Rock Music News: May
Key Events in May, 2024.
5/1 Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) keyboardist Richard Tandy dies at the age of 76.
5/2 Creed plays a seven-song acoustic set at guitarist Mark Tremonti’s charity golf event for the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) at Champions Gate golf club in Orlando, FL.
5/3 Hall Aflame, a band led by Metal Church guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof, releases sophomore album, “Amplifire.” The album contains the singles “The Same Gutter“ and “1974.”
5/3 P.O.D. unfurls its 11th album, “Veritas.” The set has “Drop,” with a vocal cameo from Lamb Of God singer Randy Blythe and “Afraid To Die,” featuring Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk. “We’re still here and we’re still creating some of the best music we’ve ever made,” says Marcos Curiel. “When it comes to heart, grit and soul, P.O.D. is your band.”
5/4 Guitarist Nita Strauss marries her drummer/manager Josh Villalta at The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in L.A. Alice Cooper and Disturbed singer David Draiman attend. Strauss is in Cooper’s band and Draiman sang “Dead Inside” on Strauss’ “Call Of The Void” album.
5/7 Steve Albini, groundbreaking musician and audio engineer (Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey), dies at age 61.
5/9 The four-day Welcome To Rockville festival gets underway. It officially becomes the biggest Rock festival in North America, hosting more than 200,000 people and 150 bands on 5 stages for the first time.
5/9 Heart’s Ann Wilson (pictured with Disturbed’s David Daiman) joins Disturbed onstage at Rockville to perform their collaborative single, “Don’t Tell Me,” live for the first time. “It was like a dream sequence,” offered Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan.
5/9 Drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, the last surviving original member of Detroit’s MC5, dies at age 75.
5/10 Kings Of Leon deliver their ninth studio album. “I kept telling myself, ‘I really believe we can make something special’,” frontman Caleb Followill explained while talking about recording “Can We Please Have Fun.” “Every day it was positive vibes, like ‘Let’s keep it moving’. It was a very special time for us.” The set features “Mustang” and “Split Screen.”
5/10 Crownshift’s self-titled debut album arrives. The set includes “My Prison,” “A World Beyond Reach” and “If You Dare.” The band consists of musicians from notable Finnish Metal bands.
5/10 “Rapture,” the third solo album by Anette Olzon, the former Nightwish vocalist, is out with the songs “Day Of Wrath” and “Heed The Call.”
5/10 Powerman 5000 (PM5K) eleventh album “Abandon Ship” drops. Frontman Spider One (Michael David Cummings – pictured), the band’s only remaining founding member, is Rob Zombie’s younger brother. The lead track was “1999.”
5/10 Sebastian Bach issues “Child Within The Man.” The former Skid Row frontman’s fifth solo album, features “What Do I Got To Lose?” and “Everybody Bleeds.” “If you like the records I have put out in the past, I can GUARANTEE that you will enjoy the new album,” noted Bach. “THIS is the kind of Rock N’ Roll that keeps you young!”
5/10 Metallica donates $100,000 to aid flood relief efforts in Brazil. Earlier in the month, the floods displaced over 400,000 people.
5/10 Pollstar (the concert tracking service) reports that Megadeth grossed $4 million from five April shows in Latin America as part of the band’s “Crush The World Tour.”
5/11 Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl pranks the Welcome to Rockville audience by pretending to play Van Halen’s “Eruption” – before revealing it was actually Mammoth WVH’s Wolfgang Van Halen {pictured) performing in the wings. The guitarist then plays the “Hot For Teacher” solo.
5/11 Also at the Rockville fest, Jelly Roll joins Limp Bizkit for a rendition of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” with frontman Fred Durst trading vocals and harmonizing with the “Need A Favor” singer. But the set’s “highlight” comes when Durst participates a couple’s baby gender reveal announcement. It’s a boy.
5/15 It’s announced that Marilyn Manson has signed with Nuclear Blast Records. Following sexual allegations against him, Manson was dropped by his record label Loma Vista.
