His official website had this statement: "The family of Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees, announce with great sadness that Robin passed away today following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery. The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time."

Gibb went into a brief coma last month after coming down with pneumonia. "He woke up while we were playing the track which is a movement from the Titanic Requiem we have just written," his son Robin-John Gibb told ITV News at the time.

He fought both liver and colon cancer two years ago and thought he had made a "spectacular recovery", but a new tumor had recently developed according to MSN.

Butler posted an open letter to fans on his website. Here is what he had to say: I feel sad to see the Sabbath reunion becoming a bit of a soap opera on the internet. It has been a very tough year for us as a band, having announced our reunion plans, only for Tony to be diagnosed with lymphoma, leaving us no choice but to postpone the proposed Sabbath tour, and then for Bill to go public on his site about an un-signable contract. None of us knew how Tony was going to respond to his intensive chemo therapy, and radiotherapy. Ozzy and myself flew to England to be with Tony, and on his "good" days, we'd meet at his home studio and put ideas together for the upcoming album, all sitting down together, no drummer involved, just 3 of us quietly putting together ideas. We thought that when we had enough songs together for a full band rehearsal, we'd move back to L.A and put the whole thing together with Bill. Unfortunately, to our surprise, Bill issued a statement on his site saying he'd been offered an un-signable contract. He hadn't told any one of us he was having contractual problems, and frankly those things are worked out between our representatives, and never between the four of us let alone in public. We had the idea of keeping just one show in this year, hoping that Tony would be well enough for that show, and that things with Bill would be sorted. As you may expect, a one off show at Donnington Festival (Download) costs an absolute fortune to stage, involving over 50 people, transport, air fares, hotels, meals, agents, promotors, accountants, lawyers etc, so none of us, expected to make much money from it- it was a one off Sabbath show for the fans, before we go into recording the new album. Apparently, this wasn't acceptable to Bill's representatives, they wanted an amount that was so unrealistic that it seemed to have been a joke. So we resigned ourselves to doing Download without Bill, hoping he'd change his mind and at least make a guest appearance. We started rehearsals a few weeks ago with Tommy Clufetos, the drummer who will be on the Ozzy and Friends Tour. Brilliant drummer and good bloke. It was decided we'd better do a warm up show, to break the ice since we haven't played together live. The O2 Academy was available in Birmingham, where we were rehearsing, so we decided on that, and to make a donation to Help For Heroes Charity, since we'd be ironing out any glitches we may have. Then Bill put out a further statement saying he'd been ready to play the Birmingham show , but he was expected to have to do it "for free"- well, I think that's basically how you raise money from gigs for charity � you play them "for free".

All I am saying is that there are two sides to everything. I do hope to play with Bill again some day. For whatever reason; it wasn't meant to be this time. Bill's made his decision, and I have to respect that. Hopefully this painful year will be worth the wait for the new Sabbath album and end in joy and happiness for all.

"The band is getting along famously, better than we have in quite some time, and I think the shows reveal that through the miracle of YouTube," begins Roth. "I think we're one of the few bands who relishes you bringing whatever camera � if you can carry it in and pull the trigger on it yourself, then please do. And through the eye of YouTube, you can see that we're having ourselves a hell of a time, and I think that translates into the music."

Ulrich tells Rolling Stone: "I still don't feel we've challenged ourselves enough. We still talk about 'the next album.' We can do whatever we want with our music. 'We've hidden a new Metallica CD in each ZIP code in America. Go find it!' There's nothing but options."

Crowded House posted this statement on their website, "We are in mourning today for the death of Peter Jones. We remember him as a warm hearted, funny and talented man, who was a valuable member of Crowded House. He played with style and spirit. We salute him and send our love and best thoughts to his family and friends."

Vinnie Paul isn't the only Pantera member who spoke about the possibility of Zakk Wylde manning guitar duties. Frontman Phil Anselmo, who recently spoke to us about his love for Dimebag, responded to Vinnie Paul's comments during an interview with Grand Rapids radio station WGRD 97.9.

His private equity firm Elevation Partners bought a 2.3% share in the social media giant in 2009, which cost them $90m � but was valued at $1.5bn last week.

In a statement posted on his website, White writes: "Third Man Records encourages all attendees of said concerts to please not interfere or interject with any metaphors that they witness during the show as to not disqualify or worse yet, trivialize the metaphor in question. In addition, all concert attendees are encouraged to entice as many metaphors to occur during the show that they possibly can, as long as they don't endanger themselves or Mr. White."

The musical highlights were many, and they started with Jagger joining Arcade Fire for "The Last Time." Midway through the program, things kicked into musical overdrive when the Foo Fighters jammed some thundering versions of a couple of Stones classics, including "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "It's Only Rock N' Roll (But I Like It)."

The tour, which marks the band's first since 2010, will include visits at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, NY (June 8 & 9) and the Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, FL (July 20 & 21). Along the way, the band will headline the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, AL on May 20 and the inaugural River's Edge Music Festival, held on historic Harriet Island - just across the Mississippi River from St. Paul, MN - on June 24.

"They're hard people to get along with, those brothers," the Denver Post reports. "Otherwise I'd still be in the band."

As former founder, frontman & songwriter of Gypsy Pistoleros, he left his own band on the eve of the Greatest Hits album launch party a few weeks ago, totally disillusioned the constraints of a band.

Figures revealed by police authorities show �3.95 worth of illegal drugs were discovered for every person attending the last Glastonbury festival � a total of �44,869 among its 177,000 attendees.

Meanwhile, �1062 worth of drugs were confiscated at Download, adding up to just 1.5p for each of the 70,000 people there. The figure at the combined Reading and Leeds Festival was slightly lower: 1p per punter, from a total of �1601 found among a crowd of 162,000.

The event marked the first time the band had played the city in more than a dozen years, and acted as a warmup show to the group's upcoming headline appearance at Download next month.

Original Sabbath members Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were joined by Ozzy's drummer Tommy Clufetos for the show as Bill Ward released a statement this past week declining to participate in the reunion based on a current contract offer.

The guitarist and his band performed a half dozen tunes as part of the Walmart Soundcheck series, playing a mix of classic and new material, including his current single, "You're A Lie."

Co-produced by Chris Goss (Queens of the Stone Age, U.N.K.L.E.) and longtime collaborator Bob Rock (Metallica, Aerosmith), "Choice of Weapon" was made in several studios, including the band's own Witch Mountain, as well as spots in New York City, Los Angeles and the California desert.

The show was the second date on the band's current 2012 European Summer Vacation Tour, a trek that features Metallica performing their 1991 self-titled ("Black") album in its entirety.