The film, shot in Paris last year, will premiere on June 5, but will have a limited cinema in 20 countries run ahead of its global release.
The screenings will also include a preview of an “intimate behind the scenes documentary”, which will apparently lay bare “the emotional and physical trials” the band had to overcome in order to create the film.
The Los Angeles band’s performance in the eerie tunnels beneath the French capital, the final resting place for millions of French citizens, interred in the 1700s, is said to represent the fulfilment of a long-held dream for QOTSA frontman Josh Homme, who first visited the location almost 20 years ago. No band had ever before been granted permission to play in the Catacombs, which made the group’s stripped-back set, augmented by a three-piece string section, genuinely historic.
A press statement for the film reads: “Every aesthetic decision, every choice of song, every configuration of instruments… absolutely everything was planned and played with deference to the Catacombs- from the acoustics and ambient sounds – dripping water, echoes and natural resonance – to the darkly atmospheric lighting tones that enhance the music. Far from the sound-insulated confines of the studio or the comfort of onstage monitors, Alive in the Catacombs sees the band not only rise to this challenge, but embrace it.”
Josh Homme stated, “We’re so stripped down because that place is so stripped down, which makes the music so stripped down, which makes the words so stripped down… It would be ridiculous to try to rock there. All those decisions were made by that space. That space dictates everything, it’s in charge. You do what you’re told when you’re in there.”
“If you’re ever going to be haunted, surrounded by several million dead people is the place. I’ve never felt so welcome in my life.”
Alive in the Catacombs global screening dates
Jun 03: MK2 Quai de Loire, Paris, France Jun 03: The Royal, Toronto, Canada Jun 03: Kino Konepaja, Helsinki, Finland
Jun 04: Prince Charles Cinema, London, UK Jun 04: Brain Dead Studios, Los Angeles, US Jun 04: Kino Central, Berlin, Germany Jun 04: Sphinx Cinema and Cafe, Ghent, Belgium Jun 04: Cineclub Cortina, Sao Paulo, Brasil Jun 04: Cinema Barberino, Rome, Italy Jun 04: Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Jun 05: Cinema Nova, Melbourne, Australia Jun 05: Cine Tonala, Mexico City, Mexico Jun 05: MONA / Dark Mofo – Hobart State Cinema, Tasmania, Australia Jun 05: Double Whammy, Auckland, New Zealand Jun 05: Empire Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark Jun 05: Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland Jun 05: Sala X, Madrid, Spain Jun 05: CGV Grand Indonesia West Mall, Jakarta, Indonesia Jun 05: EMU Cinema Space, Seoul, South Korea Jun 05: Cinema Oasis, Bangkok, Thailand
The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.
Queens of the Stone Age will play their first shows since summer 2024 next month.
Their US mini-tour kicks off with a pair of shows at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, on June 10 and 11. The band will travel to Europe to play shows in July and August, including an August 20 gig in Dublin, Ireland at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, and a headline performance at the Rock N Roll Circus at Sheffield’s Don Valley Bowl in England on August 27.
A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
(Image credit: Robert Plant: Michael Ochs Archives | Backstage pass: Prestor Pictures LLC / Alamy Stock Photo)
It’s April 15, 1977. Tonight Led Zeppelin play the ninth date of the second leg of their eleventh American tour. I’m on board Caesar’s Chariot, the band’s customised Boeing 707 jet. Named after the conquering emperor who was ultimately doomed by an addiction to his own glory, this gleaming, luxuriously appointed flying fortress now carries an invading force of a different kind.
Just hours earlier, Zeppelin had annihilated a sell-out audience of pagan revellers at the St Louis Blues Arena. Now we’re returning to Chicago where, for the next several weeks, the band have set up their base of operations for the tour.
This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 84 (September 2005)(Image credit: Future)
On the previous two tours, in 1973 and 1975, they adopted a similar strategy – positioning themselves in one location and then flying out to concerts. It’s the brainchild of tour manager Richard Cole, Zep manager Peter Grant’s first lieutenant and long-time ‘fixer’.
“It [Led Zeppelin’s 1977 tour] wasn’t a lot different to me from the ’75 tour,” Cole says. “It was the same process of working, you know. We had our 707 jet, and I worked out what cities were in range of Chicago. It was easier to leave at three or four in the afternoon, go to our plane and fly straight into the city we were performing in, leave straight afterwards and go back to Chicago.”
That’s where we’re headed now. I’ve been ensconced in Chicago’s Ambassador East Hotel for 11 days; a week-and-a-half of unchecked excess and dark rumblings. The former balanced the latter. The plane, for instance, has been refitted to include a bar, two bedrooms, a 30-foot couch, and a Hammond organ. Luxury comes at an uncomfortable price – the aircraft costs $2,500 per day to lease. Is it worth it? Who cares? Not Led Zeppelin.
Still, amid this luxury you can’t help but notice how drummer John Bonham lumbers about the cabin, a bottle of something in his hand, greeting everyone he encounters with barely concealed contempt. He walks past me, and I don’t dare make eye contact – it is one of the many instructions I’ve been given for my stay with Led Zeppelin.
Nurses do it better: Robert Plant onstage at the Oakland Coliseum, 1977 (Image credit: Ed Perlstein/Redferns)
On the day I arrived, a limo had been sent to the airport to collect me. Janine Safer, the group’s publicist, accompanied me as we rode to the hotel. Along the way she laid down five rules that had to be strictly adhered to while caught up in this travelling circus.
Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Rule 1: Never talk to anyone in the band unless they first talk to you. Rule 2: Do not talk to Peter Grant or Richard Cole – for any reason. Rule 3: Keep your cassette recorder turned off at all times unless conducting an interview. Rule 4: Never ask questions about anything other than music. Rule 5: Most importantly, understand this – the band will read what is written about them. The band do not like the press.
