Whoa! This was the shocker yesterday evening! With only 8 shows to go on their current US co-headlining arena tour with Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch announced they have decided to honor their commitment to the fans and finish out the current tour with All That Remains vocalist Phil Labonte filling in for Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody who has fallen ill.
Phil Labonte on stage with Five Finger Death Punch in Philadelphia last night Photo credit: Shane Munce
Says Zoltan Bathory, guitarist and founder of Five Finger Death Punch: “Ivan is our brother and we fully and wholeheartedly support him taking care of himself so he can get well as soon as possible. We discussed possibly canceling the remaining shows but the responses from the other bands on the tour were so overwhelmingly supportive that we decided to move forward and deliver the great night to the fans that they expect.”
Phil Labonte, the vocalist of All That Remains, a former Marine and close friend of Moody once before saved the day for Killswitch Engage in 2010 when their singer at the time, Howard Jones, left the band mid-tour. Says Phil Labonte: “I got their six and stepped up right away. I’m honored to be able to help Five Finger Death Punch to finish their tour and give Ivan a chance to take care of himself. I did the same for Killswitch Engage years ago. I was humbled to get the call and get a chance to play in front of such a great audience.”
In an unprecedented move of solidarity, artists from the four-band bill of the tour have vowed to finish the dates on a high note and stand behind Ivan in his endeavor to get well. Last night’s Five Finger Death Punch show at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia featured guest performances by Phil Labonte of All That Remains, James Michael, vocalist of Sixx:A.M. and As Lions, the U.K. newcomers fronted by Austin Dickinson.
The remaining dates of the tour are as follows:
Fri 12/2 Hershey, PA Giant Center
Sat 12/3 Huntington, WV Big Sandy Superstore Arena
Mon 12/5 Greenville, SC Bon Secours Wellness Arena
Tue 12/6 Charleston, SC N. Charleston Civic Center
Thu 12/8 Orlando, FL Amway Arena
Fri 12/9 Tampa, FL Amalie Arena
Sat 12/10 Duluth, GA Infinite Energy Center
We also would like to wish Ivan Moody a speedy recovery. I hope he can get things on track. Seems like he just can’t shake these demons. I hope he’s getting the care that is needed.
The Pulse of Radio & Blabbermouth report the Mighty Metallica played a special intimate club show on Tuesday night (Nov 29th) at the Opera House in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All proceeds from the show at the 950-person venue went to the Daily Bread Food Bank. The quartet also asked its fans to bring non-perishable food items, which were dropped off at the door. Tickets, which were $25 for members of the band’s fan club and $100 for the general public, sold out in minutes last week.
A spokesperson for Daily Bread told CBC News that the charity had no advance notice of Metallica’s plans, calling it “a delightful surprise.” Metallica has done a number of promotional events around the release of its new album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, including a small show in London that was livestreamed, a session for the BBC and a stint on The Tonight Show. The album was released on November 18th and debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 291,000 copies in its first week of release.
In other news, Metallica hung out earlier this week while in Toronto with the members of Sandman, a Canadian tribute band that received a cease-and-desist letter from Metallica’s attorney over the use of their name and logo to publicize Sandman’s shows. Metallica issued an apology to Sandman last January, blaming the incident on “a very overzealous attorney who sent this letter without our knowledge.”
Metallica added in its statement at the time Sandman should “file the letter in the trash,” with Sandman member Joe Di Taranto confirming that Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had called him to apologize personally. A photo of the two bands meeting has been posted online.
Metallica has clashed with other parties over infringement issues before, usually retailers using the “Metallica” brand name, but has never gone after a tribute band.
Man, this cracks me up! I just tossed a bunch of cassettes (after a while, that old tape gets dry and brittle if you don’t use them regularly) and now comes Green Day with their own Boombox box set with all their albums and a specially designed boombox. This set is available next Friday. Hit www.greenday.com for more.
Dave Grohl cracks me up! He has once again appeared on an episode of Comedy Central’s Drunk History. This time he’s with actor and Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda. The segment, which is of course about the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, features Grohl as a “gossiping founding father” alongside other actors and comedians. A clip of Grohl’s performance can be found online. (Stereogum)
In related news, The PRP reporting a 20th anniversary vinyl edition of Nirvana‘s 1992 compilation album Incesticide will receive a proper retail release on Friday, Jan 13th, 2017. The vinyl edition was previously released as a 2012 Record Store Day exclusive and has since commanded high prices on the secondary market. The 180-gram vinyl double LP set features remastered audio and will arrive ahead of Incesticide’s upcoming 25th anniversary, which will take place in Dec 2017. Pre-orders are available now via Amazon.com.
Volbeat shared a “bootleg” live version of “Seal the Deal,” their current single from Seal The Deal and Let’s Boogie. Those Dutch know how to rock!
And last, but not least, our gal pal Lzzy Hale and Halestorm have revealed their ReAniMate 3.0 The CoVeRs eP will be released Jan 6th. We’ve posted the live version of the band’s performance here. The track listing is as follows:
01. Still Of The Night (WHITESNAKE cover)
02. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover (SOPHIE B. HAWKINS cover)
03. I Hate Myself For Loving You (JOAN JETT cover)
04. Heathens (TWENTY ONE PILOTS cover)
05. Fell On Black Days (SOUNDGARDEN cover)
06. Ride The Lightning (METALLICA cover)
And here’s the studio version. Because we can never get enough of this band!
(Thanks Blabbermouth)
Celebrating life this weekend: Today, Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel is 48! Saturday, Ozzy Osbourne is 68. Have a great weekend!