve always been. It’s a multigenerational situation.

“In the pop-culture world now with Chappell and Olivia [Rodrigo], a lot of the music had been so mechanized and auto-tuned – spoon-fed that way for a little bit longer than people realize. There’s a feeling of music history that comes from classic rock. It’s not completely disposable. It passes through the generations a bit more.

“There’s a personal story to it. The attention-span theater is growing back a bit longer because of the sense of history and security a classic rock song will give you, as well as unity among the people that love those songs,” she concludes.

Earlier this year, Chappell Roan's guitarist, Andrea Ferrero, spoke to Guitar World about her experience playing a custom mirrorball Gibson Les Paul on Roan’s hit, Pink Pony Club, at the Grammys.

Jack White was a special guest during IDLES’ Riot Fest set on the weekend, fizzing through an animalistic Never Fight A Man With A Perm armed with Lee Kiernan's storied pink Fender Mustang.

Headlined by Blink-182, Weezer, and Green Day, the Chicago festival was, for rock fans of a certain age, a jaw-dropping nostalgia fest. But the fast-rising British noisemakers weren't going to let those at the top of the bill have all the fun at Douglass Park.

“It is with great honor, I’d like to welcome on stage Jack White the First,” vocalist Joe Talbot had bellowed before the carnage ensued.

Video footage shows White and Kiernan in aptly riotous form, with squealing guitars and angular licks galore – not to mention a dollop or two of Whammy pedal wails. It's glorious pandemonium on stage, with the band clearly savoring the chance to trade off with one of their (ahem) idols.

The band haven’t said much following the performance – it speaks for itself, in truth. But IDLES’ other guitarist, Mark Bowen, posted a picture of White on stage with the group with the caption, “IFKYK.”

Lately, White has been running amok with his signature Telecaster – a model that’s found its way into the hands of Kirk Hammett and Vernon Reid, and his favorite new guitarist – but it’s the Mustang that gets a run out here.

Kiernan only got the guitar after a score of IDLES' preferred Fenders were stolen in the band's early days. That got the band an invite to Fender HQ, where, after a key modification, the Mustang stole his heart. It has since become one of his main axes, and it has the wounds to prove it.

“This was the first guitar I bought for IDLES, and it's been there ever since, and I've smashed it up, reglued it, snapped it... I love growing with it,” he told Andertons earlier this year.

Speaking to Guitarist in 2024, Kiernan dismissed digital amp modelers as “wack” as he dissected the band’s love of “violent, dark tones” and the often hodgepodge electric guitars they use to achieve them.

The band’s guitar tandem was selected to be the poster boys for Fender’s new Player II Modified series as their rise to the top of the contemporary rock pile continues.

Meanwhile, White has shown off the crazy guitar/bass hybrid built for him by Eddie Van Halen's go-to master builder, and we've never seen anything quite like it.

He's also on the hunt for a guitar he regrets letting go of as a teenager, and recently issued a plea to his fans to help him track it down.

Alice Cooper is the latest high-profile artist to pay tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne live on stage, after he – and a special guest – covered a Black Sabbath classic during a recent gig in London, England.

Last Friday (July 25), days after news of Ozzy’s death had been announced, Cooper added Paranoid as a last-minute addition to his setlist, slotting it in after I Love the Dead and right before the curtain closer, School’s Out.

It came after Cooper released an emotional tribute to Ozzy online, after he heard of his friend’s death “just minutes before going on stage in Cardiff, Wales”.

For the cover during the London gig, Cooper was joined by actor/guitarist Johnny Depp, who made a late entry onto the stage and locked in alongside Nita Strauss, Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen to hold down Tony Iommi’s iconic riff.

Depp also had a stab at a solo, noticeably forgoing a guitar pick and instead noodling around the lower register of his Gibson Flying V using a fingerpicking style and some whammy bar action – something he most certainly picked up from his old friend, Jeff Beck.

Writing on social media prior to the Cardiff show, Cooper wrote, “Well, we all know that time is going to take us rockers, but when the giants fall, it’s really hard to accept. Even though everybody saw it coming with Ozzy, it just took our breath away when it happened.

“So Ozzy and family – your records and your music and your legend and all that you brought – the humor to the rock business – will live on forever and we’re gonna miss you man.”

Ozzy Osbourne passed away last week at the age of 76, weeks after his Back to the Beginning farewell show. In the wake of his passing, the guitar world has come out to pay tribute to his life, legacy, music and memory.

Wolfgang Van Halen has also paid tribute to the late Black Sabbath singer on stage, adding Mama, I'm Coming Home to his band's setlist after they heard about Ozzy's death during their soundcheck.

Zakk Wylde, Ozzy's longest-serving guitarist, recently sat down with Guitar World to look back on their final moments together onstage.

Pantera have announced they will be canceling some of their tour dates to allow time to mourn for the late Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away last week.

In a statement posted to social media, the band – which features former Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde in its ranks – confirmed that a handful of dates will be rescheduled, while others will be cancelled, to give “time and space to grieve”.

“Ozzy wasn’t just a legend who shaped the very foundation of heavy metal and inspired Pantera from the beginning – he was family,” the post reads. “A mentor, a brother, and a constant presence in our lives both on and off the stage. The bond we shared with him ran far deeper than music.

“In light of this profound loss, we need time and space to grieve – to be with our families, our crew, and each other as we process and honor the life of someone who meant so much to us. Out of respect, and to allow members of our team the time to mourn, we will be rescheduling the following shows.”

Pantera’s July 28 show in Saratoga Springs has been shifted to September 9, while their July 31 show in Holmdel will be moved to September 8.

As a result, three later shows – July 19 in Gildford, NH; September 8 in Birmingham, AL; and September 10 in Virginia Beach, VA – have been cancelled.

Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76 last week, mere weeks after returning to the stage and reuniting with his Black Sabbath bandmates for his Back to the Beginning farewell show. The announcement prompted an outpouring of tributes from all corners of the music world, as well as heartfelt tributes from Ozzy’s Sabbath bandmates – Geezer Butler included.

Likewise, Wylde – who was recruited by Pantera to step into the shoes of the late Dimebag Darrell in 2023 – has also paid tribute to Ozzy in an emotional new interview with Guitar World, in which he looks back on their final moments together on stage.

Wylde’s deep-rooted connection to Ozzy traces back to the late 1980s, when he was given the unenviable task of filling a role previously held by Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee. He would go on to become Ozzy’s longest-serving guitarist, and was by the singer’s side when he performed his last solo set at Back to the Beginning.

Steve Morse recently made a surprise appearance at a book launch in Annapolis, Maryland, where he handled classic rock staples with aplomb.

The guitarist once quit music altogether to become a commercial airline pilot, only to be lured back into the arms of rock ’n’ roll by Lynyrd Skynyrd. His showing at the intimate jam session ties into his pilot days.

“Steve and I have been friends since we met aboard the aircraft carrier Kennedy in '86 when I was in my first F-14 Tomcat squadron,” explains author and military commentator, Ward Carroll, who wrote the book the event was celebrating.

Morse was plying his trade in Kansas at the time, with the band aboard just off the coast of the Greek Island Crete for a USO (United Services Organizations) show.

