Rock
Page: 12
Billie Joe Armstrong can’t say enough good things about that other Billie. Following Sunday night’s 2025 Grammy Awards, the Green Day frontman told Billboard that he was still buzzing about sharing the stage with Billie Eilish at last weekend’s all-star FireAid benefit concert. “The fact that we got to play together… she’s just, she’s a […]
Heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath have confirmed details of their final-ever live show, which is set to take place this summer (July 5) with a plethora of support acts. The event will see the band’s classic line-up – comprising frontman Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward – play live […]
Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale has been in the music industry for over three decades, but even he admits he’s baffled by how young artists can sustain themselves financially in today’s streaming-driven landscape.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Speaking on Canada’s Q with Tom Power, the rocker didn’t hold back on his concerns about the modern music business.
“I’ve been a musician my whole life, and I’m at a loss to explain to someone how to do it, how to build from the ground up, how to get a career in that,” Rossdale said. “It’s just terrifying because how do musicians, how do young bands get paid? I can’t work it out.”
Trending on Billboard
The 58-year-old rocker, who is preparing to hit the road with Bush this spring alongside Rival Sons and Filter, He went on to describe the industry’s longstanding financial imbalance, calling it “the same deal—artists getting screwed, record companies making a fortune.”
While streaming may offer exposure, Rossdale pointed out that it doesn’t always translate to sustainability. “Maybe you get one song with loads of streams, but we know that barely pays.”
“You just do the best you can. And you can obviously make money touring, but it takes a while to build up a catalog, so if you wanna come and see you, that’s a crap shoot.”
Rossdale, who rose to fame in the ’90s when CD sales and MTV airplay could catapult a band into the mainstream, pointed out the stark difference between then and now.
“I think it’s much, much harder now, and it was nearly impossible then. So, I don’t know what the odds are, but they don’t feel good for young musicians, which breaks my heart for them because we always need music.”
He added,”We always need people’s opinions. A.I. can take care of many things, but you talk about people relating to other people, it’s by writing that brutally painful, honest lyric that other people can relate and get strength from.”
Rossdale isn’t alone in his concerns. Artists across genres have been speaking out about streaming payouts, with industry veterans and rising stars alike calling for better compensation structures. The issue has even led to policy debates, as musicians advocate for reforms in how streaming revenue is distributed.
Rossdale rose to widespread fame as the frontman for British rock outfit Bush, who reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with their 1994 debut album, Sixteen Stone, which included charting singles such as “Comedown” and “Glycerine”. Two years later, they would best their previous accomplishments and top the chart with 1996’s Razorblade Suitcase. Their latest album, The Art of Survival, arrived in 2022.
Bush will embark on a North American tour this spring, kicking off in April. Tickets are available now.
If you asked H.E.R. what her life’s purpose is, she’d tell you it’s to inspire women and young girls. It’s no accident, then, that many of the major projects she’s taken on over the past couple of years have fallen in line with that mission, from contributing her newly Oscar-nominated Diane Warren collaboration “The Journey” to Tyler Perry’s Six Triple Eight — about the all-Black, all-female 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of World War II — to examining her own definitions of womanhood and empowerment on a highly anticipated followup to 2021’s Back of My Mind, which she’s teased is arriving at some point in 2025. And now, H.E.R. is turning her focus on girls in sports, reimagining Bruce Springsteen’s iconic 1975 hit “Born to Run” for Dove’s moving new Super Bowl commercial that premiered Tuesday (Feb. 4) with an important message at its center.
Her full version of the track will arrive one day later.
Trending on Billboard
In the 30-second spot — which will air during fourth quarter of the ultimate Kansas City Chiefs vs. Philadelphia Eagles game Sunday (Feb. 9) — a breathless 3-year-old girl sprints through her suburb as H.E.R.’s buoyant take on The Boss’ anthem plays. “These legs are unstoppable,” onscreen text reads. “At 14, she’ll think they’re unbearable.”
Reminding viewers how frequently young female athletes hear critiques about their bodies, the commercial then calls on it’s audience to “change the way we talk to our girls.” It’s a directive that feels especially poignant considering the popularity boom women’s sports have seen in recent years (thanks in no small part to powerhouses like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese), as well as the sociopolitical influx in online communities picking apart players’ appearances (thetransphobic hate cisgender Algerian boxer Imane Khelif experienced during the 2024 Olympics comes to mind). And it’s definitely something that weighs on H.E.R.’s mind as a former athlete and role model to her 18-year-old and 3-year-old sisters, which is why she says she jumped at the chance to translate “Born to Run” into a heartfelt tribute for young girls all over the world.
