The Rolling Stones kicked off their 50 & Counting tour this past Friday night (May 3rd) at the Staples Center in L.A. . The 23-song set featured  tunes from across the band's 50 year career. The highlights of the show -- which was preceded by the UCLA Bruins marching band playing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" -- was undoubtedly the Stones' live premiere of 1980's "Emotional Rescue," and the band's first performance since 1997 of the Beggars Banquet acoustic classic, "Factory Girl."

Pollstar reported the concert was preceded by a film featuring such famous friends and fans as Martin Scorsese, Johnny Depp,  and Cate Blanchett talking about their love for the Stones. During the show, Mick Jagger gave a shout out to Jack Nicholson and joked about the band switching its opening night to accommodate the basketball playoffs, saying: "It was either us or the Lakers, so now you got us. It doesn't matter to Jack Nicholson."

• As he had during the band's previous 50th anniversary shows, Jagger poked fun of the exorbitant $600-plus price-tag of the Stones' current concerts, which ensured all but a deep-pocketed white collar crowd finding their way into the venue, joking with the crowd: "Hello Los Angeles! Or should I say 'Hello, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and certain parts of Santa Monica?'"
• Special guests included former guitarist Mick Taylor's single guest spot on "Midnight Rambler," Gwen Stefani  (what a joke) who apparently barely knew the song -- duetting with Jagger on "Wild Horses," and country star Keith Urban sitting in on the band's Some Girls rocker, "Respectable.

Here's the set list:

"Get Off My Cloud"
"The Last Time"
"It's Only Rock N Roll"
"Paint It, Black"
"Gimme Shelter"
"Wild Horses" (with Gwen Stefani)
"Factory Girl"
"Emotional Rescue"
"Respectable" (with Keith Urban)
"Doom And Gloom"
"One More Shot"
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Before They Make You Run"
"Happy"
"Midnight Rambler" (with Mick Taylor)
"Miss You"
"Start Me Up"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Brown Sugar"
"Sympathy For The Devil"

Encore

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
"Jumpin' Jack Flash "
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

Lou Gramm is hoping to reunite with Mick Jones to give their Foreigner partnership a happy ending.

The singer quit the band for the third and final time in 1997 after he felt pressured by Jones and their management to keep working when he was too ill.

The pair hadn’t spoken in years until they were named for induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame, and Gramm called Jones to congratulate him.

They’ll get together to perform a handful of their classic tracks at the ceremony next month – and Gramm says that might not be the end of the story.

He tells Classic Rock Revisited: “His management and my management are tossing around the idea of a farewell tour. I would really like to do that. It would be really great to do that instead of leaving it with such a bitter and unfinished ending.”

He feels he had no choice but to bow out in 1997 after treatment for a brain tumour. “My operation was in early April,” he says, “and in September, we were playing. I was still really sick and I was very medicated. I was so out of it that I couldn’t remember the words to the old songs. I had all of the lyrics to the old songs taped on the floor.

“I had no business being on stage, but the bills had to be paid. Management and Mick were pressuring me hard.”

Gramm and Jones disagreed over the direction Foreigner should take, with the vocalist interested in hard rock and the guitarist keen to pursue softer ballad sounds. But that wasn’t the only topic that led to arguments.

“I co-wrote I Want to Know What Love Is, but he jilted me out of it,” Gramm says. “When we would complete a song, we would each write down on a little piece of paper what we each thought that the split should be. I wrote ‘Mick 65, Lou 35.’ I thought that was fair.  He wrote, ‘Mick 95, Lou 5.’  I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ He said, ‘No, I think that is fair.’ I said, ‘Well, why don’t you have all of it then? I know that is what you want.’ He said, ‘Okay.’ – then made zillions of dollars.”

But he doesn’t think it will be too difficult to take the stage with his ex-bandmate. “We hadn’t spoken in over ten years. I think he was shocked that I called him. We had a good conversation, and we knew we were going to be asked to do a couple of songs, and we said that we would talk again. We’re going to meet a couple of days before the show and rehearse – I haven’t spoken to him again, but it is coming right up.”

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/foreigner-lou-gramm-hopes-for-reunion-with-mick-jones/

Man, this should be really good!

