The Bee Gees circa 1981. One year ago today I was lying by the pool in Bali, checking email and realising one of my heroes had just died. If you click here you can link to the piece I wrote later that day in a disastrously a/c-free internet cafe about Robin Gibb’s death and what…
Tag: Music
Bobby Womack Live In Auckland – His Most Monumental Song
Bobby Womack. Things have been a bit of whirlwind lately and – forgive me Bobby – but I somehow forgot that soul great Bobby Womack was playing in Auckland tonight. Realising my error just before show time, not surprisingly I missed out on tickets to the man who once played guitar in Sam Cooke’s backing…
Wishing Billy Joel A Happy Birthday With His Saddest Song
Billy Joel. A very quick post to wish Billy Joel a happy 64th birthday. I hope Billy gets inspired by Rod Stewart who has said goodbye to years of writer’s block and has finally released an album of new, self-written songs (Time). And while it may not seem like a particularly long time, believe it…
Fleetwood Mac’s First New Music In 10 Years Reviewed – ‘Extended Play’
Fleetwood Mac are back with their first new recordings as a band for 10 years. Particularly from the thinking man’s guitar hero Lindsey Buckingham, there have been plenty of solo projects in more recent years and Stevie Nicks even managed an acclaimed solo album in 2011 (In Your Dreams). But this is the first time…
The Bee Gees 1972-74 – A Hidden Gem From Their Most Forgotten Era
For Anzac day I was trying to think of an appropriate song and funnily enough, a Bee Gees song popped on my iPod and there it was, the perfect song. A slow, almost genteel acoustic ballad, King And Country ranks as one of the Gibbs’ great forgotten works from their transition period in the early…
Paul Simon Concert Review, Auckland 2013 – The Michael Jackson Song He May’ve Inspired
Paul Simon. Dare I say it, last night’s Paul Simon Vector Arena concert in Auckland was even better than Simon and Garfunkel’s show at the same venue in 2009. That concert was more rooted in glorious nostalgia, never more emblematic than when the lights silhouetted the two “old friends” and despite it being 40 years…
Paul Simon Live In Auckland Tonight – His Farewell Song To Art Garfunkel
My all-time favourite lyricist is in town tonight and I can’t wait. About 10 years ago I saw Art Garfunkel solo, in 2009 I saw Simon and Garfunkel together but tonight will be the first time I’ve ever seen a solo Paul Simon show. I say favourite lyricist because I don’t know of any other…
Elvis’s Greatest Ever Song, As Featured On Newstalk ZB’s ‘The Two’.
At the end of each episode of Newstalk ZB’s top-rated The Two (Friday and Sunday evenings from 8pm) Pam Corkery and myself like to conclude with a song that means something. “Means” in the sense that it should never just be a song to wash over you and that there should be a reason for playing…
Andy Gibb With A Country / Pop Song John Denver Would’ve Been Proud Of
I wrote a post yesterday about it being 25 years this week since the death of Andy Gibb and mentioned that many music fans might be surprised to learn much of his songwriting was in the country vein. This taps into the endless frustration I have with people’s idiotic appraisal of late 70s music in…
25 Years Since Andy Gibb’s Death – A Remarkable, Lost Song
Andy Gibb. A little over a week since Barry Gibb’s triumphant Mission Estate Concert in Napier (in front of 20,000 fans, see article below about my backstage experience), the Gibb family are in the news again today, specifically Andy. If he was still alive, today would be his 55th birthday and in just five days…
Backstage With Bee Gee Barry Gibb At The Mission Estate Concert
The Two went on tour this past weekend and despite inept road-signs, several u-turns, a missing map-book and an embarrassing absence of modern phone-internet technology, we made it to Napier and back to Auckland in one piece. In the process Pam Corkery and I also had the most welcoming, humbling, human and enthralling backstage…
Barry Gibb Mythology Tour Concert Review – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Barry Gibb at Rod Laver Arena, February 12. Because one Barry Gibb concert was never going to be enough, I decided to jump across to Melbourne for a whirlwind couple of nights to see the second most successful songwriter in music history* play Rod Laver Arena just 11 nights before he’ll be here in New…