“I’m seeing myself in all of these young girls and thinking about all these things that we forget to appreciate,” she tells Billboard. “I have a body that simply moves, and I love all the things that it can do.”
“We’re born to run,” she adds, her voice swelling with passion. “There’s so many layers to that message. It’s like you’re born to be exactly who you are, to chase your path and follow your own dreams and your own heart. It’s not about anyone else. You’re born uniquely you.”
Speaking over Zoom just one day ahead of the premiere of Dove’s new campaign, the singer-guitarist broke down how she made Springsteen’s signature song her own, revealed how the project informed her upcoming album’s sound and explained why she aligns so strongly with the brand’s message. Read her conversation with Billboard below.
How did you approach re-recording such a famous song?
The song itself is so iconic, I didn’t want to do a complete left turn in my recreation of it. It’s so uplifting and joyful, and “born to run,” it’s the perfect lyric. It’s the perfect message, and kind of the perfect pace for a message like this.
It was all about the image of this young girl — keeping that in mind was the most important thing. We started with drums to kind of keep the energy but still make it my own, and I played some guitars on it to keep that iconic lead. It was all about adding even more soul to it. That iconic line that’s usually just the guitar line, I turned into vocals. I like doing things like that — taking pieces from the instrumentation and turning them into vocals — and my vocals definitely make [the song] a little more feminine.
Is Bruce a personal hero of yours?
Oh my gosh, absolutely. I love Bruce. I grew up listening to a lot of Bruce with my dad. He’s iconic.
I actually got to meet him two years ago and he was so sweet. I was like, “I’m such a big fan, my name’s Gabi.” He was like, “Oh my god, H.E.R., I’m such a big fan of you, I’ve mentioned you in interviews, you really rock out on stage.” And I’m like, “Man, I get it from you!”
Why does the message of the campaign resonate with you personally?
Where do I begin? A lot of my purpose has been to encourage women to be authentic and comfortable in their own skin and embrace who they are. That to me is one of the most important things I could ever do on this planet. That’s always been my mission, so that’s really what got me excited about this. It’s really perfect timing — I’ve been working on an album and the messaging of this album has really been about empowerment.
I have younger sisters, and it’s always so important for me to show them that they’re — I don’t want to say “enough.” I think we’ve outgrown that word. I think it’s to show them that who they are is perfectly imperfect, you know what I mean? We live in this age of social media, and comparison, like they say, is really the thief of joy. I’ve definitely experienced not feeling adequate. I’ve felt like, “Oh, maybe I need to change this about me, I need to fit into this mold.” But I’ve realized that there is no mold. I’ve tried to maintain that in my own life and exemplify that.
Speaking of your new album, what can you tell us about it?
I’ve been working on it in the midst of this [campaign]. It’s funny, because working on “Born to Run,” working on a Springsteen song, I feel like it’s only enhancing my process in the studio. I’m playing a lot more guitar on this album. And again, [the album] is all about empowerment. It was just perfect timing.
It’s this exploration of femininity and what it means to be a woman, what it means to me, what it means to depend on people around you and depend on yourself and love yourself, and what community means. What your expectations of love are, and the expectations you put on yourself. Just learning how to stand on my own.
It’s a lot of accepting ugly. And I mean that to say the parts of myself that I may ignore, that I think haven’t been enough. The parts that I may be afraid to face. It’s really been about embracing those things and empowering myself, not in the way that you’d expect, where it’s all about being triumphant … It’s more like, it’s OK not to be OK. It’s okay to be in the process of healing. You’re never fully healed. Just trusting the process and being OK with it.
One of your recent projects, “The Journey,” recently earned a best original song nomination ahead of the 2025 Oscars. How does that feel?
Oh my gosh, it’s crazy. I’m super excited about the song. It’s such a powerful song, and it’s also a really, really powerful movie — again, about women empowerment, and under-appreciated women. These stories hadn’t been heard. I feel blessed to be a part of that story, in a small way.
Women’s sports are more popular than ever, but with that there’s been an uptick in certain people picking apart women athletes for not looking “feminine enough.” With that in mind, why is this campaign more important than ever?
