Search Still Got The Fever
THANK God someone has seen sense.
This year’s Hard Rock Calling and Wireless festivals will be staged in London’s Olympic Stadium instead of Hyde Park.
It finally brings the curtain down on the park’s dismal recent record as a major venue.
The Still Got The Fever blog started life last year to protest about the ludicrous decibel level limit set by the authorities, which meant thousands in Hyde Park struggled to hear Bruce Springsteen.
A council curfew imposed because of complaints about noise also meant that The Boss and Paul McCartney were silenced when some jobsworth ordered that the plug be pulled, sparking worldwide condemnation.
Well, the good news is that promoter Live Nation has secured an exclusive deal to host gigs at the Olympic Stadium in east London.
And first up will be Wireless and Hard Rock Calling in July.
Live Nation has struck the deal with the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is tasked with securing the future of the Olympic Park complex in Stratford.
“Our vision for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has always been as a destination for world-class sport as well as major cultural and leisure events,” said London mayor Boris Johnson.
“The confidence shown by one of the world’s leading live entertainment promoters to relocate two of its biggest music festivals from the centre of the capital is a ringing endorsement of out legacy plans.”
Live Nation will also host a number of big-name gigs concerts in the main stadium, with the first thought to be planned for early July.
The fantastic London 2012 opening ceremony showed just what could be done in the stadium.
So come, on Roger Waters. Bury the hatchet with the rest of the guys and let’s have the big Pink Floyd reunion.
“Live Nation is delighted to have won the inaugural contract for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park,” says John Reid, president of concerts at Live Nation Europe.
We’re delighted, too. Cancel that order for hearing trumpets ...
Beatle Paul McCartney has teamed up with jazz songbird Diana Krall for a Christmas cracker.
The 70-year-old pop legend has recorded an old chestnut with dishy Diana, 47, who is already a firm favourite with Still Got The Fever fans.
Quite literally, too.
The unlikely duo have revised The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) for the first big seasonal selection of the year.
They’re joined on Decca’s Christmas Rules set by the likes of Rufus Wainwright, The Civil Wars, The Shins, Calexico and many more.
The album, out on November 26, offers 17 all-new recordings from across the musical spectrum.
Chart favourites fun deliver an upbeat Sleigh Ride, The Shins take on Macca’s Wonderful Christmastime, Wainwight and Sharon Van Elten tease on Baby It’s Cold Outside.
Other highlights include The Civil Wars (come on, guys, bury your differences and get back together) serving up a sublime I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.
Soul icon Irma Thomas leads The Preservation Hall Jazz Band through May Ev’ry Day Be Christmas; alt.folkie Holly Golightly tells us That’s What I Want For Christmas; Fiery Furnaces alumna Eleanor Friedberger wanders all over Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me.
There are also tracks from Black Prairie, Heartless Bastards, Fruit Bats, Y La Bamba, Punch Brothers, Andrew Bird, The Head and The Heart, and Ages and Ages.
But it’s the McCartney-Krall duet that will grab the headlines, a late-night jazz smooch simply played and simply sung mostly by Macca, with Krall’s piano and harmonies.
The Big Mac, of course, appeared at the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony, while Lady Di recenty released Glad Rag Doll, with its sexy cover photoshoot.
For more photos from Diana’s Glad Rag Doll photoshoot, click here.
That’s What I Call Christmas, it ain’t.
Thank goodness.
It’s the curse of Hey Jude.On Friday night Paul McCartney was bamboozled by a sound delay glitch that threw him off his stride.He ended up having to quickly catch up and miss part of the verse.It was part of a shaky performance during Danny Boyle’s spectacular opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games.Earlier this month, he’d been considering playing Hey Jude at the end of his ‘surprise’ spot at Bruce Springsteen’s Hard Rock Calling.But Westminster jobsworths pulled the plug, meaning he was unable to continue in London’s Hyde Park.Back in June he dropped Hey Jude from the set he played for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert.Word is that he knew he’d be playing it at the Olympics gig, and didn’t want to tempt fate.And, of course, in 1985 his microphone cut out as he sang the song as the finale to Live Aid at Wembley Stadium.That left him singing to himself until someone managed to pop the plug back in.So be warned next time you think of singing Hey Jude.St Jude, you’ll recall is the patron saint of lost causes.And given Macca’s straining vocal, he might well offer up a prayer or two.
They pulled the plug on him in Hyde Park but today Paul McCartney broke off from rehearsals for the Olympic opening ceremony – to plead for an elephant.
After hearing from pressure group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) about the plight of a young elephant who has been beaten and is kept in chains, Macca penned an urgent letter to Indian Forest Minister Dr Patangrao Shripatrao Kadam.
The former Beatle, who first visited India in 1966, called on the minister to use his power immediately to rescue the little elephant, named Sunder, from Jyotiba Temple in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra and move him to a forested sanctuary.
“I have seen photographs of young Sunder, the elephant kept alone in a shed at Jyotiba Temple and put in chains with spikes”, wrote McCartney. “Years of his life have been ruined by keeping him and abusing him in this way – and enough is enough.
“I most respectfully call on you … to get Sunder out.”
McCartney’s plea follows PETA’s discovery that Sunder was being abused by his handler, who has gone on the run.
The young elephant sustained a severe injury to his right eye from being jabbed with an ankus – a sharp, hooked metal poker-like weapon. The animal is confined spiked chains and kept alone inside a dark shed, in which he cannot even take a single step in any direction.
“Sunder is denied all that is natural and important to him, and lives in fear,” say PETA investigators.