Only a couple days earlier was I finally granted my first audience with Jimmy Page. I had begun to think that it was never going to happen. Then my room phone rang and a voice informed me that Jimmy would see me now.
As I was ushered (you never walked anywhere within the hotel without an escort) into his spectacular suite, it was impossible not to notice the busted telephone hole in the wall and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s perched on his bedside table. The bottle was up-ended at regular intervals during our conversation, his speech becoming increasingly slurred and deliberate.
This was more than a guitarist getting drunk in the early afternoon – it’s 1977, Zeppelin’s eleventh US tour, and Page’s drinking habits have by now been well-documented. No, there’s more: an underlying current of anger in his every slowly muttered word, as if he’s in a constant posture of self-defence, or even paranoia. In fact, he’s ripped the telephone from the wall because he felt intruded upon and didn’t want spying ears listening in.
“I’ve got two different approaches,” Page explained, as he fiddled with the remnants of the broken telephone receiver. “I mean, on stage is totally different than the way I approach it in the studio. On Presence, I had control over all the contributing factors to that LP; the fact that it was done in three weeks, and all the rest of it, is so good for me. It was just good for everything, really, even though it was a very anxious point, and the anxiety shows group-wise, you know: ‘Is Robert [Plant] going to walk again from his auto accident in Greece?’ and all that sort of thing.”
Jimmy appears to be obviously still feeling the pain of that near-fatal accident. On August 4, 1975, Plant, his wife Maureen, Plant’s sister, their children and Page’s children were all in a rented car that skidded out of control. Robert suffered a broken ankle and elbow, and the children were severely bruised and traumatised.
And so the tour in 1977 kicked off under a black cloud. This is just a small taste of the underlying drama that seemed to envelop every aspect of the tour in a dark mist. No one realised it at the time, of course, but the ’77 jaunt would prove to be Led Zeppelin’s final fully-blown march across America – their swansong.
Led Zeppelin – Over the Hills and Far Away (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Upon boarding Caesar’s Chariot for the return from St Louis to Chicago, Janine Safer told me that the all-important follow-up interview with Jimmy may happen on tonight’s flight. You come to recognise, early on, that the Zeppelin machine is well-oiled and finely tuned. Schedules are maintained and rigidly enforced. If anything is going to happen, it’s because Zeppelin want it to – and when they want it to. They wield total control.
A short while later I am told that I can have 15 minutes with Jimmy (on a flight that lasts only 30). After reaching cruising altitude, I’m accompanied to the rear of the plane. Safer is on point, a monster of a security guard follows her, then me, and another security soldier brings up the rear. I greet Jimmy (it’s difficult to tell whether or not he recognises me), sit down, and we begin talking.
“When all the equipment came over here [to the US, for the tour], we had done our rehearsals, and we were really on top, really in tip-top form. Then Robert caught laryngitis and we had to postpone a lot of dates and reshuffle them, and I didn’t touch a guitar for five weeks. I got a bit panicky about that – after two years off the road, that’s a lot to think about. And I’m still only warming up; I still can’t co-ordinate a lot of the things I need to be doing. Getting by, but it’s not right; I don’t feel 100 per cent right yet.”
As I’m hunched over, trying to hear him above the din of the whirring white noise, from behind, a vice-like grip grabs my right shoulder. I’m thinking that was a fast 15 minutes, when I’m physically lifted from the seat and violently spun around. Standing before me is one seriously pissed-off John Paul Jones. And that’s when my world unravels.
“Rosen, you fucking cunt liar. I should fucking kill you.” The venom in his voice staggers me. I feel as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. But each time I shut my eyes and open them I’m still there, standing vulnerable on an aeroplane travelling at 600 miles an hour towards a destination I now don’t want to reach.
John Paul Jones in happier times (Image credit: Ed Perlstein/Redferns)
Two days ago it had been a different story. John Paul and I had spent some illuminating time together. No Jack Daniel’s, no busted phone, just a soft-spoken bass player telling me about how he met Page and got into this in the first place.
“I’d been doing sessions for three or four years, on and off,” he said. “I’d met Jimmy on sessions before; it was always Big Jim and Little Jim – Big Jim Sullivan [leading session guitarist] and Little Jim [Page] and myself and a drummer. Apart from group sessions where he’d play solos and stuff like that, Page always ended up on rhythm guitar because he couldn’t read [music] too well. He could read chord symbols and stuff, but he’d have to do anything they’d ask when he walked into a session. So I used to see a lot of him just sitting there with an acoustic guitar, sort of raking out chords.
“I always thought the bass player’s life was much more interesting in those days, because nobody knew how to write for bass, so they used to say: ‘We’ll give you the chord sheet, and get on with it.’ So even on the worst sessions you could have a little runaround…”
From there, Jones had got into working from home, arranging material for other people. “I joined Led Zeppelin, I suppose, after my missus said to me: ‘Will you stop moping around the house? Why don’t you join a band or something?’ And I said: ‘There’s no bands I want to join, what are you talking about?’ And she said: ‘Well, look, Jimmy Page is forming a group’; I think it was in Disc magazine. ‘Why don’t you give him a ring?’
“So I rang him up and said: ‘Jim, how you doing? Have you got a group yet?’ [He hadn’t.] And I said: ‘Well, if you want a bass player, give me a ring.’ And he said: ‘All right. I’m going up [to Birmingham] to see this singer that Terry Reid told me about, and he might know a drummer as well. I’ll call you when I’ve seen what they’re like.’
“He went up there, saw Robert Plant, and said: ‘This guy is really something.’ We started under the name the New Yardbirds, because nobody would book us under anything else. We rehearsed an act, an album and a tour in about three weeks, and it took off.