It’s discouraging. Telling a woman that her body is not the right type, or that she needs to look a certain way, or that she’s not “feminine enough” — what does that even mean? It just shows you what society’s idea of what’s feminine is, and it’s just not right. This message was definitely to break that barrier.
I played sports in high school and middle school, and I’m really grateful that my parents gave me that confidence to not care. But there’s definitely that shyness in the locker room, there’s those moments of, “Oh man, I’m afraid of myself. I’m afraid that people won’t accept me, that people won’t like me, despite my gifts or my ability.” You should never be discouraged to do something that you love and are passionate about because of the way you look.
There’s also been an outpouring of women expressing fear and uncertainty following the results of the 2025 election. Was that on your mind at all when working on this project?
I think, in general, we can’t live our lives in fear, no matter what. It’s all about empowering each other — I think that’s what it comes down to.
Hear H.E.R.’s cover of “Born to Run” in Dove’s new Super Bowl ad below.
A day after performing an all-star version of Randy Newman’s 1983 pop classic “I Love L.A.” to open Sunday’s (Feb. 2) 67th annual Grammy Awards, Dawes announced that they are releasing their version to help with Los Angeles wildfire relief. The proceeds from sales of the song will go to the Recording Academy and MusiCares’ […]
The Great Escape festival in Brighton, England has announced hundreds of new names for their lineup including The Libertines’ Peter Doherty, Jordan Adetunji, Lynks, The K’s and more.
The festival is also expanding its programme to run for an extra day, and will take place in the city on May 14-17. First held in 2006, the annual gathering showcases emerging talent across the city at a number of independent venues; previous performers at the festival include Charli XCX, Fontaines D.C., Sam Fender, Japanese Breakfast and more.
On May 14, The Libertines’ Peter Doherty will perform at a special Spotlight Show curated by his record label, Strap Originals. It will feature acts such as Warmduscher and Trampolene at the Deep End venue on Brighton’s beachfront. Tickets for the festival are on sale now.
Trending on Billboard
Further additions to the festival’s bill include: Armlock Silver, Black Fondu, Bold Love, Donny Benét, Gore, Lemfreck, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Moonlandingz, Namesbliss, Rabbitfoot, Real Farmer, Shortstraw, Sunday (1994), The Pill, Westside Cowboy and more.
The festival has also announced further details about the accompanying conference programme and a raft of speakers and curators for the event. Industry bodies The Council of Music Makers (MMF, MPG, FAC, Ivors Academy and the MU), Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), BBC Introducing LIVE and Youth Music all return as collaborators, alongside The Association of Independent Music (AIM).
Themes across the panels will include the role of government policy in creative spaces, community building for artists and labels and more. See the full rundown at the festival’s official website.
The Great Escape has also shared news that warmup event, The Road To Great Escape, will take place in the preceding week, and returns to key cities Glasgow (May 9-10) and Dublin (May 12-13). The showcases will see a number of acts from the lineup performing live in their home cities before making the trip to England’s south coast.
It’s common practice for artists to thank their families when winning major awards. But, as rock star St. Vincent proved at the 2025 Grammys on Sunday (Feb. 2), it’s rare to see artists reveal that they’re married with kids during a massive event.
During the evening’s pre-telecast awards, Annie Clark (St. Vincent’s offstage name) took home the best rock song trophy for her 2024 single “Broken Man.” During her acceptance speech, the singer surprised fans and audience members by offering a special shout-out to “my beautiful wife Leah [and] our beautiful daughter.” In a later acceptance speech for best alternative music album for her 2024 LP All Born Screaming, Clark thanked her family for a second time.
Clark is known for remaining tight-lipped about her personal life, a fact that she acknowledged in a backstage interview after winning her award. When a reporter from the Associated Press said that they were “totally unaware” of Clark’s marital status, the singer jumped in to add that “most people were,” revealing that she and her spouse have made a concerted effort to keep their relationship out of the public eye.
Trending on Billboard
“She’s young, we’ve kept it under wraps,” she said, before quickly clarifying her point with a laugh. “The child is young, just to be clear, the child is young, not the wife!” The singer added that she and her family had plans to celebrate her victory with her sisters, but that Clark intended “to be in bed by 10” that night.
