On Thursday I went to see the magnificent Ian Hunter and the superb Rant Band play in Sheffield. This was my second Hunter show in two years, I previously saw him in Harrogate in 2012. The support band was the stunning blues rock outfit Federal Charm from Manchester. They are a very tight unit musically and their lead singer Nick Bowden has shades of a young Paul Rodgers in his singing. I bought their album at the gig and it is a great set for listening to when driving or probably many other activities too. You should check them out. Click here for their Facebook page.
On to the main man though. Mr Hunter was on top form as expected and the Rant Band are just bloody good as always. It looked like Ian and the band were really enjoying themselves on stage too. It was an excellent set with the highlights for me being the old Mott songs “All The Way From Memphis” and “All The Young Dudes” both of which probably had everyone in the crowd singing along. I certainly was. But my favourite two songs of the evening were “When I’m President” which works better live than it does in it’s recorded form, probably because it is such a great song. The other was the poignant “Michael Picasso” which was originally released as a part of Hunter’s ‘Artful Dodger’ album in 1996. It is a heartfelt tribute to the late, great Mick Ronson. I must admit that the lyrics often bring tears to my eyes, as they did on Thursday.
Sadly the UK part of the tour is over now, but I urge you to go and see Ian and the band the next time they tour. You will not be disappointed. There are still plenty of dates left rolling into January. These are in Scandinavia, Japan and the USA. His merchandise stand was selling a ‘Live In The UK 2010′ CD which showcases just how good the band are in live performance. So while you’re waiting for that next tour get your hands on a copy of that CD. I have one final question how can Mr Hunter look so fit and young into his 70s? I need that secret! For another great review of Ian Hunter on this tour go to the backseatmafia blog who was at the Holmfirth show. I should add that none of the videos or pictures or videos on this post were taken by me and in fact none are from the Sheffield gig.
I have just read the news that British singer songwriter Lynsey De Paul has died aged just 64. Whilst I am very open about my eclectic tastes now back in the 70s it wasn’t seen as cool among my circle of friends to like Lynsey’s music. However I must confess that I actually did like quite a few of her songs. Perhaps these are some of my true guilty pleasures. She had quite a few hits in her own right; “Sugar Me”, “Getting A Drag”, “No Honestly”, “Ooh I Do” and “Won’t Somebody Dance With Me”. The latter won her an Ivor Novello award. In 1977 she represented the UK at the Eurovision Song contest with a song that perhaps predicted future UK performances in the contest. It was called “Rock Bottom” which she sang with Mike Moran and it performed really well finishing in second place.
as a co writer perhaps one of her most memorable hits was “Dancing (On A saturday Night)” which she wrote with singer Barry Blue. He took that to number two in the UK charts in 1973. One of my favourite De Paul songs was “Central Park Arrest”. It was written for Thunderthighs who had been backing vocalists to Mott The Hoople. Lynsey’s own version of the song was on the B-Side to “No Honestly”. She has a further link to Thunderthighs and Mott the Hoople. Lynsey De Paul recorded the female vocal part on the album version of Mott The Hoople’s “Roll Away The Stone”. However when the song was released as a single her contribution had been replaced by that of Thunderthighs. In yet another Mott link Lynsey was also responsible for a name change of one of the band. In 1973 when Mick Ralphs left he was replaced by Luther Grosvenor. Mister Grosvenor was for some reason contractually obliged to change his name, so Lynsey suggested Ariel Bender, which stuck.
Lynsey had five UK top twenty hits. “Sugar Me” was her highest UK chart success as a singer reaching number five in 1972. She also had number one singles in Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium. My thoughts go to her family, friends and fans. Lynsey De Paul RIP.
Another Award? Most dangerous celebrity? I’ll take it!
According to the security software company McAfee Cheryl Fernandez-Versini/ Cheryl Cole/ Cheryl Tweedy is the most dangerous celebrity on-line. Given the musical turds she plops out on a regular basis I’m not surprised. However the dangerous element apparently has nothing to do with her music but relates to the amount of viruses and malicious software that hackers put into links loaded with a Cheryl bait. This might be the offer of nude pictures, free video or free MP3 music files. Frankly anyone downloading her music, given that the taste police don’t really exist, deserves all they get. Those of you who have arrived here looking for that kind of thing will be sorely disappointed however I’m sure that feasting your eyes on Cheryl’s tattooed bum (that’ll be ass for my readers from across the big pond) will help you through that and enable you to exercise your right hand too. Incidentally does anyone in the US know who Cheryl is?
Second and third on the list of the most dangerous celebrities were Daniel Radcliffe and Jessie J. All five members of Wand Erection are in the top 20 individually as well. Here is the top ten. Interestingly this blog once undertook an experiment about the woman at number 9, to study how many people arrived here after searching for Lily Allen Naked; there were thousands of you!
