30 AUGUST
Featured Events
2004 Björk releases Medúlla, an album made up almost entirely of human voices.
1995 James Taylor and ex-wife Carly Simon perform together for a benefit concert at Martha's Vineyard. It's their first time in 16 years that they have shared a stage.
1993 Billy Joel is the first musical guest on David Letterman's first show after moving to CBS.More
1989 Never do business with family: Billy Joel fires his manager, who is also his ex-wife's brother. Joel sues him for $90 million, setting off a series of acrimonious court battles.
1976 The Notting Hill riots take place as black youth clash with police at the Notting Hill Carnival in England. Members of The Clash are present, and the event inspires them to write "White Riot" as a call for white people to protest with the same furor.More
1970 Jimi Hendrix rocks the Isle of Wight Festival in his last British concert appearance. The show is plagued by technical problems, with the guitarist's amplifier picking up signals from the security radios. Other artists appearing onstage include Free, Joan Baez and The Moody Blues. The festival closes with a dawn performance by Richie Havens, who also opened at Woodstock.
1969 The Birmingham band Earth changes its name when lead singer Ozzy Osbourne announces on stage that the band's new name is Black Sabbath. The band had played "N.I.B.," "The Wizard," "Black Sabbath," and "Warning."
30 AUGUST
In Music History
2020 Lady Gaga is the big winner at MTV Video Music Awards, taking Artist of the Year, Song of the Year (her Ariana Grande collaboration "Rain On Me") and the Tricon Award, formerly the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. With the coronavirus lockdown still in place, two new categories are awarded: Best Music Video From Home ("Stuck with U" by Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber) and Best Quarantine Performance (CNCO: Unplugged at Home).
2019 Tool release Fear Inoculum, their fifth studio album and first in 13 years. Their previous album was 10,000 Days in 2006.
2016 The Go-Go's complete their final tour, playing their last show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
2015 Taylor Swift and Kanye West make peace when Swift presents him with the Video Vanguard Award at the VMAs, where West famously interrupted Swift six years earlier. The truce doesn't last: In February 2016, West raps, "I made that bitch famous" in his song "Famous," invoking Swift's ire.
2015 Wilko Johnson, known for his work in the band Dr. Feelgood, returns to the stage after beating cancer when he performs at the Rye Jazz Festival in East Sussex, England.
2005 Rihanna, 17, releases her first album, Music Of The Sun. The lead single is the hit "Pon De Replay," which draws on her Bajan heritage with Caribbean rhythms.
1997 After 11 weeks on top, "I'll Be Missing You," a tribute to "The Notorious B.I.G." by his producer/label boss Puff Daddy, cedes the top spot to "Mo Money Mo Problems," a posthumous single by The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Puff.
1996 Liam Gallagher flies to America to rejoin his Oasis bandmates on the (What's the Story) Morning Glory? tour. The band played the first four shows with brother Noel taking vocal duties after the capricious singer watched their MTV Unplugged performance from the wings, claiming to be suffering from a throat infection.
1995 Sterling Morrison (guitarist for The Velvet Underground) dies of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Poughkeepsie, New York, the day after his 53rd birthday.
1989 Bebe Rexha is born in Brooklyn, New York.
1988 Thomas "Papa Dee" Allen (percussionist/saxophonist/vocalist for War) collapses onstage during a performance in Solano County, California. He dies of a brain aneurysm at age 58.
1988 Danzig, fronted by former Misfits lead singer Glenn Danzig, release their self-titled debut album, produced by Rick Rubin. The song "Mother" becomes a minor hit when it is re-released five years later.
1980 Barclay James Harvest perform "A Concert For The People" next to the Berlin Wall to an audience of approximately 250,000.
1975 The disco-riffic "Get Down Tonight" by KC & The Sunshine Band goes to #1 in America, the first of five chart-toppers for the group.
1974 Pop singer/songwriter Rich Cronin (of LFO) is born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Tampon Flies, Nirvana Rocks At Reading Festival
1992Nirvana headline the Reading Festival in England. On the bill is L7, whose frontwoman Donita Sparks throws a (used) tampon into the crowd.
Nirvana is teetering on the edge, with Kurt Cobain living in Los Angeles away from his Seattle based bandmates, and going deeper into the abyss that would claim his life. Despite their off-stage troubles, they deliver one of their most memorable performances, which starts with Cobian being pushed onstage in a wheelchair. Wearing a hospital gown, he pulls himself up by the microphone, sings a few words of "The Rose," and mock-collapses on stage. The crowd is bewildered, but when Cobain gets up, grabs his guitar and launches into "Breed," it kicks off a memorable set that lasts 25 songs and 90 minutes. Cobains stunt isn't the most shocking moment of the festival: performing earlier in the day, the punk rock group L7 has some technical problems that get the crowd agitated. When they hurl items at the stage, frontwoman Donita Sparks retaliates by removing her tampon and throwing it into the crowd.
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