The Stone Roses — Ian Brown, John Squire, Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield and Alan ‘Reni’ Wren — played their first concert in 16 years Wednesday, a free, 11-song warm-up show for fans crammed into the 1,100-capacity Parr Hall in Warrington, England. The surprise concert was announced earlier the same day.

The reunited ’80s-era lineup of Ultravox — featuring Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren Cann — next week will release its reunion album ‘Brilliant,’ and, for the next 24 hours, is giving fans a sneak peak via a Facebook stream of five of the record’s tracks.

Paul Weller recently taped a session for The Wall Street Journal’s “WSJ Cafe,” which featured acoustic performances of Sonik Kicks tracks “That Dangerous Age” and “When Your Garden’s Overgrown,” plus a short interview in which Weller reveals he might play some West Coast dates this fall.

This week”s installment of Slicing Up Eyeballs on Strangeways Radio featured new music from Ian McCulloch of Echo & The Bunnymen, Robyn Hitchcock and Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, plus old favorites from Tom Verlaine, Midnight Oil, Morrissey, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush and more.

It’s enough to make fans of (very) early Depeche Mode swoon: Photographic evidence of DM co-founder Vince Clarke sitting down for dinner with former bandmates Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher. Earlier today, Clarke tweeted, ‘Tonight I am dining with the ‘Modes’. Apparently, Fletch is cooking…who knew?’

Well, it’s once again Morrissey’s birthday — insert “Unhappy Birthday” joke here — and the perpetually glum Smiths frontman is 53 today. To celebrate, we thought we’d dig up our favorite photo of him (yes, that’s Moz and Rick Astley), and then post a dozen Smiths and Morrissey concerts for your viewing pleasure.

Peter Gabriel will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his classic ‘So’ album with a deluxe multi-format reissue plus a 13-date North American tour dubbed “Back to Front,” which will find him performing the album start to finish backed by members of the same band he originally toured the album with.