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I'm really enjoying the Radio 2 in the Park concert on Iplayer with Sting, Sugarbabes, Travis, Pet shop Boys and many others. Sting looks great for 70+ and one of the finest song writers of the last 50 years. I just wish he would make more of an effort with his appearance. Rocking up in a T-Shirt and jeans.
For the first couple of songs the sound quantity of Sting's vocal was terrible, but it seems to improve after that. I'm disappointed that they are not showing the concert live on tv and you have to go to iplayer and watch the sets long after they have finished.
Wyot wrote: Yes enjoyed some of it too. Looking at Sting I am considering taking up yoga!
Ringo Starr quit booze and heavy drugs for yoga also Wyot. Yes, neither has had to do a lot of work, rock stars do drugs because of boredom. Studio, travel, hotels and gigs. Sting did weed and a heck of a lot of coke.
Paul McCartney is now showing his age, his face lifts are horrendous he looks like Charlie Mullins and Anglea Lansbury love child.
Also, I am now a veggie, which has surprised me also
The Pet Shop Boys were having their first hits when I was still at school. I'll be sixty in exactly three years time. God they've been around a long time looking at it like that, but seeing them tonight it hit me how fast life goes. It was both frightening but reassuring at the same time. I guess you have to be a very specific age to feel this.
Jason wrote: The Pet Shop Boys were having their first hits when I was still at school. I'll be sixty in exactly three years time. God they've been around a long time looking at it like that, but seeing them tonight it hit me how fast life goes. It was both frightening but reassuring at the same time. I guess you have to be a very specific age to feel this.
Not forgetting Pet Shop Boys are still selling out theatres when they tour. Howard Jones has been sold out numerous times on his North American tour this year.
Jason wrote: The Pet Shop Boys were having their first hits when I was still at school. I'll be sixty in exactly three years time. God they've been around a long time looking at it like that, but seeing them tonight it hit me how fast life goes. It was both frightening but reassuring at the same time. I guess you have to be a very specific age to feel this.
They may have been around since the mid 80's but let's face it, they haven't put out a memorable popular new song since the early 90's. I think the recent Radio 2 countdown of their most popular songs following a listener vote proved this. It's the imperial phase that sustains them, from 1985 to roughly around 1993 with the hit Go West.
Jason wrote: The Pet Shop Boys were having their first hits when I was still at school. I'll be sixty in exactly three years time. God they've been around a long time looking at it like that, but seeing them tonight it hit me how fast life goes. It was both frightening but reassuring at the same time. I guess you have to be a very specific age to feel this.
Neil Tennant was already in his 30s when he had his first hit with "West End Girls". I remember when he was a writer on Smash Hits magazine, and I wondered how is Smash Hits Jounalist now a pop star?. Chris Lowe really doesn't like being a Pop Star, hiding under his cap and behind sunglasses. He could have said a few words to the crowd, which was essentially his home town (being from nearby Blackpool).
robbiex wrote: Jason wrote: The Pet Shop Boys were having their first hits when I was still at school. I'll be sixty in exactly three years time. God they've been around a long time looking at it like that, but seeing them tonight it hit me how fast life goes. It was both frightening but reassuring at the same time. I guess you have to be a very specific age to feel this.
Neil Tennant was already in his 30s when he had his first hit with "West End Girls". I remember when he was a writer on Smash Hits magazine, and I wondered how is Smash Hits Jounalist now a pop star?. Chris Lowe really doesn't like being a Pop Star, hiding under his cap and behind sunglasses. He could have said a few words to the crowd, which was essentially his home town (being from nearby Blackpool).
I would not be surprised if Lowe was on the spectrum like Gary Numan. Numan seems to be happy being photographed but very socially awkward. David Byrne was painful to watch when being interviewed, again he is on the spectrum and it shows.
I have been watching bits of it on Youtube. It's very hit and miss IMHO, Kim Wilde is pushing the same naffness for decades but it made her a lot of money.
Haircut 100 they always been one of those take it or leave bands, I can listen to them without switching off.
Travis always been a dirge to me with awful haircuts to match, I thought they were always a poor man's Big Dish. Sugarbabes good grief have they always been bad live? Overload has always been a decent song on the album, I love the riffs in the song. I guess studio magic played it part.
Paul Heaton, fantastic like always, I saw him live as a support act. Sting is just sting looks good for his age but his voice has been shot very a long time, age does play Catch Up. I find his albums very forgetable and I see them in junk shops a lot.
Pet Shop Boys no complaints apart from the audience singing.
Shed Seven, very average. Adele chased pavements, Breathe Carolina were Chasing Hearts, Snow Patrol chased cars and Shed Seven are nowing chasing rainbows. Pixie Lott is just Pixie Lott like the Manics are, what you see is what you get.