“After the performance, he joined the aviators in our ready room for some guitar jams and a lot of talk about flying,” he continues.

Carroll then leaned into their long-standing friendship ahead of the release of his latest novel, Punk’s Force. Morse was joined by his solo band drummer Van Romaine, Dangerboy bassist TJ Collins, Carroll (on guitar), and guitarist/vocalist Tom Butwin for a five-song set.

That saw the group take on Led Zeppelin’s Good Times, Bad Times, Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, dedicated to the late, great Leslie West, and Cream’s 1968 hit, White Room. They rounded out the set with two Lynyrd Skynyrd classics, Gimme Back My Bullets, and Free Bird in light of the band’s role in his rock revival.

Morse was plugged into his signature and travel-friendly 20W Engl head, and his soloing is on point throughout – faithful to the glory of the originals, but with plenty of Morse-ified flair.

“When we were planning for the release of my latest novel, I asked Steve and his drummer Van Romaine if they'd join me for an ‘all-star jam’ of covers that would showcase Steve's guitar prowess,” Carroll continues. Morse certainly did that.

YouTube legend Rick Beato was also in the crowd, and he bore witness to the quintet of covers, and some hearty quips from Morse about that famed show with Skynyrd after a gruelling nine-flight shift.

For more classics given the Morse treatment, check out his take on Jeff Beck’s Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers.

He's also opened up about how a love for modding led to the creation of his ‘FrankenTele’ and Music Man signature, and he’s also revealed what's on his “hybrid” pedalboard.

Just months after revealing that he and Geddy Lee regularly jam, Alex Lifeson has joined Tom Morello on stage for a surprise guest spot in Toronto, during which they jammed a Rush classic in the band's home city.

The cheers that erupted after Morello uttered the words, “Please welcome Alex Lifeson to the stage,” are palpable, even via YouTube. Aptly donning his Godin Lerxst Limelight, built as a recreation of the Hentor Sportcaster that dominated Rush's early '80s material, Lifeson swiftly rolled back the years as soon as he started playing Limelight's iconic opening bars.

The spot happened at the city's Danforth Music Hall on July 17. Morello is currently touring as a solo artist and, after dedicating The Garden of Gethsemane to the late Chris Cornell and covering Ozzy's Mr Crowley, called upon Lifeson to help kick off the encore.

Proving he is human after all, Lifeson warms into the guitar solo but ends on a high, throwing Morello a wry smile and a shake of the head as he nails the final vibrato. The Canadian legend received another rapturous response upon the song’s end, with Morello beaming, “What a time to be alive.”

He also stuck around for the final song of the night, a cover of the MC5’s Kick Out the Jams, which was also covered by a newly reformed Soundgarden earlier this year.

Lifeson has recently released a second album with his post-Rush band, Envy of None, and it’s a release that has seen him embrace digital gear and reignite his passion for solos.

However, he’s also spoken candidly about his insecurities as a player, saying he’s always struggled from a lack of confidence in his abilities.

The Limeight performance continues Morello's hot-streak of shred-offs. He joined Jane's Addiction and rekindled his fiery partnership with Bruce Springsteen last year, traded licks with Slash in February, and spearheaded the heavy metal Yardbirds at Back to the Beginning earlier this month.

Marcus King has taken to the stage with yet another legendary electric guitar, using Rory Gallagher’s famed white Fender Telecaster to play a handful of songs at one of his recent shows.

King is certainly no stranger to playing hallowed six-strings steeped in rock ‘n’ roll history. Recently, he became the latest big-name player to wield Jeff Beck’s iconic YardBurst Les Paul, which had already passed through the hands of Lenny Kravitz’s guitarist, Craig Ross.

That guitar – like the Gallagher Telecaster that recently saw action – is currently in hands of French vintage guitar dealer Matthieu Lucas of Matt's Guitar Shop, and now he and King have worked together once again to bring the fabled single-cut out of its case and onto the stage.

Like many of Gallagher’s guitars, the white Telecaster was auctioned off earlier this year alongside the late blues rock great’s 1961 Stratocaster. It was one of Gallagher’s most cherished instruments, and eventually became his number-one slide guitar, famously starring during Gallagher’s 1970 Isle of Wight festival set.

When it went under the hammer, the guitar was snapped up by Lucas, who has now told Guitar World the story of how it ended up in the arms of King – who used it during a show in Belgium on July 10.

“We bought the Black Esquire and sold it to my friend JR in Argentina,” Lucas remembers, relaying how he once owned Gallagher’s other, equally iconic single-cut. “The White Telecaster was a dream guitar to get for the shop.

“When you look at that guitar, you think about Rory's first band Taste, most notably at Isle of Wight and all his career and legacy,” he adds. “The white guitar talked to me more than anything in that auction.”

That he was able to put this Tele in the arms of King was even more special, owing to the fact he believes King to be “the best guitar player of his generation and already one of the best in the world’s history”.

“I just think Rory was one of the best guitar players that ever lived and so is Marcus today,” he gushes. “The feeling of having that legendary guitar being played so beautifully is an incredible sensation.”

King used Gallagher’s white Tele to play a handful of tracks, including Rita is Gone, Homesick, and Save Me. The solo that King puts together for Rita... – with its soaring dynamics and effortless touch – is a particular highlight that stuck out to Lucas.

It also stuck out to King, as Lucas remembers: “He gave the guitar back to me after the set and said, ‘Oh man, it's such a good one.’"

The collaboration continues Lucas’ desire to put iconic instruments into the hands of active musicians, and to prevent fabled guitars from falling out of the public eye and into the obscurity of a storage facility.

“Our philosophy is to have the guitars being played on stage as much as possible,” Lucas tells Guitar World. In an Instagram post, he added, “We don’t believe in locking guitars in glass boxes. We believed in passing the torch. These mythical instruments were meant to be played.”

As such, the Gallagher Telecaster will be spotted out in the wild again soon. Not only that, expect Lucas and King to work together again to bring another famed example from Lucas’ sphere of influence to the stage. As for the guitar dealer himself, he already has his mind set on the next guitar.

“We never know what's next,” he teases. “I know that Marcus' favourite is Paul Kossoff and Eric Clapton's Cream 1955 Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty! We'll see what's next.”

Lucas has a history of facilitating high-profile guitar link-ups. In the past, he’s entrusted Steve Jones’ Sex Pistols Les Paul to Yungblud, Billie Joe Armstrong and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley.

It was a historic weekend for music fans, not just because of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning farewell show – but because Britpop legends Oasis played their first shows together in 16 years.

Liam and Noel Gallagher’s hugely anticipated reunion was one of the biggest musical and cultural stories of 2024. The two brothers put aside their bitter rivalry, ended their decade-long feud and made every guitar fan's dream come true when they confirmed – after much speculation – they’d be reuniting for a staggering 41-date tour.

Now, the dust has settled on those first few Oasis reunion shows, which took place over the weekend at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, and the message from those in attendance has been received loud and clear: the Gallagher brothers sound better than ever.

You need only watch the thrilling pro-shot footage of the pair belting out Acquiesce in front of thousands of emotional fans to fully grasp the gravity of the reunion, and if there were any remaining doubts over whether Oasis still had after all these years, they have now been well and truly put to bed.