“The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other,” Jones had recalled of the band’s early days. “It was wall-to-wall amplifiers. Jimmy said: ‘Do you know a number called Train Kept A-Rollin’?’ I told him: ‘No.’ And he said: ‘It’s easy, just G to A.’ He counted it in… and the room just exploded. We said: ‘Right, we’re on. This is it, this is going to work!’ And we just built it up from there. [And now] I wouldn’t be without Zeppelin for the world.”
Led Zeppelin – Achilles Last Stand (Live in Los Angeles 1977) – YouTube
You couldn’t help but believe Jones. Led Zeppelin was his life and passion and he was forever protecting it, as he told me, from those who would try to run it down. He was talking about critics, in the main, journalists who would tell him how much they admired the band and then turn around and write scathing reviews.
Confronting me now on board the band’s plane was all that passion turned poisonous. The bassist hurls curse after curse. Although I’ve never been in a fight in my life, his veiled threats don’t cause me too much alarm. Jones, I felt, was someone against whom I could probably hold my own. The guys behind him, on the other hand… They shoot me with looks that convey a pretty simple message: make even the slightest motion towards this man before you and you’ll regret it.
At that point I notice there, in his right hand, a copy of Rock Guitarist. Jones has rolled it up into a tube and smacks it repeatedly into his open left palm. On the cover of the book is a picture of Jeff Beck; inside is the Jeff Beck interview I’d written some years earlier. I had brought copies for him and Jimmy; Jones and Page both knew Beck, of course, and I thought the gesture would present me with a bit of street cred.
But it’s this story that has made Jones go crazy. It was my breakthrough as a fledgling writer. In effect, it – and nearly a year’s worth of phone calls to the Swan Song offices in New York – had got me to Led Zeppelin. And now, after getting this close, it suddenly looks like I am going to leave empty-handed. For it’s at that moment that it hits me: the realisation that I have sent Jones off the deep end because I’ve betrayed his trust.
Repeatedly I told him how honoured I was to be on the road with him, and he believed what I said – until he read what I’d written in the Beck piece. The very thing that has brought me here is going to bury me. I had been warned. I should have remembered the fifth rule (‘the band read everything written about them’). For in the intro to the Jeff Beck piece, written three years previously, was the following assessment of Page’s early work: ‘A contemporary of Beck, Jimmy Page has failed to recreate the magic he performed as guitarist for The Yardbirds. Led Zeppelin started off as nothing more than a grandiose reproduction of Beck’s past work…’ and so on. It was stupid and ridiculous, and I’m ashamed to this day for writing it.
John Paul Jones stands before me, demanding all my interview tapes from this spell with the band be returned. I oblige instantly.
Jimmy Page onstage at Oakland Coliseum, 1977 (Image credit: Ed Perlstein/Redferns)
The JPJ encounter would finally resolve itself. But in order to put things in proper perspective it’s essential to understand the juggernaut that Led Zeppelin were at that time. By 1977 the quartet had nothing left to prove and no one left to prove it to. On April 30 that year, the band had set a new world record for the largest paid attendance at a single-artist performance when they drew 76,229 people to a concert at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. The show grossed a staggering $792,361 (also a new record), after having sold out in one – pre-internet, remember – day.
The previous year Led Zeppelin had swept the boards in Circus magazine’s readers’ poll, winning best band, guitarist, vocalist and songwriting team.
Also in 1976, the group released Presence, an album that revealed the band’s complex musical make-up (although it didn’t sell very well), followed later the same year by the soundtrack for The Song Remains The Same, the film revealing personality-through-indulgence. The hedonism it reflected would be carried to ridiculous extremes on Zeppelin’s ’77 tour.
Here was a band that lived life like superheroes. They were treated as kings, and couldn’t see – or refused to see – that they were being devoured by the very machine they had created. But when you were with them, you too became a part of their larger-than-life adventure.
“I’m sure we all felt a little invincible on this tour,” explained Gary Carnes, head of the lighting crew. “By being associated with Led Zeppelin, it seemed impossible not to have a false sense of power. I’m sure the band felt that way, and I know everyone on the road crew had a feeling of being invulnerable.”
I had arrived during the first leg of the tour, which began on April 1 in Dallas, Texas. Notwithstanding the record-breaking attendances and grosses that would come, everything seems filtered through a glass, darkly. No one is able to erase Plant’s near-disastrous car accident a couple years earlier, and now the 51-show, 30-city invasion kicks off a month late due to his contracting a throat infection. Additionally, Peter Grant has suffered through the ignominy, not to mention the emotional pain, of being dumped by his wife.
After only the second performance, in Chicago, Page is taken sick with what Jack Calmes describes as the “rockin’ pneumonia”. Calmes is head of Showco, the company that provided lights, sound, staging and logistics for the tour.
Led Zeppelin – Sick Again (Live in Los Angeles 1977) – YouTube
“There was an extraordinary amount of tension at the start of that ’77 tour,” Calmes recalled. “It just got off to a negative start. It was definitely much darker than any Zeppelin tour ever before that time [Calmes was involved in the 1973 and 1975 tours]. Zeppelin still had their moments of greatness, but some of the shows were grinding and not very inspired.”
Indeed, on the four or five performances I saw, the band felt as if they were merely playing by numbers. Although there was no opening act, and Zeppelin often played for more than three hours, the music seemed to have no life, no emotion. Many of the audiences grew unruly during the marathon performances, throwing firecrackers and various other objects at the stage; I saw more than one security man grab an offender and muscle them outside.
Gary Carnes, Showco’s lighting chief, had a bird’s eye view of every show. Sitting on stage about 10 feet in front of Page, he heard conversations, sotto voce, between the guitarist and singer.
