Looking Back : 2018 By Month (September & October)
September 2018
September 1st: U2 stopped a Berlin show when Bono suddenly became unable to sing.
September 4th: Eric Clapton and Roger Daltrey were honored in London with stars on the Royal Albert Hall Walk of Fame.
September 7th: The John Lennon postage stamp went on sale.
September 8th: Elton John started his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
September 16th: Paul McCartney’s new album, Egypt Station, debuted at number-one in Billboard — the eighth chart-topping album of his post-Beatles career, but his first since Tug of War, 36 years earlier.
September 17th: Playing with his dog in the backyard of his Osprey, Florida home, Dickey Betts fell and cracked his head, causing bleeding from the brain and surgery four days later.
September 19th: KISS announced their End of the Road tour.
September 22nd: Paul Simon played the final show of his Homeward Bound Farewell Tour in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York, near the neighborhood where he grew up. Simon said this wasn’t final concert, but the end of touring for him.
September 27th: Singer Marty Balin of The Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship died at 76, a month after he filed a lawsuit against a New York City hospital, claiming that bad post-surgery care after a 2016 heart attack caused him permanent damage.
September 28th: An American Treasure, a four-CD Tom Petty box set, was released.
September 28th: A court ruled that Led Zeppelin will have to face a retrial over their alleged copyright infringement of “Stairway to Heaven” on the song “Taurus” by Spirit.
October 2018
October 2nd: Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick died from a heart attack. The Grammy-winner engineered Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album and Abbey Road as well as albums by Elvis Costello, Badfinger, Art Garfunkel, Supertramp, Cheap Trick and many others. He was 72.
October 3rd: Fleetwood Mac opened their world tour at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Mike Campbell from The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House in place of the fired Lindsey Buckingham, the band broke out songs they haven’t done in four decades – “Black Magic Woman,” “Oh Well,” “Tell Me All the Things You Do,” “Isn’t it Midnight” and “Hypnotized” — along with catalog items by the new members — “I Got You” (Split Enz) and “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (Crowded House) and Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.”
October 5th: This was the day Steve Perry fans waited 24 years for — the release of his new album. Traces was his first since 1994’s For the Love of Strange Medicine. He started recording it in May 2015 following the death of his girlfriend, Dr. Kellie Nash.
October 6th: Ozzy Osbourne was forced to pull the plug on his tour after undergoing emergency surgery in Los Angeles for a staph infection in his hand. His doctor said he most likely got it from a meet-and-greet and that it could have been fatal.
October 10th: The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s 2017 decision that the film Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane violated a “blood oath” made in 1988 by band members not to exploit the group’s name after the 1977 plane crash. The movie, based on the book by former drummer Artimus Pyle, can now be made.
October 12th: Eric Clapton released his first Christmas album. Happy Xmas is a mix of standards, lesser-known songs and a new original called “For Love on Christmas Day.”
October 22nd: News breaks that Billy Idol was sued by a woman for inviting her to a backstage meet-and-greet in Las Vegas and then skipping out on her. Juliana Berg claimed that in 2016 Billy asked her to his meet-and-greet and concert and spoke of taking her to a hotel after it was over. She says that because she expected she’d be staying with him, she brought no money and couldn’t afford a room of her own. She sued for her travel expenses, reimbursement of her concert ticket and “extreme emotional distress.”
October 23rd: Roger Daltrey became the third member of The Who to publish a memoir (after Pete Townshend and drummer Kenney Jones) with the release of Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story.
October 24th: Rod Stewart had to cancel his show in Boise, Idaho due to a broken foot he sustained while playing soccer with his two young sons.
October 25th: Ringo Starr was honored at The Paley Honors: A Gala Tribute to Music in Beverly Hills. He was recognized for The Beatles’ performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964. Taking the stage, Ringo said, “I’m here because we are celebrating the four of us. I well up a little bit because two of us aren’t here…”
October 31st: Former KISS members Ace Frehley and Bruce Kulick sat in with the band on the KISS Kruise for an acoustic performance of “2000 Man,” The Rolling Stones song that KISS covered on their Dynasty album, with Ace on vocals; “New York Groove” from Ace’s first solo album; “Nothing to Lose”; and “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Bruce also played on “Revenge” and “Hide Your Heart” from his time in the band.