I have never heard of Delta Goodrem before as I don't follow TV/film pop culture. Even though she is an Aussie she has has that cosy Americana vibe which I love. However, nobody should cover Tina Turner, they kill it when they do.
I love Haircut 100. They sounded really good, apart from the embarrassing live sound check which was the fault of the technicians not them. Nick Heyward has aged very well indeed, and is eternally upbeat.
robbiex wrote: I love Haircut 100. They sounded really good, apart from the embarrassing live sound check which was the fault of the technicians not them. Nick Heyward has aged very well indeed, and is eternally upbeat.
I agree there Robbie, they are a band that is not really on my radar or I go out my way to listen to.
Nick Heyward really is marvellous isn't he. Every time I've seen him in recent years I instantly feel good. I can't imagine he's anything other than just like he appears. Now he really is a good looking 63, proving age really is just a number and mindset. Stick Nick at 63 back among the 63 year olds of 50 years ago in the early 70s and he'd look young enough to be their son. Your average 33 year old back then looked older.
How can anyone dislike Haircut 100 if you were starting to notice pop music when they first appeared. They had 4 cracking top tens in very short succession within the year and were then gone.
Although billed as Haircut 100 it was still a shame that Nick didn't knock out a couple of his own solo singles from the year following the chart demise of Haircut 100. Whistle Down The Wind and Take That Situation were fabulous. You never hear his first solo hit (Whistle) anywhere yet it's a classy song. But just like Haircut 100, Nick's biggest and best solo singles all fell within the calendar year of 1983, so his group and solo discography of note really was an intensely compact period of time covering only two years from late 1981 to late 1983. Yet look how they've endured.
I've actually got a copy of Pelican West, their 1982 album, courtesy of the Daily Mail a few years ago when they kept giving out CD's with the paper and some very decent albums indeed from the 1980s. I've never listened to it all the way through so will have to do so.
Just one other thing, I think it's Haircut One Hundred, rather than Haircut 100 as a number isn't it? Well that's how it was promoted on the backdrop in Preston at the weekend and seems to be on the old record covers, and they should know I guess. But I do have books that vary between the word version and the number, and I think even TOTP at the time varied between the two versions when showing the countdown.
Yeah I got their album too from the Daily Mail, in a cardboard cover. Probably the only reason I would have to buy the Daily Mail. I haven't listened to it many times. I already had a Nick Heyward and Haircut One Hundred greatest hits album which contained many of the tracks. They were basically a singles group, but what great singles. Any album that is 4 singles deep is going to be good. There used to be a hairdressers in Cranleigh called Haircut 100 up until about 10 or 12 years ago. I have to say that 1981 was probably the best year in my opinion for new bands emerging. Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Haircut 100, ABC, Japan, Soft Cell, and Altered Images. All had their first single or first hit in the case of Japan. What a year!
Rich wrote: Nick Heyward really is marvellous isn't he. Every time I've seen him in recent years I instantly feel good. I can't imagine he's anything other than just like he appears. Now he really is a good looking 63, proving age really is just a number and mindset. Stick Nick at 63 back among the 63 year olds of 50 years ago in the early 70s and he'd look young enough to be their son. Your average 33 year old back then looked older.
How can anyone dislike Haircut 100 if you were starting to notice pop music when they first appeared. They had 4 cracking top tens in very short succession within the year and were then gone.
Although billed as Haircut 100 it was still a shame that Nick didn't knock out a couple of his own solo singles from the year following the chart demise of Haircut 100. Whistle Down The Wind and Take That Situation were fabulous. You never hear his first solo hit (Whistle) anywhere yet it's a classy song. But just like Haircut 100, Nick's biggest and best solo singles all fell within the calendar year of 1983, so his group and solo discography of note really was an intensely compact period of time covering only two years from late 1981 to late 1983. Yet look how they've endured.
I've actually got a copy of Pelican West, their 1982 album, courtesy of the Daily Mail a few years ago when they kept giving out CD's with the paper and some very decent albums indeed from the 1980s. I've never listened to it all the way through so will have to do so.
Just one other thing, I think it's Haircut One Hundred, rather than Haircut 100 as a number isn't it? Well that's how it was promoted on the backdrop in Preston at the weekend and seems to be on the old record covers, and they should know I guess. But I do have books that vary between the word version and the number, and I think even TOTP at the time varied between the two versions when showing the countdown.
Rough Trade say Haircut 100 but on the album cover it's One Hundred. Not a bad price for a signed box set.
I hope we not going down the Bowie route. I did piss off a guy for saying Bow-ee, he said it's not pronounced like that. Then I said then Boo-e like the NBA basketball player. If you go places of interest in Texas the tour guides will pronounce Bowie as in Sam Bowie also.
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