“Quite often Robert would announce a song and Jimmy would go: ‘Robert, how does that song go?’ And Robert would sort of turn around and hum it to him. And Jimmy would go: ‘Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got it, I got it.’ Or Robert would announce a song and Jimmy would go into the wrong song. The times when Jimmy couldn’t remember how a song went were very, very rare, but it did happen.”
Led Zeppelin – Zeppelin at The Plaza Hotel June 1977 (Rare Film Series) – YouTube
Besides these problems inside the arenas, there were almost nightly rituals of crazed Zeppelin fans outside engaging in minor scuffles with local police. Prior to the St Louis show, I witnessed ardent but non-ticketed fans attempting to break through barricades. Roaming packs of hard-core Zep devotees threw beer cans and engaged in low-key mayhem.
During one arrival, Peter Grant emerged from his limo and walked over to a group of policemen holding at bay a crowd of rowdy would-be gatecrashers. Though I couldn’t hear specifically what the burly manager was saying, his actions were startlingly clear. He pointed to several of his own security crew and motioned them in the direction of the battling cops. Grant made certain no one entered the concert without a ticket.
Peter Grant, former bouncer and wrestler, was, in many respects, the physical embodiment of a lead zeppelin. Standing over six feet tall and weighing over 300 pounds, he used his intimidating presence to maintain order and keep his charges safe and worry-free. He was highly protective, and by ’77 insanely so. He isolated the band members as much as possible – hence the private plane and the ritualised hierarchy of security, handlers and crew.
He brooked no insubordination from his own people, and with outsiders his brand of justice was swift. His raison d’être was simple: to protect his band and their finances. When a bootlegger or unauthorised photographer was identified, it was a lucky offender who was let off with merely a severe verbal reprimand and confiscation of unauthorised merchandise or film. I never saw an incident escalate beyond that, but I was told about one.
“I took the plans and everything over to the band in England before this tour happened,” Showco’s president, Jack Calmes, recalls. “They had their offices on King’s Road and spent most of the time down the street in the pub. But we had a big meeting upstairs in Peter Grant’s office and they said: ‘Okay, Calmes [purposely mispronouncing his name as Calm-us, instead of the correct Cal- mees], what have you got for this tour?’
“So I stood up and gave my presentation, and showed them all these cool lighting effects and lasers, and said the price will be $17,500 per show. The whole room went dead silent. They looked at the window, and Bonham went over and raised the window – like they were going to throw me out of it. And they might have done it. Then after this drama went on for what seemed like a long time, they all just started laughing, because I’m sure I looked like I was about to shit my pants.”
Zeppelin humour. Well, no one was laughing when John Paul Jones confiscated my tapes. I can understand Calmes’s apprehension because that flight back to Chicago seemed interminable.
John Bonham onstage at Madison Square Garden (Image credit: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)
On arrival, we returned to the Ambassador East, and I packed my bags for an early-morning flight back to Los Angeles. Menacing scowls from bouncers had told me I was no longer welcome, and I made a hasty exit.
Janine Safer, the group’s publicist, had encouraged me to go and talk to John Paul, to try to explain my side of the story. I went down to his hotel suite, knocked on the door, and as it swung open my mind went blank, and I stood there, once again, like an idiot. As a failsafe, I had written him a letter. I handed it to him. He took it, and shocked me by returning my tapes. He told me he thought I was a low-life piece of shit and that I was the worst writer he’d ever read, but that I did have a responsibility to the magazine.
My Led Zeppelin story appeared in the July 1977 issue of Guitar Player. One evening, about a month after the Zeppelin road trip, I’m at the Starwood club in West Hollywood. I’m sitting with my brother, Mick, watching Detective, the band Swan Song were signing to the label.
Mick tells me John Paul Jones is in the corner and he’s walking this way. I’d told him about the encounter, so I figure he’s just goofing with me. Then I turn around and see Jonesy standing in front of me. I expect some sort of abuse. Instead he extends his hand in friendship. He had read my letter and understood that what I’d written in that Jeff Beck story had come from an inexperienced journalist. He loved the story.
Led Zeppelin – The Song Remains The Same Live (HD) – YouTube
After playing LA, Zeppelin flew to Oakland, North California, for the final dates of the tour. And what happened there breathed new life into the legend of the Led Zeppelin curse. It was a terrible way to finish.
“I was standing right by the trailer when all this went down,” recalls Jack Calmes. “Peter Grant’s kid [Warren] was there, and he walked into a secure area and one of Bill Graham [the promoter]’s guards moved him aside; he didn’t hurt him or anything. The Bindon brothers [John Bindon was a British thief and thug turned actor and security man] and Peter grabbed this guy, took him into one of the trailers, and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t in the trailer but I was right outside. This guy [Jim Matzorkis] was a pretty tough guy, and they were taking him apart in there.
“The Bindon brothers were thugs who were friends of Peter Grant’s and were on this whole tour as security guards. And they brought an element of darkness into this thing. The only thing I remember about John Bindon is that we were in The Roxy [in Los Angeles, prior to the Oakland shows] and he was in the back corner with Zeppelin, and he had his dick out, swinging it for a crowd of about 50 people that could see it [Bindon was famously well-endowed]. And John Bindon later stabbed this guy through the heart [he was acquitted of murder in ’79]; it sounds like something out of a blues song.”
Tour manager Richard Cole, another principal, takes up the story: “When the band came off the stage, Peter went after the guy with Johnny Bindon. I was outside the caravan with an iron bar, making sure no one could get in and get hold of them, because people were after Granty and Bindon then.
