Hack at work.
Killing Bono
"The best book I have ever read about trying to make it in the music business" - Elton John
"A fantastic book, which manages the difficult trick of being simultaneously very funny and very sad." - Bob Geldof
"I was Neil McCormick's fan in school. He was much cooler than me, a much better writer and I thought he'd make a much better rock star. I was wrong on one count. He's written a great book" - Bono
Robbie Williams & Take That reunion won’t last
July 16th, 2010
Take That Mark II: Back For Good, bad or indifferent?
Yesterday, the media was put on alert that a major announcement would be made by a pop band.
Oh no, I thought, Jedward have split up.
Well, it would have been more newsworthy than Robbie Williams rejoining Take That. The reunion of the original line up of Britain’s best-loved overgrown boy band is not so much a surprise as an inevitability. It is the merger of two best-selling brands, a blockbusting money-spinner at a time when the moribund music industry needs all the blockbusters it can lay its grubby fingers on.
With Williams stellar solo career at last showing inevitable signs of decline (last year’s ‘Reality’ was his first studio album not to reach number one in the UK), a reunion with his commercially revived former bandmates provides both a respite from the intense demands of solo stardom and the possibility of rejuvenation.
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How many stars does it take to fill the Albert Hall?
Children In Need Rocks, Albert Hall, Review
Published: 3:26PM GMT 13 Nov 2009
Take what? When is a reunion not a reunion?
Well, it finally happened. Britain’s favourite superannuated boy band Take That shared a stage with their prodigal son, Robbie Williams. They didn’t do a song but they hugged as they passed between sets.
If the audience was disappointed at least they had some distraction from a line-up that included Sir Paul McCartney, a surviving member of the original and greatest boy band. He rocked the Albert Hall with a Beatles set, including Hey Jude, on which Take That were sort of reunited as his backing vocalists, along with the rest of the cast. Does singing ‘nah nah nah’ together count?
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U2: secrets of stadium rock
The Claw: stage set or intergalactic people transporter?
U2 were in London this weekend, playing two dates at Wembley Stadium. Now, I am well aware that not all rock critics share my enthusiasm for the band (my colleague Michael Deacon awarded the show a mere three stars) but I was blown away once again. I have watched them from the school gymnasium all the way to this latest attempt to simultaneously transport 88,000 people to another galaxy on what appears to be a home made rocket ship. I thought the show was as powerful, exciting and transformative as a big rock show can be. The teething problems of the opening night in Barcelona’s Nou Camp have been ironed out, and the band have gained both a sense of the dynamics of that stage space and complete mastery of the set of songs. The second show, on Saturday night (when they had overcome some of the sound problems mentioned by Michael on Friday, apparently caused by Wembley’s roof being partially closed), was phenomenal.
From the epic statement of intent that is the opening ‘Breathe’ (“I’m gonna walk out, into the street / Got my arms out, got a love you can’t defeat”) to the raw, emotionally exhausted closing ‘Moment Of Surrender’, U2 just throw everything at their audience: lights, music, Acthung (Baby). Something seemed to happen about six songs in, when they delivered a particularly rich and emotional version of ‘Until The End Of The World’ which left them wreathed in smiles. The joy of the band themselves mirrored the joy in the audience, who pitched into ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I Was Looking For’ like they were auditioning for the role of the biggest gospel choir in the world. The sound was broad and open, the performances clipped and focussed, the rhythm section thunderously driven, Edge flying on his one man orchestra of sound, and Bono singing high and hard, utterly lost in the music.
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