5/16 P.O.D. frontman Sonny Sandoval joins Evanescence on stage at the Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival in Columbus, OH to perform the latter band’s breakthrough ’03 hit “Bring Me To Life.” Also, Disturbed’s frontman David Draiman and guitarist Nita Strauss perform their collaborative #1 Mainstream Rock song “Dead Inside.“
5/17 AC/DC launch their European Power Up tour, their first full trek since 2016, with a performance in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
5/17 Lzzy Hale (Halestorm) plays the first of four shows fronting Skid Row. She replaces Erik Grönwall who quit the band to focus on his health.
5/18 Metallica’s “Screaming Suicide” tops Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. It’s the band’s fourth straight #1 – “Too Far Gone?,” “72 Seasons” and “Lux Æterna” were the first three.
5/18 Founding Staind drummer Jon Wysocki dies at the age of 53. He had reportedly been having issues with his liver that required him to be under the care of medical professionals.
5/19 Clown, the founding Slipknot percussionist. misses the band’s headlining appearance at the Sonic Temple festival. “Clown, yesterday, broke a tooth and had to have it removed,” frontman Corey Taylor told the audience. “There’s an issue. He had to stay home for medical reasons.” The show goes on.
5/21 Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite For Destruction” is honored by the Grammy Hall of Fame in L.A. The song was inducted into the Hall of Fame earlier in the year.
5/22 Hoobastank’s “The Reason” surpasses one-billion streams on Spotify. The band’s most commercially successful single “expresses regret and rebirth after hurting a loved one.”
5/22 The official music video for Disturbed’s cover of “The Sound Of Silence” officially tops a billion views on YouTube.
5/23 Bad Omens cancel their U.K. and European summer tour plans. Recording and touring has pushed singer Noah Sebastian “to the limits of my mental bandwidth. Putting my mind and body in conflict with one another.”
5/23 The Department of Justice files an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment accusing the concert and ticketing giant of exerting monopolistic power through its exclusive ticketing agreements, its promotions business and its ownership of many popular amphitheaters, among other claims. DOJ wants to split up Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
5/23 Guitarist Dave Navarro rejoins his Jane’s Addiction bandmates during their concert in London. The show marks the band’s first performance with its classic lineup in over 14 years.
5/23 Bruce Springsteen receives the Ivors Academy fellowship in London. He is the first international songwriter to be inducted into the fellowship, which is the awards’ highest honor. Sir Paul McCartney hosts the induction ceremony joking that “unlike Bruce’s concerts” he would “keep this brief.”
5/23 Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson reunite for a surprise appearance at the “Celebrating Gordon Lightfoot” tribute concert in Toronto. They perform the Lightfoot original “The Way I Feel.”
5/24 “Blue Electric Light,” the twelfth studio album from Lenny Kravitz, is released. The set, his first since ’18’s “Raise Vibration,” was recorded at his studio in the Bahamas. Kravitz played most of the instruments with contributions from frequent collaborator, guitarist Craig Ross. The lead single was “TK421.”
5/24 Iron Butterfly founding member, organist, primary composer and lead vocalist Doug Ingle dies at the age of 78. The band is best known for the Ingle-composed 17-minute title track from their sophomore album, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
5/25 The Black Keys cancel the upcoming North American leg of their International Players Tour, without explanation – but it’s speculated that slow ticket sales is the reason.
5/26 Vixen part ways with singer Lorraine Lewis (pictured), who joined the band in ’19 following the departure of founding member, Janet Gardner. In a statement via her social media Lewis notes that “the band has taken a different direction.”
5/26 The Offspring is joined by pop maven Ed Sheeran during the band’s performance at the BottleRock Napa Valley music festival. They performed a “Million Miles Away” from The Offspring’s ’00 album “Conspiracy Of One.” Sheeran was a major fan when he was a kid.
5/29 A long-lost acoustic guitar used by the late John Lennon sells for $2.9 million at auction in New York, becoming highest grossing auctioned guitar in Beatles history. The guitar was used in the ’65 film “Help!” and on the accompanying soundtrack.
5/29 Taylor Momsen (The Pretty Reckless) is bitten by a bat during a concert in Seville, Spain. She takes the incident good-naturedly even though she is looking at a series of rabies shots. Her band is opening for AC/DC.
5/30 Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name“ has joined Spotify’s Billions Club. It’s the band’s second song to have a billion streams on the platform. “Livin’ On A Prayer” was the first.
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