“The next day, the four of us got arrested. Fortunately, one of our security guys knew one of the guys on the SWAT. team, and said to them: ‘These guys aren’t dangerous, I’ve worked for them for years.’ So they asked Peter, John Bindon and John Bonham and myself to meet them. They handcuffed us, took us off to jail, and then they let us out after an hour or so and off we went.”
And if the saga of Led Zeppelin was being played out like an unfinished blues song, this wasn’t the final verse. The ’77 tour had taken a terrible toll on everyone – after Oakland, the band members separated: John Paul remained in California; Jimmy and Peter stayed in San Francisco; Bonham, Cole and Plant headed to New Orleans. Within hours of arriving at the Royal Orleans hotel, Robert received a call from his wife. The last verse was being written.
“The first phone call said his six-year-old son [Karac] was sick,” describes Cole. “The second phone call… Unfortunately Karac had died in that time.”
The song would never again remain the same. In 1979 Zeppelin played some warm-up dates at Denmark’s Falkonerteatret, and in August the two landmark UK shows at Knebworth. About a year later, on September 25, 1980, John Bonham was found dead.
“I will never forget the final words I heard Robert Plant say,” lighting director Gary Carnes sums up. “It would be my final show with them – my 59th. I was on stage at the second show at Knebworth. The band had just finished playing Stairway To Heaven. Robert stood there just looking out over a sea of screaming fans with cigarette lighters. It was a magical, mystical moment. He then walked to the edge of the stage with the microphone, and again just stood there looking. And then he said: ‘It is very, very hard to say… goodnight.’ It was an enchanting thing to witness. I will never forget that moment.”
This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 84 (September 2005)
Steven Rosen has been writing about the denizens of rock ‘n’ roll for the past 25 years. During this period, his work has appeared in dozens of publications including Guitar Player, Guitar World, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Creem, Circus, Musician, and a host of others.
In one must have been one of the most daunting performances of recent times, Ghost frontman Tobias Forge has sung Queen‘s classic Bohemian Rhapsody for a star-studded audience at this year’s Polar Music Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.
Watching on as Forge performed were Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, in addition to current frontman Adam Lambert, and Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf. So it’s no surprise that Forge initially sounds a little shaky and looks nervous, even behind the mask.
Forge was joined onstage by Opeth guitarist Fredrik Åkesson, who played on Ghost’s recent Skeletá album, and the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, who were originally founded in 1945.
The Polar Music Prize – described as the music world’s equivalent of the Nobel prize – is awarded every year to two or three musicians in contemporary and classical music, and Queen are one of this year’s recipients.
Receiving the award, Queen guitarist Brian May said, “In this special moment, I contemplate how that younger Brian May in 1974 would have felt if he knew that we would be living this kind of dream 50 years in the future.”
“When we started our band, we had ambitions, but never dreamed of the journey that was to follow,” said Roger Taylor. “We were fortunate in the fact that our four wildly different personalities came together to achieve a wonderful chemistry.”
Elsewhere during the ceremony, former Skid Row and current Michael Schenker singer Erik Grönwall performed Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy, while Adam Lambert sang Who Wants To Live Forever and Another One Bites The Dust.
Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Previous winners of the Polar Music Prize – set up by ABBA’s former manager Stig “Stikkan” Anderson in 1989 – include Paul McCartney, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Metallica, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.
Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazinesince 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.
(Image credit: Vertigo Records | Cat: Alexas_Fotos)
The mysterious woman on the cover of Black Sabbath‘s debut album is raffling her autograph to raise money for a cat rescue project. Louisa Livingstone, whose identity was revealed five years ago after decades of speculation, will sign a hand-written letter to the raffle winner.
“Many Black Sabbath fans have asked me online for my autograph and to this day nobody has one – for a variety of reasons!” says Livingstone. “But I have now decided, at this epic time with Black Sabbath doing their last ever gig, to raffle my autograph. This way, everyone gets a chance, for a minimal outlay.”
Tickets for the raffle cost just $1, with fans able to make multiple purchases to increase their chances of winning. The draw will take place on July 20, two weeks after the Sabbath show.
“The only other autographs of mine already floating around are minimal, if they even still exist,” says Livingstone. “[The autographs were] given on very rare occasions after stage performances at the National Theatre in London decades ago when I was acting in various plays including Lark Rise and Candleford.“
The mysterious object in Livingstone’s hands on the cover of Black Sabbath has always been the source of debate, although photographer Keith Macmillan insists it was a black cat.
“I think it might just be the way my hands are there,” Livingstone told Rolling Stone in 2020. “I’m sure I could remember if it was a cat.”
Livingstone also releases her own music under the name Indebra, although anyone expecting doom-laden riffs will be disappointed by the synth-friendly new song Anthem to Truth – See More, Oh Yeah. Although, to be fair, it is kinda spooky.
Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
“Black Sabbath is just not my kind of music,” she said in 2020. “I feel awful for saying it, because it’s probably not what people want to hear, but it isn’t particularly my kind of music. When I got the album, I gave it a listen and moved on.”
Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazinesince 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.
Iron Maiden have played the first show of their 50th-Anniversary Run For Your LivesTour. The band completed a 17-song set at the 12,500-capacity Papp László Sportaréna in Budapest, Hungary, and packed it with songs they haven’t played in years.
Maiden, with new drummer Simon Dawson behind the kit, opened with four songs from the Paul Di’Anno era in Murders In The Rue Morgue (which hasn’t been played since the Eddie Rips Up the World tour 20 years ago, Wrathchild, Killers (a song the band haven’t played this century) and Phantom Of The Opera.
Elsewhere, there was a return to the set for the much-loved epic Rime Of The Ancient Mariner for the first time in 15 years, while other returnees included The Clairvoyant, Powerslave, 2 Minutes To Midnight and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son.Full setlist below.