Elsewhere in her backstage interviews, Clark reflected on the LGBTQ+ representation at the annual show and across the industry, remarking that queer people existing in the industry and the world at large is not news. “There have always been queer people in the history of the world, and especially in music,” she said. “There’s a bunch of queer people being celebrated this year. And that’s great, of course it’s great — empathy and humanity, let’s go.”
For Billboard‘s 2024 Pride cover story, the singer opened up about the history of queer people in the music business, while pointing out the importance of LGBTQ+ artists remaining on the cutting edge of culture. “There have been plenty of queer people in music. Even if the culture was saying no, there were always queer people in the arts. Please. We have built this,” she said at the time. “If you’re safe for the TV screen, you also invite an aspect of grift [from the outside world]. Which … I raise an eyebrow at.”
The All Born Screaming singer took home three trophies at Sunday night’s ceremony — best rock song, best alternative music album and best alternative music performance for “Flea.” Clark was nominated in the best rock performance category, but ultimately lost out to the Beatles’ AI-assisted track “Now and Then.”
AC/DC are bringing their Power Up tour back to Europe this summer. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legends announced on Monday morning (Feb. 3) that they’ve booked a 12-date run of shows as part of their ongoing global tour.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The new shows will kick off on June 26 at Letňany Airport in Prague, Czech Republic, and touch down in stadiums in Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Sweden, Norway and France before winding down at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on August 21.
The new European dates join the band’s first planned U.S. tour in nine years. That run is slated to hit 13 stadiums across the nation from April 10 through May 28. The shows will kick off on April 10 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN, before moving on to Arlington, TX, Pasadena (CA), Vancouver, Las Vegas, Detroit, Foxborough (MA), Pittsburgh, Landover (MD), Tampa, Nashville and Chicago before winding down on May 28 at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland.
Trending on Billboard
The new shows are all in support of AC/DC’s 2020 Power Up album and they follow on the heels of a 2024 European leg, which also filled stadiums. Tickets for (most) of the new European shows will be available on Friday (Feb. 7) at 10 a.m. local time; the Imola, Italy show on sale will be on Friday at 11 a.m. CET and ticketing for the Paris show will open on Feb. 10 at 10 a.m. CET. For more details on ticketing click here.
Check out the announcement and the dates for AC/DC’s summer 2025 European tour below.
June 26 — Letňany, Czech Republic @ Prague Airport June 30 — Berlin, Germany @ Berlin OlympiastadionJuly 4 — Narodowy, Poland @ Warsaw PGE July 8 — Düsseldorf, Germany @ Düsseldorf Open Air Park July 12 — Madrid, Spain @ Madrid Metropolitano StadiumJuly 20 — Ferrari, Italy @ Imola Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e DinoJuly 24 — Tallinn, Estonia @ Tallinn Song Festival GroundsJuly 28 — Gothenburg, Sweden @ Ullevi Aug. 5 — Oslo, Norway @ Oslo Bjerke RacecourseAug. 9 — Paris, France @ Paris Stade De FranceAug. 17 — Karlsruhe, Germany @ Messe KarlsruheAug. 21 — Edinburgh, Scotland @ Murrayfield Stadium
You could tell the story of Marianne Faithfull, who died Jan. 30 at the age of 78, in three recordings — specifically three versions of “As Tears Go By.” The British singer initially recorded the song, one of the first that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote together, in 1964 as a 17-year-old ingénue. Produced by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who discovered her at a party, the recording is a brisk, breezy slice of chamber-pop and Faithfull’s vocals are all breathy sweep. Faithfull wrote in her 1994 autobiography that Oldham immediately knew it would be a hit, and it reached No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Faithfull returned to the song twice more in the studio: First on Strange Weather, the 1987 album she recorded after struggling with drug addiction for much of the ’70s and ’80s, and then again on the 2018 Negative Capability. Especially in this last version, recorded when she was 71, you can hear both how far she travelled and the toll that hard road took on her. Faithfull was, above all, a survivor — of tabloid coverage of a drug bust where she was found wearing only a fur rug, of a heroin addiction that cost her custody of her son, of years living on the street — but she was never made it look easy. Indeed, her genius was to make it sound as hard as it must have been.