Whilst I have had far more hits to my blog than I ever could have imagined when I started it in 2009 I am under no illusion as to why people visit me. Predominantly it’s because they like a titillating picture; ideally of a naked celebrity, particularly Lilly Allen. More recently though thousands of visitors have come seeking images of J-Lo‘s bum. That translates as ass if you live across the big pond. Thanks to a link to my blog appearing on the Chilean entertainment site glamorama.cl there have been more than 10,000 Lopez bottom seekers this month. Since this blogs inception more than 2,500 of you have opened a picture of Lady Gaga’s arse and just this year alone nearly 2,000 have opened a pic of J-Lo’s arse
Click here to read my original post regarding J-Lo‘s rear-end. I know that the main picture isn’t her, but when I searched for a picture that is what came up. It is in fact Jessica Burciaga. Anyway given the current interest in this, frankly, rather attractive part of J-Lo I simply had to post a link to the video for her new song “Booty” (featuring PitBull) didn’t I? Anyway I have no shame so if that is the kind of thing that brings you to my blog then that is spankingly good!
Finally the wait was over and the excitement that had built up over the months since Kate Bush announced her return to the stage was about to reach its peak. What would the show be like when I finally got to see one of my favourite artists of all time? Well to be fair I think that everyone who bought a ticket knew not to expect a greatest hits set. But given Kate’s back catalogue of superb albums I didn’t see that as a problem at all. The show that I saw fell towards the end of the 22 show run at the Hammersmith Apollo so I already knew about the set list. All the reviews of the earlier shows that I read suggested that the set list was fixed for the duration and it was.
There were 25 songs performed during the three-hour show. There were some hits but not many. When Kate entered the stage at the start of the show she received a rapturous standing ovation. How many artists do you know that would get that before they had sung or played a note? She looks really good and her voice is still excellent and seems to have grown richer over the years.
The first half of the show (there was a twenty-minute intermission) began with “Lily”, “Hounds Of Love“, “Joanni”, “Top Of The City”, “Running Up That Hill” and “King Of The Mountain“. Then the theatrical element of the show began in earnest for the song cycle “The Ninth Wave” taken from the original side two of the ‘Hounds Of Love’ album.
The set was truly magnificent as were the special effects, notably the rescue helicopter. Kate’s brother began that section playing a man who had received a distress call from a ship called The Celtic Deep that was in trouble and sinking. This was a filmed segment used to allow the stage to be reset to include the large frame of a ship wreck among other things. There were fish people and other dancers many of whom created the effect of the sea with large sheets with help from the lighting team. Kate’s son Bertie played her son in the dream sequence where Kate as the drowning woman was dreaming of her family during “Watching You Without Me”. In my opinion Kate proved that she is far more prog than any major prog band and I mean that as a massive compliment.
Part two of the show had a completely different set including a massive set of wooden doors. This was built for another song cycle, “A Sky Of Honey” from the second disc of the ‘Aeriel’ album from 2005. There were birds, trees and the artist. I had listened to “A Sky Of Honey” a lot during the past few weeks and I love it. Played live it is something even more magical. Kate’s son Bertie played the artist during this section and he even got his own solo song spot with “Tawny Moon”. He has a reasonably good voice and the song works, however I did feel that it might have been a little too long.
There was also an excellent puppeteer on stage working a fabulous artists wooden model dummy puppet. Late in the show there was a Pinocchio moment when the puppet became real. At the end of “Aerial” Kate in effect became a bird. Was she supposed to have been raised from the stage as a bird? It felt like it but that didn’t happen. I was also pleased to see hardly any sign of anyone filming any part of the show using their mobile phones.
The encore began with Kate singing “Among Angels” accompanied only by her own piano playing. I honestly thought before that point that things couldn’t possibly get any better. But that song was performed supremely well with great emotion and showcased just how good her voice is. The second and final song of the encore saw the whole band and ensemble return to the stage for a rousing and magnificent “Cloudbusting“. It felt like all 5,000 of us were on our feet and singing along; that is probably because we were! Kate thanked the audience many times but I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for deciding to play live again after all these years. Will she ever play live again? Will it be another 35 years? I really don’t care because I was there in 2014! I would love to hear your views if you were at this or any of the other shows.
I went to the show with my brother-in-law Richard Lee (my wonderful wife Catherine a.k.a Catwoman gave her ticket to her brother) and my friend Alison Wright with her husband Rob. I think we all enjoyed the show, I know that I certainly did. I would also like to dedicate this post to my cousin Deborah Jane Schofield who passed away far too young and was always a fan of Kate Bush.