Part of the reason Oasis have managed to make such a fine comeback and return with such an incredibly revived sound is, of course, down to the stellar OG musicians recruited for the job – Gem Archer and Andy Bell among them – but also Noel Gallagher himself, who seems to be something of a guitar player reborn.

One of the biggest talking points to emerge from those first few shows is that Noel is already looking – and sounding – seriously confident behind the guitar, and while his rhythm chops have never been in question, it’s his lead playing that has left a mark.

Noel looks like a lead player reborn going into this new era of Oasis, and after taking a step back from the role during his High Flying Birds days – during which he’d largely delegate lead duties elsewhere or forego them entirely – Gallagher is clearly relishing his return to guitar solos.

Indeed, some of Oasis’ catchiest solos and licks were crafted and executed by Noel, whose simple-yet-melodic mastery of the pentatonic box resulted in cuts such as Don’t Look Back in Anger, Champagne Supernova and Some Might Say.

Noel, by his own admission, took a step back from solos when Oasis split, but his passion for lead playing never left.

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2011, following the launch of his solo debut, Gallagher admitted, “In Oasis, I was doing a completely different thing than what I’m doing now. I was playing lead guitar. And… I do miss that. I miss being at the end of the stage and just turning up my fucking amp as loud as possible and kissin’ the sky. I do miss that, I have to say.

“[What] I'm doing now, yeah, it's different, so I have to rein in my natural urges to go for it. I'm part of the rhythm section now, so I've got to hold things down. I can't just go off on the guitar. But I'm enjoying that, really. I've got to say, I'm a much better rhythm guitarist than a lead guitarist."

Because of the nature of the gig, Noel never answered his heart’s call to resume this role in High Flying Birds, instead largely taking up the rhythm guitar. Gem Archer, who joined the lineup, often took on solos on stage, while engineer Paul Stacey recorded some in the studio.

There was also that unfortunate video that went viral of Gallagher fluffing his lines while performing Don’t Look Back in Anger back in 2023.

With the return of the Oasis, though, Gallagher is now well and truly re-embracing his solo side, and has even gone as far as to venture outside the box of his usual plucky, pentatonic-heavy style, pulling in some new techniques and licks to boot.

From a guitar fan's perspective, seeing Gallagher rekindle his passion for leads is, as mentioned, one of the reasons why the Oasis reunion has got off to such a high-flying start.

From the mountain of fan-filmed footage available, a goosebump-inducing, vibrato-heavy riff through the Live Forever solo – his first time performing it in years – is a particular highlight, while the pick scrape that launches the band into Slide Away is another indicator of a man thoroughly enjoying the return to a role he held down all those years ago.

Noel’s Champagne Supernova solo, though, is what sums up this new lease on lead-playing life that Gallagher is going through. Hair-raising bends, and some tremendous whammy bar work on the Bigsby, are utilized with impressive effect.

That Noel is playing more solos for an Oasis reunion shouldn’t come as a surprise, really, but given the length of time between the break-up and make-up, it’s nice to see Noel isn’t just tentatively picking up the reins again; he’s fully leaning back into the role of lead guitar player – and the Oasis reunion is all the richer for it.

The most anticipated heavy metal event of all time, Back to the Beginning, took place last weekend (July 5), and as expected, the nine-hour affair proved to be the perfect send off for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath.

To bring the curtain down on Ozzy and Sabbath’s epic live careers, the legendary band were joined by a who’s who of guitar royalty, with the likes of Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Halestorm, Lamb of God all making up the lineup.

Throughout the evening, these guitar heroes and special guests were arranged across a stacked itinerary, with some playing 15 minute sets (Ozzy and Sabbath covers included) and others joining forces for special one-off supergroups.

Billy Corgan’s ‘metal yardbirds’ were arguably the most hyped supergroup of the night, but they were given a run for their money when Steven Tyler made a triumphant return to the stage with a three-song set that also featured Ronnie Wood, Nuno Bettencourt, Tom Morello and Andrew Watt.

Tyler, whose high-profile vocal injury forced Aerosmith to retire from touring last year, showed absolutely zero signs of a musician whose powers were apparently waning, instead putting in a strong case for ‘vocalist of the evening’ as he confidently and robustly belted through The Train Kept A-Rollin’, Aerosmith’s Walk This Way and Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love.

The supporting cast of guest guitar heroes played their part, too. Wood, fresh from his Glastonbury 2025 appearance alongside Rod Stewart, sauntered through the sleazy, untethered bends and riffs of that first song, before giving up the stage to Nuno, Watt and Morello for the rest of Tyler’s set.

Watt – longtime Ozzy collaborator and super-producer to rock’s elite – donned an SG for the occasion, while Morello and his Arm the Homeless Superstrat helped hold down the classic Aerosmith and Zeppelin riffs.

And then there was Nuno, whose contributions to the evening cannot be overstated. A foundational presence throughout the entirety of Back to the Beginning, Bettencourt was – in the words of Guitar World’s Michael Astley-Brown, who watched the entire show – the MVP of the evening.

His presence for the Tyler cameo was equally influential, padding out riffs when required, supporting in the vocals department, and serving as the six-string supergroup glue that, in large parts, held the evening together.

All this is to say, Tyler looks to be in seriously good form, and though a one-off appearance lasting 15 minutes is a very different to sustaining an entire show, it makes chatter of a potential Aerosmith send-off all the more believable.

Last week, Joe Perry said there had to be “at least another Aerosmith gig”, while bassist Tom Hamilton previously admitted, “I refuse to consider it over,” when asked about a potential return.

With Tyler sounding as good as this (especially on Aerosmith classics) a reunion now looks more likely than ever – and, as the evidence shows, it would sound killer...

“The greatest day in the history of heavy metal, in honor of the band that started it all.” That’s how musical director Tom Morello billed Back to the Beginning, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s final-ever show. And he wasn’t kidding.

Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice In Chains and Gojira were among the acts taking part at Villa Park in the band’s hometown of Birmingham, UK.

40,000 people were in attendance, but an estimated 5.8 million tuned in via livestream (myself included) – surely making it the biggest celebration of metal music in history.

With (mostly) 15-minute sets and seven-minute turnarounds between acts, it was a breathless affair, despite being nine hours long. And it’s testament to the affection for Ozzy and Sabbath that so many big names showed up to play three songs then take a back seat.

Outside of the big bands, there was a roll call of guitar hero guests taking the lead in a series of supergroups. Jake E. Lee, Ronnie Wood, Nuno Bettencourt, Billy Corgan, Vernon Reid, Andrew Watt and Lzzy Hale all had their moment in the spotlight.

Each band tackled a classic Sabbath or Ozzy track – and you can only imagine the arguments over who played what song. Anthrax won the coin toss with Into the Void – Iommi’s Fifth Symphony – but you have to feel for Pantera and Rival Sons, who somehow both ended up covering the sludgy (and lengthy) Electric Funeral. Must have been some crossed emails.

But whatever this Rolodex of guitar royalty played, there was no mistaking the grins on their faces. This was their chance to play the riffs they grew up learning in their bedrooms in front of a stadium of fans – their opportunity to be Tony Iommi or Randy Rhoads. It was a childhood fantasy come to life.

