--Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson Visits Boeing Training Facility

Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson is indulging both of his passions on the band's current tour.  During a recent tour stop in Seattle the rocker and licensed airline pilot checked out a Boeing training facility.  The aerospace company documented Bruce's visit, which included meeting staff members, seeing some of the latest technology, and slipping behind the controls in a 747-8 flight simulator.  The Boeing people say Dickinson has an obvious love of aviation, and add that he handled the flight simulator flawlessly.  But Bruce credits his seemingly instant mastery of the machine to the company, saying the staff "makes the pilot feel special...even if the plane is sometimes a little bit smarter than he is."  The singer also got to meet his Boeing namesake.  The 747-8 vice president and chief program engineer is also named Bruce Dickinson.

Iron Maiden will wrap up their "Maiden England North American Tour" this week with three shows in Texas.  The group will be in San Antonio Wednesday night.  They'll perform in Dallas on Friday, and play their final date in Houston on Saturday.


--Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx Explains Why Band Doesn't Give Encores

Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx is addressing fan complaints that the band's shows don't include any encores.  The rocker explains on his Facebook page that the group "used to do the old encore schtick most bands still do," but stopped because they decided it was sort of "a rip off to fans."  He says Motley Crue would rather "add more to the show and end it like a theatre production," instead of giving the concert a quasi-finish before they "go sit behind the amps and make people clap" for the band to return for another song or two.  Sixx adds that he and his bandmates "prefer to give 100-percent from start to finish" and wrap up with "one big ass bang."

Motley Crue is currently on the road with KISS co-headling "The Tour."  Their next show will be in Concord, California on Thursday.


--Blur Digitally Releases Olympic Closing Ceremony Show

Shortly after helping to close out the Olympics on the Hyde Park stage, British rockers Blur teamed up with Abbey Road's "Live Here Now" service to make their segment available online.  The group's closing ceremony performance has been released on iTunes, and a CD and DVD release is set for the coming months as well.  The release is cleverly titled "ParkLive," a take on the band's 1994 hit "Parklife."  A deluxe box set will also be released in November.  Blur frontman Damon Albarn reportedly told Absolute Radio that the group was paid just 300 pounds, which translates to about 470 U.S. dollars, for their Hyde Park gig.


--Devo Set To Release Song About Mitt Romney's Dog
 
Devo's latest track is inspired by, of all things, Mitt Romney's family dog, Seamus.  The GOP presidential hopeful has been criticized for a family road trip that took pet pooch Seamus from Massachusetts to Ontario in a kennel strapped to the roof of the Romney family car.  Titled "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Remember Seamus)," Rollingstone.com says Devo's new song will serve as a launch pad for founding member Gerald Casale's "Remember Seamus" campaign.  The track will be released as a digital single on August 25th.  

Devo is also involved in a number of other Seamus-related projects, including the smartphone game "The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed," due out on August 26th, or "National Dog Day."  The new wave punk vets are best known for their 1980 hit "Whip It."  The band's last album, "Something for Everybody," was released in 2010.


--Elvis' Candlelight Vigil Capping Off Day Six Of Elvis Week

Elvis Presley fans from around the world will meet at Graceland Wednesday night for the annual Candlelight Vigil.  The overnight gathering at the late rock icon's Memphis mansion is one of the highlights of Elvis Week.  After an opening ceremony, participants will begin a procession through the gates of Graceland and up the driveway to Presley's gravesite in the Meditation Garden for a moment of reflection and remembrance.  The Candlelight Vigil typically attracts thousands of mourners, and usually extends well past midnight.  Thursday will mark the 35th anniversary of Presley's death.  The legendary performer suffered a heart attack while at Graceland, and passed away on August 16th, 1977.  He was 42.  Elvis Week stems from the first Candlelight Vigil that was held in Elvis' honor at Graceland on the first anniversary of his death.

The Candlelight Vigil caps off the sixth day of Elvis Week events, which include special appearances from Priscilla Presley and Jose Feliciano.  Priscilla will take part in Wednesday morning's "Conversations on Elvis - Behind the Camera."  The session will feature presentations from a variety of photographers who captured Presley on film, and from those who now manage the Elvis photo archives.  Feliciano will be on hand to meet fans and autograph copies of his new Elvis tribute album, "The King...by Jose Feliciano."  In addition, Sony Music reps will host a special ceremony to update Elvis' Gold, Platinum, and Diamond record sales achievements.


--Quick Bites

The guys in Green Day are set to show off their new music video tonight.  The clip for their latest single, "Oh Love," will officially premiere as part of "MTV First: Green Day," which gets under way at 7:49 p.m. Eastern on MTV.  Afterward, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool will sit down with Sway Calloway for a 30-minute interview that will stream live on MTV.com.


--Today's Birthdays

Drummer Tommy Aldridge is 62.  He's worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Pat Travers, Thin Lizzy, and Black Oak Arkansas.
Pete York is 70.
Switchfoot bassist Tim Foreman is 34.


--Today In Rock History

In 1965
The Beatles kicked off a U.S. tour with the first-ever rock concert at New York's Shea Stadium.  The group performed for a record-setting crowd of 56-thousand.  The band also raked in 304-thousand-dollars, which was a record-high gross for a single show.

In 1969
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened on an alfalfa field near Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York.  The Jefferson Airplane; Janis Joplin; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Sly and the Family Stone; Jimi Hendrix; and Joe Cocker were among the artists who performed over the three day event.

In 1980
George Harrison's autobiography "I, Me, Mine" was released in London.

In 1982
Fans walked past Elvis Presley's grave at his Graceland mansion in Memphis in the first all-night Candlelight Vigil processional to mark the fifth anniversary of his death.  It was the first time fans were allowed to enter the gates of Graceland after-hours to visit the rock icon's gravesite.

In 1995
Motley Crue singer Vince Neil's four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Skylar, died of multiple organ failure at a Los Angeles pediatric hospital.  She'd been born with severe health problems.

In 2000
David Bowie and wife Iman had a daughter, Alexandra.

In 2004
Word surfaced that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts was battling throat cancer.  He was finishing radiation treatments for the disease, and was expected to make a full recovery.

In 2005
Phil Anselmo sat in on guitar with the group Eyehategod at a show in CBGB in New York.  It was Anselmo's his first public appearance since the murder of his former Pantera band mate "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott eight months earlier.

In 2008
Marilyn Manson announced that former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland had joined his touring band.  Manson introduced Borland at his concert in Seoul, South Korea.

In 2010
Despite a heat index of approximately 118 degrees, an estimated 15-thousand fans turned up at Graceland to honor the late Elvis Presley with the annual Candlelight Vigil to bring Elvis Week 2010 to a close.

Someone hacked into Guns N' Roses Twitter account, and posted a false message claiming the group had cancelled all of its upcoming tour dates.  The band took down the page the next day, and denied the cancellation rumors.