Despite Iron Maiden urging fans to keep their phones in their pockets during the tour, fan-shot video from the first show is already online (below)
Maiden return to the Sportaréna in Budapest for a second show tomorrow tonight (May 29), before travelling to the Czech Republic and a booking at Prague’s Letnany Airport. Full dates below.
More Run For Your Lives dates outside of Europe are expected to be announced soon, with the tour set to extend into 2026. A 50th-anniversary Maiden documentary film will come out later this year.
Iron Maiden setlist: Papp László Sportaréna, Budapest, Hungary
Murders in the Rue Morgue Wrathchild Killers Phantom of the Opera The Number of the Beast The Clairvoyant Powerslave 2 Minutes to Midnight Rime of the Ancient Mariner Run to the Hills Seventh Son of a Seventh Son The Trooper Hallowed Be Thy Name Iron Maiden
Encore Aces High Fear of the Dark Wasted Years
Iron Maiden # Intro + First song – Run For Your Lifes World Tour 2025 Budapest (2025-05-27) – YouTube
May 28: Budapest Aréna, Hungary * May 31: Prague Letnany Airport, Czech Republic * Jun 01: Bratislava TIPOS Arena, Slovakia * Jun 05: Trondheim Rocks, Norway ≠ Jun 07: Stavanger SR-Bank Arena, Norway * Jun 09: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark * Jun 12: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden * Jun 13: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden * Jun 16: Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Finland * Jun 19: Dessel Graspop Metal Meeting, Belgium≠
Jun 21: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK ^ Jun 22: Manchester Co-op Live, UK ^ Jun 25: Dublin Malahide Castle, Ireland *^ Jun 28: London Stadium, UK *^ Jun 30: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK ^
Jul 03: Belfort Eurockéennes, France ≠ Jul 05: Madrid Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano, Spain ** Jul 06: Lisbon MEO Arena, Portugal ** Jul 09: Zurich Hallenstadion, Switzerland ** Jul 11: Gelsenkirchen Veltins-Arena, Germany ** Jul 13: Padova Stadio Euganeo, Italy ** Jul 15: Bremen Bürgerweide, Germany ** Jul 17: Vienna Ernst Happel Stadium, Austria ** Jul 19: Paris Paris La Défense Arena, France ** Jul 20: Paris Paris La Défense Arena, France ** Jul 23: Arnhem GelreDome, Netherlands ** Jul 25: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany ** Jul 26: Stuttgart Cannstatter Wasen, Germany ** Jul 29: Berlin Waldbühne, Germany ** Jul 30: Berlin Waldbühne, Germany ** Aug 02: Warsaw PGE Narodowy, Poland **
* = Halestorm support ^ = The Raven Age support ** = Avatar support ≠ = Festival date
Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazinesince 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.
Iron Maiden kicked off their Run for Your Lives tour in Budapest, Hungary Tuesday night with a show that featured six songs they haven’t played live in a decade, and another three they haven’t played in at least five years.
The tour commemorates the legendary heavy metal band’s 50th anniversary, and featured a set list chosen from their first nine studio albums, from 1980’s Iron Maiden to 1992’s Fear of the Dark.
You can see the complete set list and fan-shot videos from the show below.
The show opened with a trio of Killers songs – “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which hadn’t been played since 2005 according to Setlist.fm, “Wrathchild” (first time since 2017) and “Killers” (first time since 1999.)
Iron Maiden‘s “Phantom of the Opera” (last played in 2014), Seventh Son of a Seventh Son‘s “The Clairvoyant” (last played in 2013) and title track (last played in 2014) and Powerslave‘s epic seafaring tale “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (last played in 2009) rounded out the tracks that haven’t been played live in over a decade, while Powerslave‘s title track (last played in 2017) and “2 Minutes to Midnight” (last played in 2019) were played live for the first time in more than five years.
This was also Maiden’s first show since the touring retirement of longtime drummer Nicko McBrain, who said farewell to the group at the conclusion of last year’s The Future Past tour. He has been replaced by Simon Dawson, who performs alongside founding bassist Steve Harris in British Lion.
Iron Maiden will play a second show at the Budapest Arena Wednesday night, and continue performing throughout Europe until the last currently scheduled date, Aug. 2 in Warsaw, Poland. No plans for a North American tour have been announced yet, but fingers crossed! You can get complete information at their official website.
Watch Iron Maiden Perform ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (Starts at 7:40)
Watch Iron Maiden Perform ‘The Number of the Beast’
Watch Iron Maiden Perform ‘The Trooper’
Iron Maiden May 27, 2025 Budapest, Hungary Set List
(Intro tape) “The Ides of March” (from 1981’s Killers) 1. “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (from Killers) 2. “Wrathchild” (from Killers) 3. “Killers” (from Killers) 4. “Phantom of the Opera” (from 1980’s Iron Maiden) 5. “The Number of the Beast” (From 1982’s The Number of the Beast) 6. “The Clairvoyant” (From 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son) 7. “Powerslave” (From 1984’s Powerslave) 8. “2 Minutes to Midnight” (From Powerslave) 9. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (From Powerslave) 10. “Run to the Hills” (From The Number of the Beast) 11. “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” (From Seventh Son of a Seventh Son) 12. “The Trooper” (From 1983’s Piece of Mind) 13. “Hallowed Be Thy Name” (From The Number of the Beast) 14. “Iron Maiden” (from Iron Maiden)
Encore: 15. “Aces High” (From Powerslave) 16. “Fear of the Dark” (From 1992’s Fear of the Dark) 17. “Wasted Years” (From 1986’s Somewhere in Time)
(Image credit: Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images)
Rick Derringer, the legendary guitarist and singer behind Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo, has died aged 77.