It was also a daunting proposition. To play some of rock and metal’s most iconic tracks in front of the heroes who wrote them? And a sea of people who knew every riff, every lick, like the back of their hands? No pressure.

Every band on this bill would not sound the way they do today without Sabbath, and they each drew something different out of the originals with their own takes.

Lamb of God’s Children of the Grave was a pummeling chug fest updated for the late-Noughties metal revival. Never Say Die became a hair metal anthem at the hands of Guns N’ Roses, while Hole in the Sky sounded like something Metallica could have sneaked onto the tracklisting forLoad.

Many of the renditions leaned more into the legacy of Sabbath as metal trailblazers – upping the aggression and taming the groove. But Iommi and co were schooled in the blues, so more traditional rock outfits like Rival Sons, Guns N’ Roses (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath) and, especially, Alice in Chains (Fairies Wear Boots) were arguably most successful in their looser, more dynamic covers – and all the heavier for it.

Iommi’s influence on a spider diagram of genres is such that the lineup – while loaded with big names, albeit far from diverse – didn’t have space to tap into all the styles Sabbath spawned. You had your thrash (Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax), hard rock (Halestorm, GNR), groove metal (Pantera, Gojira), but stoner and doom weren’t represented. Some Sleep or Kyuss to break up the mid-scooped assault that dominated much of the daytime sets would have been welcome.

But Sabbath’s psychedelic side was at least represented by Tool, who lent into a bluesy Hand of God, sandwiched between an abbreviated Forty Six & 2 and Ænema. It must have been their shortest set in decades.

It was heart-warming to see Ozzy’s other right-hand axemen represented, too. Morello said he couldn’t imagine this show without Jake E. Lee, who made an emotional return after he was shot multiple times while walking his dog last year.

When you have Nuno Bettencourt bowing down before you, you know you’re in for something special, and Lee’s fluid renditions of The Ultimate Sin (with Lzzy Hale) and Shot in the Dark (with David Draiman) were a reminder that he remains an underrated player in the pantheon of Ozzy six-stringers.

Bettencourt proved, as he so often does, to be the MVP of the show’s supergroup proceedings, tackling Bark at the Moon’s acrobatic leads alongside Vernon Reid; Sweet Leaf with David Draiman; Flying High Again with Sammy Hagar; and Walk This Way/Whole Lotta Love with surprise guest Steven Tyler. Ronnie Wood even sauntered up to play a sleazy The Train Kept A-Rollin’.

Other highlights included a rendition of Judas Priest’s Breaking the Law plus Sabbath’s Snowblind with K.K. Downing and the ‘metal Yardbirds’ Tom Morello, Adam Jones and Billy Corgan (who was sadly sans guitar), plus an onscreen rendition of Mr. Crowley featuring Jack Black along with Revel Ian (son of Scott) and Roman Morello (son of Tom).

There were two moments that gave me chills. The first was when Ozzy rose up out of the floor on a none-more-black throne complete with carving of a bat/demon thing.

His voice was better than anyone could have been expecting on I Don’t Know, and his five-song set rocketed by in a blur of Zakk Wylde squealies. There was a touching tribute to fallen hero Randy Rhoads during the Crazy Train solo, where he appeared onscreen as Wylde blazed through the iconic lead.

The second goosebumps moment was hearing 40,000 people sing along to Iommi’s solo in War Pigs with equal, if not louder fervour, than Ozzy’s “Oh Lord, yeahs!” That, ladies and gentlemen, is when you know you’ve achieved guitar god status. The same can be said for Iron Man’s lumbering riff which, had it been released in a more metal-tolerant era, would have been a stadium chant long before Seven Nation Army.

Bar a brief chord fumble in the outro of War Pigs, Iommi was absolutely unimpeachable. After eight hours of hearing other guitarists take their own shots at his riffs and solos, you realize that – even with a lifetime of study and influence – it is impossible to come close.

There’s a paradoxical relaxedness about Iommi’s style. Combined with Bill Ward’s (this evening, inexplicably topless) drumming, it has a drag and swagger. Maybe it’s the effect of those prosthetic fingertips, but there’s something about the behind-the-beat timing, the calm confidence that makes Iommi’s command of the fretboard so disconcerting.

In N.I.B., he summons lightning strikes of pentatonic flurries and blood-curdling bends: he’s far from the fastest player here today, but easily the most recognizable from tone alone.

One quick blast through Paranoid – never the most representative of Sabbath’s oeuvre, but among the most fun – and it’s over. We’re unlikely to see Ozzy onstage again, but his voice will echo through the ages.

Iommi hasn’t hung up his SGs just yet, though. He’s still on fine form – and there remains the tantalizing prospect of a new solo album (and collaborative record with his old mate Brian May).

But should he decide to call it a day, he can be left in no doubt that he changed the course of music history – and, as Back to the Beginning showed, every band with even the mildest heavy leanings owes him a debt of gratitude.

Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates bid farewell last night (July 5) at a star-studded final show in their hometown of Birmingham, UK.

Back to the Beginning was all-day affair that started at 1.30pm and continued for nine hours as rock and metal’s biggest names lined up to pay tribute to the band who gave birth to the genre they hold dear.

Organized by Rage Against the Machine guitarist (and Ozzy super-fan) Tom Morello, the event featured arguably the greatest lineup of rock and metal bands ever assembled on one day.

Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice In Chains, Gojira, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon all performed whistle-stop 15-minute sets, each featuring their own take on an Ozzy or Sabbath classic.

Interspersed with the full band sets were a series of supergroups, which paved the way for a parade of guitar heroes to join the fray.

Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt had a five-song set of covers, while ex-Ozzy guitarist Jake E Lee made an appearance for covers of The Ultimate Sin and Shot in the Dark.

Sabbath’s fellow Birmingham rockers Judas Priest were honored with a rendition of Breaking the Law featuring Billy Corgan, Tom Morello, K.K. Downing and Adam Jones, while Living Colour’s Vernon Reid hopped onstage for Bark at the Moon with Ghost’s Papa V Perpetua (aka Tobias Forge).

The day’s biggest surprise was the appearance of Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler accompanied by Ronnie Wood for The Train Kept A-Rollin’, before Ozzy producer Andrew Watt was joined by Morello and Bettencourt as Tyler gamely tore through Walk This Way and Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love.

The evening was closed, of course, by a five-song set from Ozzy, who performed in a suitably gothic chair, flanked as usual by Zakk Wylde, before Black Sabbath brought the night to a close with four songs of their own.

The full setlist is below.

Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning setlist

Mastodon

1. Black Tongue
2. Blood and Thunder
3. Supernaut (with Mario Duplantier, Danny Carey and Eloy Casagrande)

Rival Sons

4. Do Your Worst
5. Electric Funeral
6. Secret

Anthrax

7. Indians
8. Into the Void

Halestorm

9. Love Bites (So Do I)
10. Rain Your Blood on Me
11. Perry Mason

Lamb of God

12. Laid to Rest
13. Redneck
14. Children of the Grave

Supergroup A

15. The Ultimate Sin (with Lzzy Hale, Nuno Bettencourt, Jake E Lee, David Ellefson, Mike Bordin and Adam Wakeman)
16. Shot in the Dark (with David Draiman, Jake E Lee, David Ellefson, Mike Bordin and Adam Wakeman)
17. Sweet Leaf (with David Draiman, Nuno Bettencourt, Scott Ian, David Ellefson, Mike Bordin and Adam Wakeman)
18. Believer (with Whitfield Crane, Nuno Bettencourt, Scott Ian, Frank Bello, II [Sleep Token] and Adam Wakeman)
19. Changes (with Yungblud, Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Bello, II and Adam Wakeman)
20. Mr. Crowley (with Jack Black, plus Revel Ian, Roman Morello and other young musicians on screen)

Alice In Chains

21. Man in the Box
22. Would?
23. Fairies Wear Boots

Gojira

24. Stranded
25. Silvera
26. Mea culpa (Ah! Ça ira!) (with Marina Viotti)
27. Under the Sun

Drum Off

28. Symptom Of The Universe (with Chad Smith, Travis Barker and Danny Carey, plus Tom Morello, Nuno Bettencourt and Rudy Sarzo)

Supergroup B

29. Breaking the Law (with Billy Corgan, Tom Morello, K.K. Downing, Adam Jones, Rudy Sarzo and Danny Carey)
30. Snowblind (with Billy Corgan, Tom Morello, K.K. Downing, Adam Jones, Rudy Sarzo and Danny Carey)
31. Flying High Again (with Sammy Hagar, Nuno Bettencourt, Adam Wakeman, Rudy Sarzo, Chad Smith and Vernon Reid)
32. Rock Candy (with Sammy Hagar, Nuno Bettencourt, Adam Wakeman, Rudy Sarzo, Chad Smith and Tom Morello)
33. Bark at the Moon (with Papa V Perpetua, Vernon Reid, Nuno Bettencourt, Adam Wakeman, Rudy Sarzo and Travis Barker)
34. The Train Kept A-Rollin' (with Steven Tyler, Ron Wood, Nuno Bettencourt, Tom Morello, Andrew Watt, Rudy Sarzo and Travis Barker)
35. Walk This Way / Whole Lotta Love (with Steven Tyler, Nuno Bettencourt, Tom Morello, Andrew Watt, Rudy Sarzo and Chad Smith)

Pantera

36. Cowboys From Hell
37. Walk
38. Planet Caravan
39. Electric Funeral

Tool

40. Forty Six & 2
41. Hand of Doom
42. Ænema

Slayer

43. Disciple
44. War Ensemble
45. Wicked World
46. South of Heaven
47. Raining Blood
48. Angel of Death

Guns N' Roses

49. Never Say Die
50. Junior's Eyes
51. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
52. Welcome to the Jungle
53. Paradise City

Metallica

54. Hole in the Sky
55. Creeping Death
56. For Whom the Bell Tolls
57. Johnny Blade
58. Battery
59. Master of Puppets

Ozzy Osbourne

60. I Don't Know
61. Mr. Crowley
62. Suicide Solution
63. Mama, I'm Coming Home
64. Crazy Train

Black Sabbath

65. War Pigs
66. N.I.B.
67. Iron Man
68. Paranoid

It saddens us to write this, but Glastonbury – the U.K.’s most prestigious music festival and one of the biggest in the world, which plays host to the best artists around the globe over a stacked weekend lineup – is officially over for another year.

That means, as the campsites get cleared up and the Pyramid Stage starts to make its way into storage, we can sit back and reflect on what has easily been the finest three days of live music this year has seen so far.

Of course, the Glasto lineup is always a diverse cast, but one thing remains constant: the show will always be stolen by some iconic electric guitar moments, and 2025 was no different. In fact, across the 3,000 performers at Worthy Farm, the biggest musical moments largely played out with a guitar in the picture.

Neil Young’s headline-making set, for example, had a de facto special guest in the form of Hank William’s iconic Martin D-28 – also played by Bob Dylan in the past – which was brought out for Looking Forward.

At the other end of the generational spectrum, Olivia Rodrigo’s history-making set was littered with guitar moments. While the singer herself stuck to offset Fenders, her bandmates Arianna Powell and Daisy Spencer opted for Jackson and Charvels, and Shabat offsets, respectively, in a move that continued the metal/pop guitar crossover that has gained steam over the past few years, thanks to the likes of Phoebe Bridgers.

In a similar vein, Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers flipped the script by playing a B.C. Rich Mockinbird (which, Guitar World has been reliably informed, was found on eBay a few weeks ago) and a Kramer Jersey Star, while Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell soundtracked her indie rock set with help from a Gretsch Super Chet jazz box.

Jackson’s domineering presence was certainly a theme this year, and hardcore punk outfit Turnstile – one of the heaviest bands on the lineup, following Deftones’ late cancellation – further repped the shred brand as guitarists Pat McRory and Meg Mills brought out a pair of Soloists of their own.

Then we have Matty Healy, who took to the stage with The 1975 playing a Masterbuilt Levi Perry Fender Telecaster loaded with fuzz and delay circuits, and Glass Beams, whose penchant for oddball builds was further demonstrated thanks to an especially bonkers Maton Ibis.

Stills and clips from the shows – which once again prove the rude health of the guitar in contemporary music – can be found above and below.

Yungblud capped the second edition of his grassroots musical festival, Bludfest, by inviting a fan onstage to play Fleabag.

The Epiphone signature artist picked 15-year-old Thomas Addenbrooke from Oxford, England, to join him on stage, with the pair tearing through his 2021 hit in front of 30,000 fans at Milton Keynes Bowl.

Launched in 2024, Bludfest was created to showcase top-tier talent at affordable prices. Yungblud had pledged to “cut the corporate bollocks” and put fans first.

He’s taken that ethos to heart and, incredibly, it was only the second time Addenbrooke had performed live, according to the Oxford Mail. His first was at an open mic night at an Oxford café.

The teenager played one of Yungblud’s Epiphone Junior signature guitars for the performance, his hair impressively spikey and serving early Sum 41 vibes with aplomb. As per the video below, he shows absolutely no nerves as he struts around the stage with unbridled confidence. It's a joy to see.

Yungblud has been making a habit of fan jams, having done likewise at last year’s inaugural bash. Those who join the guitarist and his band on stage have walked away with his signature SG Junior.

Discussing his guitar giveaways with Total Guitar last year, he said, “We’d been sent some cool prototypes to tour with. I wanted to try them out and switch between my main ’60s Gibson and the Epiphones. I started to mix and match on stage.

“We were headlining a festival in Prague, and I asked the crowd, ‘Does anyone want to come up and play this next song with us? Does anyone actually know how to play it?’ Everyone went a bit mad and it was crazy looking at 60,000 people screaming, ‘Yeah!’ There was one kid in the middle screaming, ‘Me!’ I got him up, his name was Simon, and it was like we’d been playing with him our entire lives.

“I handed him the guitar at the end, saying, ‘You can keep that!’ And the next day it had millions of views.”

Addenbrooke is the latest benefactor of the trend, pocketing a P-90-equipped Junior for his efforts. Not bad for his second gig.

But Addenbrooke isn’t the only one getting his hands on a new guitar: Yungblud himself was afforded the chance to play Steve Jones’ Sex Pistols Les Paul on stage last year. The guitar was bought at auction for $390,000, and its owners have been putting it in the hands of some big-name players, including Billie Joe Armstrong and Deryck Whibley.