Trending on Billboard
Faithfull, who dated Jagger for years in the late 1960s, began her career as a living symbol of Swinging London, an especially beautiful woman in a scene of beautiful people. She had a glamorous background to match: Her father was a British intelligence officer and her mother was the daughter of an Austrian aristocrat. (She was related to the Austrian nobleman and writer Leopold van Sacher-Masoch, for whom masochism is named, which would have been a great opening line if Faithfull ever needed one.) She was better educated than Jagger, and she introduced him to Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, which inspired the song “Sympathy for the Devil.”
It’s hard to hear that kind of depth on Faithfull’s first recording, “As Tears Go By,” which came out more than a year before the Stones version. Even by 1964 standards, the song sounds remarkably innocent — it’s pop, without a rock sensibility. In her 1994 autobiography, Faithfull describes it a bit disparagingly as “the Europop you might hear on a French jukebox.” The lyrics are downcast — it’s the evening of the day, she’s watching the children play — but her voice sounds too high and pure to give them much feeling.
The following April, in 1965, Faithfull released two albums the same day — a self-titled pop album and the folk-oriented Come My Way. (The latter album didn’t come out in the U.S.) Within a year, she separated from her husband, John Dunbar, and started dating Jagger. (“I slept with three” Rolling Stones, she said later, “and then I decided the lead singer was the best bet.”) The year after that, she was busted at Richards’ estate with Jagger, Richards and others, wearing only a rug and, she writes in her biography, coming down from an acid trip.
After Faithfull broke up with Jagger, in 1970, her life unraveled — she lost custody of her son, attempted suicide, became addicted to heroin and ended up living on the street in London. She tried to return to singing, with a couple of false starts, including recordings from 1971 that eventually came out as Rich Kid Blues and the 1975 and 1976 country tracks released as Dreamin’ My Dreams and then as Faithless. Finally, in 1979, she recorded her masterpiece, Broken English, a mix of off-kilter dance music and rough New Wave with a punk edge. By then, her voice had worn ragged — lower in pitch, rougher in tone, better suited for more sophisticated songs.
Faithfull recorded two more albums before getting clean in the mid-’80s and, on the 1987 album Strange Weather, finding a deep, world-weary voice that stayed with her for the rest of her career. A dark cabaret sensibility ties together the album, which is all covers, from “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to “Hello Stranger.” She also revisited “As Tears Go By,” which was released as a single but didn’t chart, in a slower, sadder version. On this version, her voice is deeper, the orchestration darker and sparser. Faithfull now sounds like she’s watching the children play from the distance the lyrics imply, looking at their innocence with hers behind her. She could be looking back on herself singing in 1964 (“Doing things I used to do/ They think are new”). It’s an astonishing reinvention of her earlier hit.
Faithfull spent the rest of her career bringing her deep, weathered voice to various kinds of music — standards by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, compositions by writers of her generation, and songs written for her by younger musicians who admired her (including Beck and Jarvis Cocker on Kissin Time and Nick Cave and PJ Harvey on Before the Poison). Finally, on Negative Capability, she revisits a few songs she had already recorded — “A Tears Go By,” as well as Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (which she had recorded on Rich Kid Blues) and “Witches’ Song” (on Broken English). All three sound slower, almost strained at times, as though they are harder to for Faithfull to sing than they once were. She turns “Witches’ Song,” powerful and incantatory on Broken English, into a dirge, as though she recognized she was no longer the witch she once was. But the most striking difference is in “As Tears Go By.”
Faithfull’s 2018 take on “As Tears Go By” is a lifetime away from her 1964 hit — literally. Her voice, long since worn, now sounds downright weary — as though she’s singing only with great effort. The production, lush in 1964 and sparse in 1987, is minimal but warm, transparent enough to reveal every tremor in her voice. The song, originally light and airy, now sounds almost funereal, as Faithfull’s voice comes close to cracking. It sounds as though she’s revealing more than she intends to — “It is the evening of the day” has a very different meaning at 71 than it does at 17. The children in the song, once so close, are now only visible from a distance. The 17-year-old ingénue is obscured by a lifetime of hard-won accomplishment and regret. This last version of the song is a harder listen, especially for anyone who has heard the other two, and it wasn’t a single, much less a hit. On it, though, Faithfull took ownership of the song, and her history with it, and with it her remarkable legacy.