The guitarist’s associate, Tony Wilson, confirmed the news on Facebook, writing: “Ormond Beach, FL – Renowned guitarist and entertainer Rick Derringer passed on at 8:09 PM on May 26th, surrounded by his loving wife’ Singer Songwriter and band of 28 years Jenda Derringer, his caretaker and close friend Tony Wilson.(AKA) Young James Brown.”
The news was confirmed by Derringer’s wife, Jenda, who told TMZ that the guitarist passed away “peacefully” in his sleep on Monday May 26. He had reportedly undergone a triple bypass two months ago,
Derringer was born Richard Dean Zehringer in Celina, Ohio in 1947. After moving to New York in his late teens, he rose to fame with the McCoys, who scored a hit with Hang On Sloopy., which reached Number 1 on the Billboard chart in 1965.
Derringer and the McCoys went on to become Johnny Winter’s backing band, before the guitarist joined Winter’s brother Edgar in the Edgar Winter’s White Trash (later the Edgar Winter Group), playing guitar, singing on and producing four albums between 1971 and 1974..
After launching a solo career, Derringer scored another big hit with 1973’s Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo, taken from his debut solo album All American Boy. He would go on to release 18 solo albums, as well as three albums by the band Derringer. He also played on records by the likes of Steely Dan, Kiss, Richie Havens, Joe Bonamassa and more.
Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer & The Edgar Winter Group | The Midnight Special – YouTube
Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Classic Rock is the online home of the world’s best rock’n’roll magazine. We bring you breaking news, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes features, as well as unrivalled access to the biggest names in rock music; from Led Zeppelin to Deep Purple, Guns N’ Roses to the Rolling Stones, AC/DC to the Sex Pistols, and everything in between. Our expert writers bring you the very best on established and emerging bands plus everything you need to know about the mightiest new music releases.
Rick Derringer, the guitarist, songwriter and producer who wrote or contributed to a body of hits spanning decades, died on Monday at the age of 77.
Derringer’s caretaker, Tony Wilson, shared the news on Facebook, and Guitar Player later reported it. The guitarist’s wife, Jenda Derringer, told TMZ he died “peacefully” in his sleep after being taken off life support following a medical episode.
Rick Derringer’s Life and Career
Born Richard Dean Zehringer on Aug. 5, 1947, in Celina, Ohio, and raised in the nearby Fort Recovery, Derringer began his burgeoning music career in earnest when he received his first guitar on his ninth birthday. (“I was a natural,” he told Guitar Player in 2024.) He and his brother Randy Zehringer (later known as Randy Z) formed a band called the McCoys in their teens, with Derringer handling guitar and lead vocals.
The McCoys scored a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965 with “Hang on Sloopy,” which became the official rock song of Ohio. The band scored one more Top 10 hit with a cover of the R&B staple “Fever,” and a cover of Ritchie Valens’ “Come On, Let’s Go” reached the Top 40.
In 1970, the McCoys backed Texas blues-rocker Johnny Winter on his album Johnny Winter And, which also served as the group’s name. Derringer soon began working with Winter’s brother, Edgar Winter, contributing to the Edgar Winter Group’s multiplatinum 1972 debut album, They Only Come Out at Night.
Derringer appeared on several more Edgar Winter Group albums as he readied his solo career, releasing his debut solo album, All American Boy, in 1973. The LP contained Derringer’s version of “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,” which first appeared on Johnny Winter And. The solo version became Derringer’s signature song, reaching No. 23 on the Hot 100 and showcasing his incendiary guitar chops. (It later appeared on the soundtrack to the 1993 stoner comedy Dazed and Confused and season 4 of Netflix’s Stranger Things.)
All American Boy marked the peak of Derringer’s solo success, but he continued to work with a variety of hit-making artists in the years that followed. He played guitar on a handful of Steely Dan tracks — Countdown to Ecstasy‘s “Show Biz Kids,” Katy Lied‘s “Chain Lightning” and Gaucho‘s “My Rival” — and became a frequent collaborator of his neighbor, Todd Rundgren, playing on several of his records.
Despite Donald Fagen and Walter Becker‘s reputation for merciless perfectionism in the studio, Derringer said he “didn’t have that kind of experience with them. They pretty much just played me the song — ‘Here you go, Rick. We want it to be a blues kind of thing.’ So that’s what I did.”
The 1980s saw Derringer make several notable contributions to rock and pop hits, including Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” and Bonnie Tyler‘s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” (He cited the former as one of his favorite guitar solos he ever recorded.) He wrote and recorded for Meat Loaf, Cyndi Lauper, and Barbra Streisand during this time, as well as producing the 1985 World Wrestling Federation release, The Wrestling Album.
Perhaps most significantly, Derringer produced the first six albums by platinum-selling parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic. Their partnership netted Derringer two Grammys for the Michael Jackson parodies “Eat It” and “Fat.” The former featured a scorching guitar solo from Derringer to approximate Eddie Van Halen‘s contribution to the original — a full-circle moment, he explained.
“What’s interesting is, Eddie told us that he copied that style from listening to us,” Derringer told Guitar Player. “The guitar player in the Rick Derringer band was Danny Johnson, and I asked him to play with us because he was one of the first people I ever saw who did that style. That was one of the reasons he got the gig. Eddie Van Halen said he was a big fan of that band, and he came to see us play regularly.”
Derringer’s career slowed in the ’90s. He became a born-again Christian near the end of the decade and released several Christian music albums with his family in the 2000s. He toured with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band from 2010-11 and took part in Peter Frampton‘s 2013 Guitar Circus alongside B.B. King, Don Felder, Leslie West, Steve Lukather and more.
“People would like me to continue playing the music that I played when I was a teenager or when I was in my twenties,” Derringer told Guitar Player in 2024 while discussing his most recent album, 2023’s poppy, ballad-heavy Rock the Yacht, which he recorded with his wife Jenda. “They want me to rock ‘n’ roll over and over like a young guy. But I’m not a young guy — I’m 76, so we do grow older and our musical tastes change a little bit.”