Any Smashing Pumpkins fan missing the Melissa Auf der Maur era was in for a treat last Friday in Montreal, as the former Pumpkins and Hole bass guitar hero joined Corgan and his new band, the Machines of God, on stage in her hometown.

She joined the band for the encore track The Everlasting Gaze in Montreal, Canada, on June 13 as the newly formed group celebrated the Pumpkins’ turn-of-the-century material.

According to fan footage, the bassist even recalled her first-ever conversation with Corgan.

“Billy, do you remember the first words we ever exchanged, on July 23rd, 1991?” she asked the Pumpkins frontman. “I walk to the side of the stage after you played I Am One, and you were packing up your gear, and do you remember what I said?” He quipped, “I love you, never leave?”

“Very close,” she added with a laugh. “I said, ‘On behalf of Montreal, Canada, I apologize for the broken beer bottle that was thrown at him, and I am Melissa from Montreal and I will follow you ’til the end of time.’”

The band – spearheaded by Auf der Maur – then launched into the final song on the setlist – The Everlasting Gaze from 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God, an apt nod to Auf der Maur’s era with the Pumpkins.

In a video posted to the Pumpkins’ socials, Corgan and his former bandmate share a warm embrace before digging into the song’s hardened groove. Their chemistry is tangible, even in a phone-filmed video.

The former Hole bassist joined Corgan’s crew for one year in 1999. She held down the low-end across the Sacred and Profane tour, and features in a number of music videos from that period. Her time ended when Corgan disbanded the group, which she knew about from the offset.

Speaking to Bass Player last year about her time with two of the bands that defined ’90s rock, she said, “Courtney and Billy were both very different. But I have so much respect for both of them. My time with Hole was more character definition, creating me as a person, and then my crash course in music, one on one, was with the Pumpkins, who refined and defined my musicianship.

“Billy in particular: his level of efficiency and musicianship and his commitment to art was pretty remarkable. He was a real mentor in that way.”

“It was just a very dramatic coincidence. Billy said, ‘You're gonna be in my band!’ And I couldn't say no, because it was a dream come true,” she continues. “It was fulfilling a teenage fantasy but it was also the best music lesson of my life.

“I knew it was only for one year because they told me they were splitting up. And knowing I was going to be taught their back catalog was incredible.”

Corgan, meanwhile, has said his new project is focused on fusing classics with deep cuts. Material from Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, Machina/The Machines of God, and Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, as well as 2024 release, Aghori Mhori Me, will feature.

“The A Return to Zero Tour,” he adds, “reintroduces a four-piece, two-guitar lineup in which music from these seminal Pumpkins albums were created.” Now Auf der Maur, who was a key player in the band’s purple patch, has also been reintroduced.

She reprised her spot in the band for, quite possibly, one last time, giving her hometown Pumpkins fans a moment to savor.

Billy Corgan is also set to star in a supergroup with Tom Morello and Tool's Danny Carey at Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning as heavy metal's forefathers bow out with one hell of a party.

Duane Eddy. The very name is synonymous with a sound: simple melodies played on the low strings, enhanced with tremolo, deep reverb and a feathering of the whammy bar. In a word – the word that became Eddy’s badge of distinction for over 60 years – twang.

On a chilly April night at the Opry House, the iconic home of Nashville's century-old Grand Ole Opry radio show, a star-studded roster is taking to the stage for the Titan Of Twang: A Celebration of Duane Eddy.

Guitar World is here to pay our own respects, following his death last year and to try to figure out what it is about Eddy”s playing that can still draw together a line-up of guitar greats classic and contemporary.

The bill sees the likes of Peter Frampton, Vince Gill and Albert Lee rubbing shoulders with Grace Bowers and blues-rock firebrand Toby Lee. Joe Bonamassa is in the building, as is Steve Earle, JD McPherson, and a host of other musical talent.

The glowing image of Eddy watches proceedings from above, and at stage right, in a spotlight, his trademark Gretsch 6120 sits with his fedora on the headstock.

“His sound was really compelling because it was not a ton of information,” Vince Gill says ahead of his performance. “It was minimal, part-driven and always memorable. For guitarists it’s a great lesson to relearn, over and over again, how important the melody is.”

Many in the audience are of a vintage who can remember buying Eddy singles like Rebel Rouser and Peter Gunn in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Yet what unfolds over the next two-and-a-half hours is a testament to how his influence has not only cut across genres, but generations.

Those thundering Eddy lines have become a key part of the DNA of rock guitar and, whether modern players remain conscious of it or not, his playing is a building block for the instrument.

Eddy was born in New York in 1938 and started playing guitar at age five. When he was a teenager his family moved to Phoenix. The vastness of the surrounding desert set him dreaming of how he might convey it with his guitar.

Later, working with producer Lee Hazlewood, that’s exactly what he did – scoring a staggering 34 Top 40 hits in the US and UK, including Rebel Rouser, Cannonball and Movin’ and Groovin’.

It’s easy to forget the sheer scale of his success – and that he did it all through instrumental tracks, letting his guitar do the talking. Indeed, he remains the most successful instrumentalist of the rock era.

The Titan of Twang show is both a tribute and a timely reminder of his legacy. Covers of those early hits conjure up a lost era of beach parties (McPherson on Yep and Ramrod) drag races (Albert Lee on Forty Miles Of Bad Road) and spy capers (Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn).

While songs inspired directly by Eddy – Steve Earle’s Guitar Town, Bill Lloyd’s Whoa!, Toby Lee’s Stingray and Molly Tuttle and Grace Bower’s White Rabbit – show that his sound still reverberates through country, blues, psychedelia, rock ’n’ roll and even jazz.

The latter is evident in Joe Bonamassa’s swinging cover of Bye Bye Blues, taken from Eddy’s 1967 album The Roaring Twangies. Lacing the melody between stair-stepping horn lines and walking bass, Bonamassa cops Eddy’s signature sound, with a touch of Les Paul thrown in. “I’ve been practicing that all week!” he tells the crowd.

“Duane Eddy was one of those incredibly rare guitar players who didn't need a vocalist to sing a song,” is how Bonamassa puts it, direct to Guitar World.

“His use of space, sound, vibrato, and songwriting transcended anything that could have been sung over those songs – Peter Gunn doesn't need a vocal – and he created a sound that we all copy today.

“Before he created that sound, nothing sounded like it. He just used simple gear to create this wonderful twang that had never been done before. None of the musical instrument manufacturers envisioned that their equipment would be used in such a way to create such a sound."

The blues ace is followed tonight by Gill (who’s flown in from the Eagles’ residency at the Las Vegas Sphere) trading tasteful, steel-like licks with Bowers on country weeper Making Believe and his own hit Whenever You Come Around.

Of all the accomplished players on the bill, the one who sounds most in tune with Eddy’s spirit is Albert Lee. He knew him first as a fan, then as a friend.

“I saw him play the infamous concert at the Lewisham Odeon,” Lee tells Guitar World, referencing Eddy’s breakthrough show in England, in 1960.

