I saw Altered Images from 1981 on one of those video music channels last night and it got me thinking about birthday songs. The following are probably the more typical ones most of us would think of. Anyone want to suggest another?
The Beatles - Birthday from the White ALbum
Junior Boys - Birthday from Last Exit album.
Stevie Wonder - Happy Birthday - from Hotter Than July
Boomtown Rats - Video for 'Mary of the Fourth For' one of their best tracks.
The Boomtown Rats, Middlesex Polytechnic (now University) in Hendon:
Last week I saw a BBC 'Rock Goes to College' concert (on BBC4) with the Boomtown Rats at Middlesex Polytechnic College at Hendon. It reminded me of how great the Rats were in the late 70's. 'Tonic for the Troops' was one of the first records I listened to when my older brother bought it. He was a huge Rats fan.
Madonna is a real interesting case. Did you see her performance at Live Earth? Its amazing how she can be so good and so crap in the one short set. Her new song 'Hey You' was terrible, embarrassing dross. It really was that bad. And her gypsy version of 'La Isla Bonita' was painful to listen to, and even worse to see.
But then she played 'Ray of Light' which was absolutely brilliant. It was probably the best performance in terms of 'putting on a show' in the whole day. It was highly entertaining, a showbiz expert at her very best. I loved it.
In case you missed it I've pasted it above. If you want to see Madonna at her very worst then check out the other two songs on YouTube.
It's been a busy couple few weeks for live music on TV, what with Glastonbury on the BBC all weekend (And a couple of weeks before they showed George Micheal's concert at Wembley Stadium). Then, there was the Diana Concert, and this weekend the Live Earth concert from Wembley and various other locations, and the T in the Park in Scotland.
My impressions from all of this:
Video Tapes - I have to buy a DVD recorder because I'm stockpiling VHS video tapes having done so much taping. I'll probably never get through it before someone tapes 'Nip Tuck' over it 'by accident'.
Glastonbury = cold, wet, mud. I am officially not one of their target audience.
The Concert for Diana was a good idea but it lacked 'tightness'. The section with Rick Gervais was painful, in fact, really painful. Why didn't he just get off the stage and save face? Surely he has some new material to fill 10 minutes instead of doing a bad impression of his own dance routine. When I give presentations I always bring along a little extra material, just in case I finish early, you never know. Amateur!
Ricky Gervais, lacks new material.
Duran Duran at their best and their worst.
Duran Duran should stick to their own stuff. The still get a lot of stick for the 90's cover album 'Thanks'. So why try a cover in the middle of one of their songs at the Diana Concert? When they play their own stuff they're brilliant. When they play other people's stuff they're crap.
Live Earth - Did you see the Pussy Cat Dolls being interviewed on the BBC? I've posted it here for your viewing pleasure/interest. These people look like a bunch of prostitutes. It's true. I don't mean to be harsh but it's true. Look at them! And listen to the total drivel coming out of their mouths. And come on, the 'Mayor' of California... Check out the video and laugh or cry.....
Why every time their is a big concert in the UK does the BBC insist on repeatedly claiming that 'The whole world is watching' when this is so obviously untrue? They tell us that this is a global event and that its been transmitted around the world. They said so during the Diana Concert and during the Live Earth concert, when where I live, none of the TV stations showed any of either of these two concerts. I had to watch it all on the BBC by satellite. None of my friend or work colleagues aw any of these concerts and very few of them even knew it was happening. The whole world is not watching. There is no doubt that these concerts reach a large internacional audience, but the majority of these are in the english speaking anglo-saxon world.
And then the claims about the new Wembley Stadium being the 'greatest stadium on the planet'. Come on! It's an amazing new stadium, but how exactly is it the 'greatest'. What is the 'greatest'' The biggest? No, its not. The newest? Probably, for a few weeks. The most technologically modern? Who knows? There's no need for this type of generalisations.
T in the Park - CSS are a great band, on record and live! Viva CSS. Lily Allen's cover of Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' is very poor. Lily is great on record but not so great at these huge shows.
CSS rule! And so do those sexy jump suit (in a strange sort of shapeless way).
Here's U2 with their first appearance on TV on Youngline in 1978. I used to watch this program religiously every week. I was so annoyed when they took it off the air. I still have the 1978 Youngline Annual. I must put up a photo of it.
You know how these days so many music magazines com with a free cd? Well over the weekend I came across this Debut magazine, from 1984, which was a magazine with a free vinyl LP. How cool is that? I've just managed to track down two issues. I'm not the magazines lasted very long. Howard Jones is on the front cover of issue 5 and the Smiths are on issue 6.
Here's a few tracks from the album (recorded directly from vinyl)