Following Kurt Cobain‘s death by suicide in April 1994, the living members of Nirvana went their separate ways, with drummer Dave Grohl and guitarist Pat Smear teaming up in the Foo Fighters and bassist Krist Novoselic pursuing a series of solo and band projects. Over the years, most fans were resigned to the fact that they’d never hear the trio perform the grunge icon’s songs live again.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
But over the past 20+ years, Grohl, Novoselic and Smear — the latter a Los Angeles punk legend who joined the group in time for the 1993 In Utero tour and remained with them until Cobain’s death — have come together a handful of times to both honor Nirvana’s legacy and, seemingly, just to relive their lightning-in-a-bottle musical brotherhood again.
In light of their latest get back at Thursday night’s (Jan. 30) all-star FireAid relief fundraiser for victim’s of this month’s devastating L.A. wildfires — where they were once again joined by a handful of fierce female singers — check out a list of the times they’re performed together over the years.
Trending on Billboard
12-12-12: The Concert For Sandy Relief
If you’re going to step back on stage for the first time in nearly two decades, it helps to have a Beatle around. In 2012, Grohl, Novoselic and Smear were joined by Sir Paul McCartney for the rollicking live debut of the raging new song they wrote together, “Cut Me Some Slack,” for the all-star fundraiser for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
The Grammy-winning song was featured on the soundtrack to Groh’s 2013 documentary about the legendary Los Angeles recording studio Sound City.
Saturday Night Live
They got FabVana back together again for a run through “Cut Me Some Slack” on Saturday Night Live in December 2012 when Macca was the musical guest.
McCartney II
The trio were on hand again in July 2013 when the members played their first hometown show in more than 15 years, joining McCartney at his Safeco Field show for another run through “Slack.”
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction
When Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic were inducted into the RRHOF in 2014 in their first year of eligibility, the living members performed a searing four-song set with a group of female vocalists fans dubbed “HerVana.” Given the impossible task of recreating Cobain’s searing vocals and slashing guitar, they smartly played the set of the band’s classic tunes with guest vocalists Joan Jett (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”), Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon (“Aneurysm”), St. Vincent (“Lithium”) and Lorde (“All Apologies”).
It was the first time the trio had performed any Nirvana songs live without Cobain, but not the last.
Saint Vitus Club Show
After the four-song RRHOF reunion, the band had not had enough, so they hit Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s 350-capacity Saint Vitus metal club for a super-exclusive bonus session featuring Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis and Deer Tick’s John McCauley, as well as St. Vincent and Gordon, for a 19-song set that ended well past 4 a.m.
Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Party
The music legend’s annual Grammy party is always full of surprises, but nobody was expecting Grohl, Novoselic and Smear to hop on stage with Beck in 2016 for a run through David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” with Beck on vocals and guitar; Nirvana famously covered the song on their 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York album.
Concrete and Gold Tour
Considering they were at Safeco Field in Seattle for a stop on their Concrete and Gold tour in September 2018 — and Novoselic’s Giants in the Trees roots-rock band were opening — it made sense that Grohl, Novo and Smear teamed up for a cover of the Vaselines’ “Molly’s Lips“; Nirvana frequently covered the song in their heyday and it was included on their 1992 odds-and-sods compilation Incesticide.
Earlier in the tour, Novoselic also joined them on the Concrete and Gold stop in December 2017 in Eugene, OR to run through the Foo Fighters’ 1995 hit “Big Me.”
Cal Jam
Jett and McCauley were back in the fold at the 2018 Cal Jam in San Bernardino, CA, where the punk legend took lead vocals on “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Breed” and “All Apologies,” with the Deer Tick singer handling “Serve the Servants,” “Scentless Apprentice” and “In Bloom.”
Art of Elysium
A “Dave Grohl & Friends”-touted set turned into another reunion at this 2020 gala, where Beck (“In Bloom,” “Been a Son,” “The Man Who Sold The World”) and St. Vincent (“Lithium”) again handled vocals on Nirvana standards, while Grohl’s then-13-year-old daughter, Violet, stole the show during the five-song set with a mournful version of “Heart-Shaped Box.”
FireAid
At Thursday’s night’s (Jan. 30, 2025) star-studded pair of shows for fire relief, HerVana rose again in an unannounced performance that mimicked the fierce female energy of the RRHOF induction. St. Vincent ripped “Breed,” Gordon crushed “School,” Jett howled through “Territorial Pissings” and Violet Grohl did it again with her confident vocals on the In Utero classic “All Apologies” as her proud dad pounded away on the drums behind her.