“Do you want to go to Sydney to cover a Rolling Stones exhibition and a Star Wars exhibition?” So came the question from my editor and if memory serves me correctly, I gave my first ‘yes’ at “Sydney”, my second ‘yes’ at “Rolling”, and was up to about ‘yes’ number six or seven by the…
Category: Music
12 Months Of NZ Herald Concert Reviews, Including A “Profound” Paul McCartney, An “Extravagant” Queen + Adam Lambert, A “Bonkers” Katy Perry & An “Unexpectedly Poignant” Cher.
12 months ago I started reviewing concerts for the New Zealand Herald. Not every week and not even every month, but on average, every couple of months I’d find myself with pen and notepad at a gig by one of the biggest artists of all time. Tough job but someone has to do it! So,…
Every Bee Gees Album Ranked From 22-1!
“I love them all!” “There’s no such thing as a worst!” All things repeatedly heard from diehard Bee Gees fans whenever the matter comes up of ranking the collected works of the brothers Gibb. With an international career of LP releases spanning the 34 years from 1967 to 2001, the Bee Gees were one of popular music’s…
Katy Perry Live Review: Her “Bonkers” Auckland Concert, August 2018 – NZ Herald
With all the excitement of Pink’s just finished, record-breaking run of seven sold out New Zealand concerts (six in Auckland and one in Dunedin), it’s easy to forget that another female superstar of the same generation was also in town at almost the exact same time. If we wind the clock back about three years, it…
Why Do Millennials Go Crazy Over You’re The Voice & The Horses? Hanging Out With John Farnham & Daryl Braithwaite At The World’s Most Remote Music Festival, The Big Red Bash
In July I was invited to the deepest depths of the Australian Outback to cover the self-described “most remote music festival in the world”, Queensland’s Big Red Bash. With John Farnham the headline act and fellow Aussie baby boomer star Daryl Braithwaite also on the bill, I went to the towering sand dunes on the…
Farewell To Aretha Franklin – The Heartbreaking Song Her Sister Wrote For Her
10 years ago I was in Melbourne and stumbled into this amazing little vintage clothes shop in a basement somewhere in the central city. Flicking through the stock, it was such a relief to finally find a place that sold music T-shirts beyond the usual suspects of Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and the Rolling…
Great Southern Land: The Soundtrack To An Aussie Outback Road Trip – My NZ Herald Article
On Monday I’ll be returning to the Queensland Outback so here’s a recent piece of mine the New Zealand Herald published about my ‘roo-dodging, Aussie-soundtracked road trip there back in 2016: New Zealand Herald, May 6, 2018: ‘Brisbane – Way beyond the beach’ As the title suggests, this was “way beyond the beach”. As in,…
21 Different Genres, 21 Different Bee Gees Songs – Barry Gibb Gets His Knighthood
I’m so thrilled for Barry Gibb, or Sir Barry Gibb as he is now officially known. His knighthood was finally presented to him by Prince Charles a few hours ago (having been announced in December last year) with Barry joking to the future king about the difficulty in getting up from the stool he had to kneel…
40 Years Since Andy Gibb’s ‘Shadow Dancing’ & The Biggest Hit Of 1978
This past week marked 40 years since Andy Gibb hit the summit of the US singles charts with Shadow Dancing, the title track to his second album. This wasn’t just a big hit. We’re talking double platinum in the US with more than 2.5 million copies sold in that country alone. Then there are the…
Paul McCartney & The Best Ever Carpool Karaoke
Forget every other Carpool Karaoke, this tops them all. I woke up this morning and this clip with James Corden and Paul McCartney was everywhere on Facebook. The cliche of “if you only watch one thing today, watch this” was used about half a dozen times, just from people I know alone. So here it…
Barry Gibb Reveals Long Lost Grease Demo As The Film Turns 40
I can remember reading once that Barry Gibb reportedly earned more money for writing the song Grease than any one person has ever earned for a solitary song in music history. Something both highly contestable and near-on impossible to quantify, but who cares, it’s a great fun fact. Even if the “fact” aspect is mightily…
Martin Luther King 50 Years On: Commodores Bassist Ronald LaPread Recalls The Day He Met Him – My NZ Herald Article
Last week the New Zealand Herald published my article about the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Junior. Click here to link to the piece that details my 2016 visit to the site of King’s assassination, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. If you’re planning a trip to the States and Memphis is somehow missing…