“He was opening for Bobby Darin and the audience were going, ‘We want Duane! We want Duane!’ Poor Bobby was backstage, almost in tears – from there on, Duane finished the shows out.”

Music paper Disc said of that show: “The twang flooded the auditorium until the very walls vibrated. Duane tried at first to announce the numbers, but the roar of applause was as unstoppable as Niagara Falls.”

It’s not surprising the moment left an impression. Years later – following his dismissal from Eric Clapton’s notorious late ’70s band – Lee got to know Eddy through his work with mutual friends the Everly Brothers, and fondly remembers Eddy stopping by his house with his old Gretsch.

“Later I did a gig with him at the Baked Potato in LA,” Lee recalls. “Eric was in the audience with Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer; they were there digging us! They’d come to see Duane, not knowing I was playing second guitar with him.”

Eddy made being a guitarist look cool to a generation of teenagers – Clapton, Beck and Albert Lee, included.

On the cover of his 1958 debut Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel, he’s perched on a hardshell case, quiffed and staring pensively, looking like a cross between James Dean and Jack Kerouac – he’s the hipster troubadour.

The instrument inside that case, an orange Gretsch 6120 hollow-body, still holds sway over guitarists. In the Opry lobby there’s a long line at the Gretsch Guitars booth, players waiting to try the latest DE series reissues. Along with Chet Atkins and George Harrison, Eddy is probably the best salesman the brand have had.

Speaking of Harrison, the show is interspersed with video messages from artists and fans, one of whom is Harrison’s widow, Olivia.

She recalls how George was excited and nervous when he got to record two songs with for Eddy’s 1987 self-titled album – The Trembler and Theme For Something Really Important. “He was like a kid meeting his hero,” she recalls.

In turn, it reminds me of a great quote from Harrison: “When The Beatles played a low E, it sounded like a low E. When Duane plays it, it sounds an octave lower!”

Another message of love is beamed in from Bruce Springsteen. Holding his Telecaster backstage before a show, he says, “Without Duane Eddy, there’d be no…” He picks the low-string riff from Born To Run and signs off with: “Duane, rest in peace, and play on in that big house of a thousand guitars. We love you.”

The Opry House feels a fitting venue for the tribute given its poignant location in the city Eddy called home from 1985. The ace backing band includes local session cats who’d collaborated with him, including guitarist-producer Richard Bennett, E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent and Linda Ronstadt’s steel guitarist Dan Dugmore.

After Frampton closes his set with Rebel Rouser and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, everyone gathers on stage for the finale of Peter Gunn. and we see what’s surely the best part of Eddy's legacy: the pure joy of playing a riff on the guitar.

Buddy Miller perhaps describes it best: “Duane was the master of cool. His sound had such elegance and tone. But really, it was all in his hands – and in his heart.”

• Titan Of Twang: A Celebration of Duane Eddy will be aired by NPT in the near future.

Less than a week after Eddie Vedder donned Jack White’s signature Acoustasonic for a rampaging deep cut, Pearl Jam welcomed Peter Frampton to the stage for a fresh rendition of Black.

The band's Nashville stop on May 8 provided the ideal opportunity to link up with one of their earliest guitar heroes, with Frampton and Mike McCready trading licks as Eddie Vedder teased Frampton's mega-hit, Do You Feel Like We Do.

“This gentleman was someone we looked up to before the Ramones,” Vedder told the crowd prior to Frampton’s arrival. “Some of our first guitar heroes, [like] Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend, he was right up there.

“It was one of [the] reasons why we loved live records, and later we decided to release bootlegs because of his influence,” he adds, alluding to Frampton’s celebrated live LP, Frampton Comes Alive!

“He’s such an incredible human being on top of it. It is our honor because at this point he’s become a good friend to the group. He’s recorded with Mike [McCready] and [drummer] Matt Cameron [the pair guested on Frampton's 2006 album, Fingerprints, covering Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun] and we get to play with him tonight.”

The Les Paul-loving guitarist, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, is having to adapt his playing as he battles a degenerative disease, but he has said he will continue to play guitar for the rest of his life – and as this spot shows, he’s still got oodles of class.

Frampton takes the first solo, delivering soulful licks with a tender sprinkling of overdrive before McCready – wielding an all-white Stratocaster for the occasion – weaves the song's motif around his improvised playing. And Frampton looks to be loving every second of it, with the Nashville crowd in full voice throughout.

The guitarist will embark on one final tour later this year, having made a surprise appearance at NAMM 2025. In March, he played a Beatles classic with Grace Bowers and Trey Anastasio and there were guitar solos galore.

“Every note I play now is so much more important because I know one of the notes will be the last I play,” he commented of his playing.

His diagnosis of inclusion body myositis (IBM) – a degenerative condition that affects the legs, arms, wrists, and fingers – has already forced him to perform seated, and prompted him to announce a farewell tour in 2019. But the pull of the stage is strong, and Frampton is proving defiant in the face of adversity.

It’s a quality Andy Timmons has been quick to acknowledge – “Even in the face of adversity he still plays with complete joy,” he has said – and, after penning a song in tribute to him, Frampton ended up guesting on it.

The Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir recently made a surprise guest appearance with the Best of All Worlds band, playing Sammy Hagar's Gibson Explorer alongside Joe Satriani and co. for a rendition of Montrose's Bad Motor Scooter earlier this week (May 7).

The red rocker is in the middle of his Las Vegas residency with his Van Halen-honoring band – whose lineup comprises Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Kenny Aronoff – at the Park MGM. Weir and John Mayer, meanwhile, have been making The Sphere their second home during their second residency at the futuristic venue across the city.

Dead & Company have been enjoying some downtime recently, with their tour schedule set to resume tonight (May 9). However, Hagar wasted no time seizing the opportunity to get his long-time friend up on stage to play the Montrose classic.

“Bob is fearless,” Hagar wrote on Instagram after the event. “He’s always willing to take chances with music of any kind. This was a blast.”

The clip first shows the band running through the track backstage, with Weir playing a Les Paul. But it's Hagar's go-to Explorer that he takes to the stage, and which he uses to deliver an improvised, scrappy-in-a-joyfully-free-flowing-way, solo.

When they aren't supping tequila together, Hagar and Weir are always grabbing the chance to jam. In 2018, Weir joined Chickenfoot to jam Otis Redding with Taj Mahal and REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin during the Acoustic-4-a-Cure concert.

The 2023 edition of the event also saw the revival of the Hagar/Weir partnership, with Taj Mahal, Michael Anthony, and singer-songwriter Chris Isaak also present.

At 77, Hagar has said he prefers residencies to the rigors of touring city-to-city, which explains his current residency slot.

Weir’s own Las Vegas residencies haven’t been without note, either. John Mayer has played Jeff Beck’s Custom Strat at select shows, as well as an off-the-shelf Jerry Garcia Strat replica that was “too good to put down.”

In related news, Mayer also revealed the secret hiding place for his amps as he battles with the venue's stage volume limitations. During their first residency, a hand injury forced him to rethink his playing style.

Weir, who dropped his third signature D’Angelico last August, says he and Mayer have learned a lot about one another from a decade of guitar partnership, believing they now enjoy a “telepathic relationship.”