I will close with the official video for “King Of The Mountain” one of my favourite songs of the evening
Usually you get three review posts from me for each day of the festival. But this year I am taking the lazy route. I will just be doing a single review of the whole shebang. Also it will be somewhat different from usual, this is born out of necessity as I just immersed myself in the music and the vibe and didn’t really bother to take notes. What follows is a departure from the norm for me and a bit of fun too. There is a list of the acts I saw and next to each there will be marks out of ten and one word to reflect my memory of that set. Some of these words may be obvious and others will be cryptic, if you want to know more about them please feel free to ask in the comments.
Day 1 – Friday 22nd August Crossfaith 7/10 pretty Red Fang 7/10 dervish
Rufus 8/10 nuts
Shambles In A Husk 6/10 shouty Phil Nichol (comedian) 9/10 Eskimo
Deaf Havana 6/10 hair
Fat White Family 7/10 hype Jimmy Eat World 8/10 veterans Enter Shikari 9/10 banging
Vampire Weekend 9/10 headliners?
Jamie T 9/10 surprise
Bipolar Sunshine 7/10 happy
Metronomy 9/10 synchronised Queens Of The Stone Age 9/10 party
To sign off I have a message for the festival organisers. It’s great that you switched the screens on the Main Stage to portrait view from their original landscape setting. However you need to fix the tech so that we can actually see interesting stuff on them. There were far too many shots of a singers ear, a guitarists arse or just a drum kit with no drummer in the picture. Also please move the fun fair back out of the main arena, it really doesn’t need to be there. All that aside this was one of the most enjoyable Reading Festivals that myself and my good friend Nick Horslen have been to. We have been attending them together for around 13 years and I went to my first in 1975. I’d love to hear what you folks thought of Reading and Leeds this year. Who do you think will headline next year? How about Iron Maiden or AC/ DC? I reckon Muse will headline. I’d like to see PIL on the bill too.
I bought a couple of tickets for this gig on a whim a few weeks ago. I have always liked Jimmy Cliff and I still have a ‘best of’ and the soundtrack for ‘The Harder They Come’ in my collection. Back in the olden days I owned maybe half a dozen Jimmy Cliff 7 inch vinyl 45 rpm records. My lovely wife Catherine (a.k.a. Catwoman) came with me. But I had warned her that the Academy was not a seated venue.
Anyway the lack of seats was not a problem at all as this quickly became one of the best gigs either of us had ever been to. Jimmy is a true entertainer; magnificent stage presence, fabulous rapport with his audience, an amazing band and, even after all these years a wonderful voice. It’s so hard to believe that he has been recording and playing live for more than 50 years! He opened with the sparse but supreme “Bongo Man A Come” which he seamlessly blended into a cover of the classic Ethiopians song “Rivers Of Babylon”. The proper one that includes the Far-I references, not the bland and sanitised rubbish that Boney M had a hit with in the late 70s. from the off Mr Cliff had the whole audience eating out of his hands. When he said sing, we did. When he said shout, we did. When he said wave your hands, we did. When he said jump, we did. When he said clap, yes you guessed it, we did!
All the hits were there “You Can Get It If You Really Want”, “Miss Jamaica”, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People”, “Many Rivers To Cross”, “The Harder They Come”, “Sitting In Limbo”, “The World Is Upside Down”, “Hard Road To Travel” and an excellent “Vietnam” which he used as a chance to plead for world peace by replacing the chorus with references to other world conflicts and trouble spots; Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and more.
The cover versions that Jimmy has done over the years always seemed carefully selected and he performed them magnificently tonight. These included Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”, Johnny Nash’s “I Can see Clearly Now” and a rather excellent song from the Lion King, “Hakuna Matata”. Catwoman and I had sore feet by the end of the evening from all the fancy footwork we attempted. We danced the Ska, rocksteady, reggae and others like nobody was watching. There was some really mental dancing going on around us too. In fact the audience may have been more worn out than Jimmy Cliff at the end. He still looked fresh after remaining on stage for nearly two hours including three encores. When he comes back to dear old Blighty I will definitely be in the queue for tickets and I urge you to do the same. You will not be disappointed! And finally, please note that none of the pictures or the videos on this post were filmed by me. I was too busy enjoying the show! None f them are actually from this show either.