Yet even as Derringer’s tastes changed, his musical philosophy remained the same. “As far as musicianship, that comes from your heart,” he told Jazz Weekly. “Good songs are good songs.”
Simon House, the former keyboardist for Hawkwind and violinist for David Bowie, has died at the age of 76.
The musician’s passing was confirmed by his daughter. The social media account for Cleopatra Records – with whom House issued several releases – shared the following statement honoring the late rocker:
“It’s with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our dear friend and brilliant collaborator. Simon wasn’t just a musician — he was a sonic architect who helped shape the sound of a generation. He shared the stage with legends: David Bowie, Lemmy-era Hawkwind, and Nik Turner, always leaving his unmistakable mark.
“From the art-rock brilliance of Bowie’s ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ era to the boundary-pushing tours with Nik and Cleopatra in the ’90s, Simon’s electrifying violin and cosmic keyboard work lifted every track, every show, every moment. His vision brought depth, texture, and soul — he simply made everything better.We miss you deeply, Simon. Rest easy, my friend. Your sound lives on.”
Who Was Simon House?
Born in Nottingham, England, House began his musical career in 1960s London, initially with the group High Tide. Though he started as the group’s bassist, House switched to violin at the suggestion of his bandmates.
In 1973 House joined the lineup of Hawkwind, replacing the group’s previous synth player, Del Dettmar. House’s impact could be felt beginning with the band’s 1974 album Hall of the Mountain Grill, which expanded Hawkwind’s space rock sound.
House’s tenure with Hawkwind coincided with the final years of Lemmy Kilmister’s run with the band. The bassist was fired in 1975, the day before the release of their fifth studio album, Warrior on the Edge of Time. House remained until 1978, contributing to a total of five studio releases during this initial run.
The musician’s next stop was with Bowie’s live band, beginning with 1978’s Isolar II world tour. House’s contributions can be heard prominently on Bowie’s Stage live album, recorded during the trek. The multi-instrumentalist also contributed to Bowie’s 1979 LP Lodger, including its hit single “Boys Keep Swinging.”
House later became a popular session musician, playing on a wide variety of material throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Thomas Dolby, Mike Oldfield and former Hawkwind members Robert Calvert and Nik Turner were among the artists he collaborated with. House released a pair of albums under his own name, and even returned to Hawkwind for two additional runs from 1989 to 1991, and from 2001 to 2003.
Feature Photo: Jim Summaria, http://www.jimsummariaphoto.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Rick Derringer, whose influence touched everything from 1960s garage rock to wrestling anthems and arena tours, has died at the age of 77. His death was confirmed by his caretaker Tony Wilson and Guitar Player magazine. He passed away Monday evening in Ormond Beach, Florida. No cause of death has been publicly disclosed, though Derringer had reportedly been in poor health in recent months.
Born Richard Dean Zehringer in Ohio in 1947, Derringer was barely 18 when he scored a No. 1 hit with “Hang On Sloopy” as lead singer of the McCoys. The track, produced by the Strangeloves and released in 1965, became a cultural fixture—particularly in Derringer’s home state of Ohio, where it remains a staple at football games and local events. The McCoys opened for the Rolling Stones on their first U.S. tour, but the band would never match the commercial success of that debut single.
Derringer’s career pivoted quickly in the late ’60s when he began working with Johnny Winter, and later joined Edgar Winter’s band. It was during this time that he produced the Edgar Winter Group’s instrumental powerhouse “Frankenstein,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973. He replaced Ronnie Montrose in the band shortly thereafter, holding the position of guitarist and producer through their most visible years.
That same year, Derringer launched his solo career with the now-classic “Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo,” a track that became a radio mainstay and was later featured in the Netflix series Stranger Things. His solo band, simply named Derringer, became a fixture on the touring circuit, known for their wild stage antics, including mid-show guitar tosses across the stage.
Derringer’s reach extended far beyond his own recordings. As a session guitarist, he appeared on albums by Steely Dan (Katy Lied, Gaucho), Todd Rundgren, Barbra Streisand, and Kiss. His guitar solos featured prominently on Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All,” both composed by Jim Steinman.
In the mid-1980s, Derringer’s guitar skills found a new audience through professional wrestling. He co-wrote and produced the WWF’s The Wrestling Album in 1985, including the now-iconic “Real American” theme song for Hulk Hogan. That anthem, originally recorded for tag team The U.S. Express, went on to be used not only by Hogan but by figures as diverse as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump during political events.
Derringer’s career later included collaborations with Cyndi Lauper—he played on her True Colors album and joined her on tour—as well as Christian music projects alongside his wife, Jenda. He also performed with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band and shared stages with Peter Frampton and Carmine Appice, continuing to tour well into his later years.
Beyond the records and fame, Derringer remained a staple of the classic rock community. He wasn’t just a player—he was a builder of moments. His early hit with “Hang On Sloopy” captured a cultural shift, his work with the Winter brothers defined a sound, and his solo music bridged generations. He remained a consistent presence across decades, genres, and even industries, leaving behind a body of work that stretches from teenage rock dreams to enduring American anthems.
Rick Derringer is survived by his wife Jenda and leaves behind a legacy that spans nearly every corner of American music history—from rock’s golden era to the squared circle of pop culture.
Brian Kachejian was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of ClassicRockHistory.com. He has spent thirty years in the music business often working with many of the people who have appeared on this site. Brian Kachejian also holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Stony Brook University along with New York State Public School Education Certifications in Music and Social Studies. Brian Kachejian is also an active member of the New York Press.
