Are you ready to learn some stuff? It’s November 28th and here’s what happened Today in Rock History!
We spoke about it a couple days ago, but starting the day in 1974, during his Thanksgiving show at Madison Square Garden, Elton John invited ex-Beatle John Lennon on stage to perform three songs: their collaborative hit Whatever Gets You Thru the Night, and two Beatles songs Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and I Saw Her Standing There. Lennon’s appearance was due to losing a bet to Elton that, if their song Whatever Gets You Thru the Night hit Number 1, he would join Elton onstage. This would also be one of Lennon’s final concert appearances before his death in 1980. The show was luckily recorded, and the songs would later be released on the 1995-96 expanded reissue of Elton’s live album Here and There.
Moving into birthdays, we have Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Temple of the Dog!
Other birthdays include Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend, Reese Wynans of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s backing band Double Trouble and Jade Puget of AFI!
Moving on to releases now, we got Supertramp’s Crisis? What Crisis? in 1975, AC/DC’s Rock or Bust in 2014, Incubus’ Light Grenades in 2006 and Let It Bleed from The Rolling Stones in 1969!
In 2001, Twisted Sister, alongside Anthrax, Ace Frehley, and Sebastian Bach, performed a sold-out show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The show was a benefit concert for New York Steel to help raise money for widows and children of firefighters and police officers killed during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
And finally in 1991, Nirvana recorded their performance for BBC’s Top Of The Pops. After being asked to lip-sync their hit Smells Like Teen Spirit, Kurt Cobain protested by singing an octave lower and trying to eat his microphone. Cobain also changed some lyrics around, most notably the opening line “load up on guns, bring your friends” to “load up on drugs, kill your friends.” The result is hilarious
This has been Today in Rock History! Keep on Rocking, keep on Rolling! Check back tomorrow for your next rock history lesson!