Here we are again, time for my annual pilgrimage to the Reading Festival with my good friend Nick Horslen. Collectively we are the Zimmer Twins a.k.a Bald Guy and Silver Dude. So what is on the agenda for us this year? well there are plenty of bands that we have seen many times before, particularly on the Main Stage. Friday on that stage looks very appealing, particularly Deaf Havana, Jimmy Eat World, Enter Shikari and Vampire Weekend all of whom we have seen before but entertaining none the less. There is a joint headline thing going on that day with Paramore and Queens Of The Stone Age. I’m not too sure about the joint headline thing but both are very good bands who I have seen quite a few times. Friday on the NME/ Radio 1 Stage has a couple of acts that I’d like to see. Notably Warpaint, Metronomy and Gerard Way.I really don’t want to miss Aluna George on the Radio 1 Dance Stage either. I can see some big clashes cropping up for us that afternoon! As for the Lock Up Stage I really want to see Brody Dalle. I am never going to be able to see everyone I want to on that day. Some tough choices need to be faced clearly. I haven’t even considered any of the other stages yet either! As usual I would appreciate any recommendations from you folks reading this, especially if it makes our hard choices a bit easier.
Saturday’s Main Stage line up also looks good and once again it features many acts that I have seen before; including Pulled Apart By Horses, The Hives, Foster The People, Imagine Dragons, Jake Bugg and the Arctic Monkeys. But I have to see DZ Deathrays on the Radio 1 Stage first thing on Saturday. I saw them at the Woolpack in York a couple of weeks back and they were awesome. Also on that stage on my to see list are Royal Blood, Cage The Elephant, Die Antwoord, Chvrches and Bombay Bicycle Club. Then maybe Architects on the Pit stage. Band Of Skulls and We Are Scientists on the Festival Republic Stage. I also want to pay a visit to the Alternative Stage for some comedy. Does anyone have the ability to clone me so that I can attend every stage? Please send me the details, what do you need? A DNA sample, blood, sweat, tears, a stool sample? just let me know because as you are all well aware; you’re never alone with a clone!
Sunday’s closing night on the Main stage is good, but at the moment I prefer the other days. Although missing Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Blink 182 would be disappointing. However Disclosure headline the NME/ Radio 1 Stage that night and I don’t want to miss them either. On that same stage on Sunday I also fancy Clean Bandit, the Horrors and the 1975. Blimey this doesn’t get any easier does it? Then of course there is the Klaxons on the Radio 1 Dance Stage. The Lock Up stage is headlined by the magnificent Gogol Bordello with support from the Frankly (Turner) un-missable Mongol Horde.
OK clearly I will enjoy loads of acts but I will also be disappointed at having to miss so many. I await your recommendations dear reader, along with your plans for cloning me. The Zimmer Twins will see you there!
If you squint you can just about spot the Zimmer Twins in that crowd!
Damon Albarn is currently the only man to headline Glastonbury two years in a row. With Blur in 2009 and then with Gorillaz the following year. Now this made me wonder how many people have headlined the festival, or indeed any festival, with more than two acts. I guess it’s possible that Damon could also headline as a solo artist in the future too. I’m looking forward to your contributions here dear readers 🙂
Following yet another brilliant recommendation from my friend Simon Pattinson (and thanks for another great night out Mr P) I went to a fabulous gig at the Woolpack in York on Thursday night. I was drawn by the appearance of …. And The Hangnails who I had previously seen at the Apollo Festival in June. It was that excellent band that kicked proceedings off. This mighty, powerful, noisy, rock duo par excellence were brilliant. Despite a microphone problem in the first song and a broken guitar string later this band were on top form. If you’re a fan of the White Stripes, Black Keys, Strokes or Kings Of Leon I reckon you’ll love them. But don’t focus on the influences that I heard, … And The Hangnails are a very original band. I hear that they may be supporting another of my favourite bands later this year; the Tuts! I spoke with the band after the show and obviously I bought a copy of their new album ‘Rut’ which is bloody good. I have seen them twice so far this year I suggest that you make sure you see them at least once.
Next up at this tiny but brilliant venue was Avalanche Party who I understand include a few former members of 3 Foot Ninja who I have seen, enjoyed immensely and reviewed in the past. But Avalanche Party are not 3 Foot Ninja they are very much Avalanche Party. This band have great stage presence and know how to work an audience. They are a really tight band who play incredibly well together. The singer has a bit of a starey-eyed Ian Curtis about him. Their own songs are very powerful in a live setting and I’m looking forward to get my hand on some of their recorded output. They also played a formidable cover of Nancy Sinatra‘s “These Boots Are Made For Walking“. As with all the best cover versions they made it their own.
The headline act for tonight was DZ Deathrays all the way from Brisbane in Australia. If I had to leave before their set I would have gone home very happy indeed having witnessed two stupendous bands with massive potential. However I didn’t need to go home and I witnessed a set from a band that even surpassed those of …. And The Hangnails and Avalanche Party. DZ Deathrays are explosive and powerful with a drummer that could give Dave Grohl a run for his money. They alternate between being a three-piece and a four-piece to great effect. I bought their album too and it is very, very impressive. They will be in the UK until October. If you have a chance to see them you really ought to take it. Personally I would pay to see any of tonight’s bands again. I would love to hear what you think of all of them.