Jack White is continuing to share his signature guitars with players he admires, recently gifting Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder one of his signature Fender Acoustasonics – which was used onstage in Nashville to play Green Disease.

The fuzz-loving White Stripes hero dropped a score of signature Fender gear last year, including the mod-heavy Triplecaster, an amp with plenty of tricks up its (metaphorical) sleeve, and a new take on Fender's intriguing electric-acoustic hybrid, the Acoustasonic.

Vedder was gifted the latter, and it was promptly given its live debut in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Music City on May 6.

“This is my new guitar, given to me by Mr. Jack White, another future Hall of Famer. He's such a great human,” Vedder told the crowd.

Discussing White's Third Man Hardware company, which has also put out some drool-inducing pedals like the Knife Drop, Vedder adds, “You wanna know the secret between having a quality product and making money? The secret is you won't make money, but you'll make people happy.

“That's what we've seen Jack do. I'm very proud to be his friend, and thank you Jack for my nice new guitar.”

The attitude and punk-powered Green Disease was a fitting song choice, with Vedder laying into the strings with plenty of vigor.

Vedder joins a growing list of players to have snagged a taste of White's latest signature gear. White made an impromptu signature swap with Living Color’s Vernon Reid after they bumped into one another at an airport, while Kirk Hammett has joked that “Greeny is getting a bit jealous” after his legendary Les Paul watched from the sidelines as he took the Triplecaster for a spin. White also got a Greeny production model in return and was once afforded the opportunity to play the original Greeny on stage.

White has also used his signature collection to shine a light on lesser-known talents: he gifted his favorite new guitarist, who is based out in Japan, a Triplecaster.

Jack White, as a member of the White Stripes, will follow Soundgarden and some other long-overdue talents into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year. The guitarist is responsible for writing one of the most Googled guitar riffs, which came together almost by accident during a soundcheck in Australia.

He took to Instagram earlier this year for an impassioned rant about his approach to playing live and why you’ll never see him play a three-hour show. In November, he joined Paul McCartney on stage in Mexico to jam the Beatles.

Guns N’ Roses are back out on the road and have continued a heartfelt tradition by bolstering their setlist with a Thin Lizzy classic – which has seemingly been included as a tribute to the late John Sykes.

Slash and co. are currently out in Asia, and during their show at the K-Arena Yokohama in Yokohama, Japan, on May 5, bass player Duff McKagan assumed vocal duties for a cover of Thunder and Lightning.

The song is taken from Thin Lizzy's 1983 album of the same name, which proved to be the band's last LP following Phil Lynott's passing in 1986. It was the only Thin Lizzy record to feature guitarist John Sykes, who was brought in to replace Snowy White. The record was one Lizzy's heaviest outings, boasting a heavy metal panache with Brian Downey on drums and Sykes' union with Scott Gorham proving fruitful.

Sykes, who passed away aged 65 in December last year, would go on to join Whitesnake for a two-album spell afterward, and it seems Guns are using the song as a way to pay tribute to the underrated guitarist.

Going off fan-filmed footage, the song gets no introduction, but it does see Slash swap his trusty Les Paul for a black Gibson SG, which is a rare sight.

The bassist's voice helps give the song a strong punk flavor – it already had the snarling attitude – but it is Slash and Richard Fortus’ interweaving lead lines around the 2:30 mark that really steal the show. They have no right to make countering guitar solos work as well as that. Slash solos a handful of other times across the song, his wah pedal seeing plenty of action throughout.

“Mr. Duff McKagan,” Axl Rose can be heard bellowing above the applause once the final notes had rung out. “A little thunder and lightning.”

Tributes poured in for Sykes after news of his passing broke. Elsewhere, Steve Vai – who had to follow in his wake in Whitesnake – recently spoke about the challenge he faced when it came to following in his footsteps.

It's not the first time GNR have paid tribute to late guitar heroes during their sets. In the wake of Chris Cornell's untimely passing in 2017, Soundgarden's set list staple Black Hole Sun was weaved into their live shows as a mark of respect.

McKagan would go on to front the surviving members of Soundgarden during a charity show late last year, and it’s been confirmed the band will get together again for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction later this year.

Guns’ latest tour run, which began at South Korea’s Songdo Moonlight Festival Park on May 1st, is the first tour to feature new drummer Isaac Carpenter who was announced just 24 hours after the departure of long-serving stickman Frank Ferrer.

In April, Slash made a surprise appearance at former Hannoi Rocks singer Michael Monroe’s show at the Whisky A-Go-Go, Les Paul, top hat and all.

The 2025 American Music Honors, presented by the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, honored some bona fide legends with a star-studded event saluting guitarists and singer-songwriters from across the musical spectrum.

Among them was Tom Morello, John Fogerty, Joe Ely, and Emmylou Harris, as well as the multi-hyphenate crooner Smokey Robinson. All honorees were in attendance, except for Ely, who could not make it to the ceremony due to health issues.

Bruce Springsteen himself and members of the E Street Band were also present, with the Boss playing host and wielding his Fender Tele to perform with some of the honorees.

“If I hear my name again, I’m going to fucking throw up,” Springsteen joked when he took podium. “Let’s talk about someone else.”

And with that, the spotlight shifted to the veritable list of honorees. Tom Morello graced the audience with his take on Springsteen’s Woody Guthrie-inspired The Ghost of Tom Joad – using his Arm the Homeless custom guitar – and delivering a searing, rage-filled solo reminiscent of Hendrix's iconic Star-Spangled Banner Woodstock performance.

“That is called ‘playing the shit out of the guitar!’” commented Brian Williams, the evening's official host, right after the Rage Against the Machine guitarist’s performance.

Fogerty performed Creedence Clearwater Revival classics Bad Moon Rising, Proud Mary, and Fortunate Son on a rented black Gibson Les Paul Custom – a performance made even more emotional by his long battle to reclaim the rights to his catalog.

“Inside I knew I loved music, and the rest of it just kind of burned me out," he asserted. "The worst part about it was I didn’t own my own songs. So, it became a lifetime battle… For a long time, I didn’t even sing my own songs because I was so angry or bitter about the whole thing. But I still loved music. Music is my best friend.”

Emmylou Harris was accompanied by Patti Scialfa – who called Harris “one of my favorite artists in the world” – in performing Red Dirt Girl, from the veteran artist's 19th studio album of the same name, while Steven Van Zandt honored Robinson and joined him for a spirited duet of Tears of a Clown.

“I have singer heroes, songwriter heroes, song arranger heroes, and music producer heroes, and when you have all of them in the same guy, you get Smokey Robinson,” said Van Zandt. “One can obviously connect a dozen of my songs to his influence.”

The encore saw Springsteen join forces with both Van Zandt and Robinson for their own rendition of The Miracles' Going to a Go-Go, before 2024's honoree Jackson Browne joined the supergroup for a raucous take on Take It Easy, the Eagles' debut single.

The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music aims to preserve the legacy of the Boss – while also celebrating the history and breadth of American music. The research center is currently located on the Monmouth University campus, with a new 30,000-square-foot facility scheduled to open in spring 2026.

In other Springsteen news, Shayne Fontayne recently opened up about the challenges of filling the shoes of Steven Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren as the Boss’s guitarist during the 1992–1993 “Other Band” Tour.