Are you ready to learn some stuff? It’s July 26th and here’s what happened Today in Rock History!
Starting the day big with Birthdays as it’s Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones birthday!
It’s also Roger Taylor of Queen’s birthday!
Other birthdays include Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless, Gary Cherone of Extreme and Van Halen, and Dave Baksh of Sum 41!
Moving onto Releases now, we got Tres Hombres from ZZ Top in 1973!
We also got The Clash’s US debut in 1979 and Rite Here Rite Now from Ghost in 2024!
We lost Randy Meisner of the Eagles in 2023 from complications with COPD.
We also lost Brent Mydland of the Grateful Dead in 1990 from a drug overdose and drummer and Slipknot co-founder Joey Jordison in 2021 from complications of transverse myelitis
In 1977, Led Zeppelin ended what would be their 11th and final North American tour short after the unexpected death of singer Robert Plant’s 5-year-old son Karac from a stomach illness. Plant’s bandmate John Paul Jones helped co-write All My Love in tribute to Karac
In 2015, 1,000 musicians and singers came together in Cesena, Italy to perform the Foo Fighters song Learn to Fly together, hoping to bring the Foo back to their city for a concert for the first time in 20 years. The video would go viral and the Foo Fighters would return to the city in November of that year.
In 2024, French metal band Gojira became the first hard rock/metal act to perform during an Olympic Games opening ceremony when they played on the side of the Conciergerie in Paris for the Summer Olympics. The band played a version of Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!) alongside composer Victor le Masne and opera singer Marina Viotti. The performance became one of the most talked about moments from that year’s Olympic games.
In 2003, Limp Bizkit appears in Chicago as apart of Metallica’s Summer Sanitarium tour alongside the Deftones, Linkin Park and Mudvayne. The appearance doesn’t go well for the band, as they are booed by the Chicago crowd, but are also pelted with bottles, coins and lemons. This led lead singer Fred Durst to begin shouting homophobic insults at the crowd before the full band left the stage after just six songs. There isn’t any video but you can find the audio on YouTube. Due to the content of the audio, we’re not putting that here.
And finally in 2006, UK music show Top Of The Pops taped its final episode. The show featured “live” performances from a variety of artists. The final episode also featured archive footage of a variety of other artists including The Rolling Stones, who were the first act to perform on the show. Even though the BBC “lost” the tape of the performance.
This has been Today in Rock History! Keep on Rocking, keep on Rolling! Check back tomorrow for your next rock history lesson!