Stephen Stills is set to release a blues album this summer. He's formed a new trio called the Rides with guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Electric Flag keyboardist Barry Goldberg, and their album 'Can't Get Enough' is set for a July 30 release.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/stephen-stills-kenny-wayne-shepherd-rides-blues-album/

Remember when Steely Dan rarely hit the road? Not anymore. After performing strictly as a studio band from 1975 through their initial breakup in 1980, the group led by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker is now set for its sixth tour since 2006.

Steely Dan announced plans today for more than four dozen stops this year in North America. The “Mood Swings: 8 Miles To Pancake Day Tour” begins in July at New Jersey and continues through September in Connecticut.

Fagen and Brecker will be joined by guitarist Jon Herington, keyboardist Jim Beard, drummer Keith Carlock and bassist Freddie Washington — the same band, minus Carlock, that Fagen toured with last summer as part of the Dukes of September with Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald.

Fagen has since issued ‘Sunken Condos,’ his fourth album away from Steely Dan. His most recent group project with Brecker was 2003′s ‘Everything Must Go.’ Steely Dan won a Grammy for album of the year with 2000′s ‘Two Against Nature,’ then were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year later.

The band regularly performed in concert from 1972-74, but then didn’t tour again until Fagen and Brecker reunited for a 1994 concert series. Since, they’ve played shows in 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006-09 and then in 2011, according to Steely Dan’s web site.

Steely Dan 2013 Tour Dates:

7/19 — Atlantic City, NJ  — Revel Ovation Hall
7/20 — Canandaigua, NY — Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center
7/21 — Toronto, ON — Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
7/23 — Cleveland, OH — Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
7/24 — Kettering, OH — Fraze Pavilion
7/26 — Louisville, KY — Louisville Palace Theatre
7/27 — Detroit, MI — Fox Theatre
7/28 — Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theatre
7/30 — Fort Wayne, IN — Embassy Theatre
8/1 — Highland Park, IL — Ravinia Festival
8/2 — Highland Park, IL — Ravinia Festival
8/3 — Indianapolis, IN — Murat Theatre at Old National Centre
8/5 — St. Louis, MO — Peabody Opera House
8/6 — Omaha, NE — Orpheum Theater
8/8 — Denver, CO — Red Rocks Amphitheatre
8/10 — Salt Lake City, UT — Red Butte Garden
8/11 — Boise, ID — Idaho Botanical Garden
8/13 — Portland, OR — McMenamins Edgefield
8/15 — Redmond, WA — Concerts at Marymoor
8/17 — San Francisco, CA – Americas Cup Pavilion
8/18 — Reno, NV — Reno Events Center
8/20 — Santa Barbara, CA  — The Santa Barbara Bowl
8/21 — San Diego, CA — Humphrey’s
8/23 — Las Vegas, NV — The Pearl
8/24 — Los Angeles, CA — Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE
8/25 — Los Angeles, CA — Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE
8/28 — Austin, TX — Bass Concert Hall
8/30 — Houston, TX — Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
8/31 — Grand Prairie, TX — Verizon Theatre
9/3 — Kansas City, MO — The Midland Theatre
9/4 — Tulsa, OK — Brady Theater
9/6 — Memphis, TN — Mud Island Amphitheatre
9/7 — Atlanta, GA — Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
9/8 — St. Augustine, FL —  St. Augustine Amphitheatre
9/11 — Orlando, FL — Hard Rock Live
9/12 — Boca Raton, FL — Mizner Park Amphitheatre
9/14 — Clearwater, FL  — Ruth Eckerd Hall
9/15 — Charleston, SC — North Charleston Performing Arts Center
9/17 — Charlotte, NC — Time Warner Cable Uptown Amphitheatre
9/18 — Raleigh, NC — Red Hat Amphitheatre
9/20 — Bristow, VA — Jiffy Lube Live
9/21 — Philadelphia, PA  — Mann Center for the Performing Arts
9/24 — Boston, MA — Wang Theatre
9/25 — Boston, MA — Wang Theatre
9/27 — Bethlehem, PA  — Sands Event Center
9/28 — Mashantucket, CT — Foxwoods Resort Casino

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/steely-dan-2013-tour/

Just hit the Jimmy the K personal CD collection to pop in my vehicle when one song is just not enough:

1. Led Zeppelin                   I
2. Springsteen                  Wrecking Ball
3. James Gang                  Rides Again
4. Rolling Stones              Let It Bleed
5. Jefferson Airplane        Surrealistic Pillow