Anyone in the UK should try and visit the Royal Albert Hall, London, at least once. The building alone is worth seeing, but to really appreciate it you should attend a concert.
The ‘Classical Spectacular’ I attended was on Sunday 21st March 2010. The ticket prices were £50 and worth every penny. This review is not just historical, the Classical Spectaculars are regular events that are held at least twice a year, the next being between
Once upon a time, (the 1960’s actually), there were five Brummie lads who liked beer and music. Sitting in the pub drinking their local ‘Brew X11′ for the “Men of the Midlands”, they decided to form a band.
One of them had heard that the Birmingham brewery Mitchells and Butlers were looking for a band to play at their trade fairs. So they decided to call themselves the M & B Band and tried to get sponsored by the brewery.
Some of the most boring blogs you can find, are those where every post is urging you to BUY, BUY, BUY, this latest product that you absolutely can’t be without.
These articles could be classified as Product Reviews, EXCEPT you never read a bad review! After all, the blogger won’t make any money out of saying how bad something is.
What’s worse than the blatant sales pitch, are those blogs where the reviews aren’t even personal. They are just a rehash of the products sales page, or a PLR article scattered with BUY buttons.
Last night I was at St Mary’s church in Warwick for a performance of Handel’s Messiah. I have seen this performed once before, but had forgotten how long and boring it is!
The only bit’s I liked were “Are we like Sheep?” and “The Hallelujah Chorus” – but that was over an hour away. 
I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and my girlfriend was having the same problem, so in the interval we ‘did a runner’.
“Can you play an Instrument”?… The first question asked by our music master, at my first class, in my first year at the “big school” (where at 11 years of age I had to wear long trousers).
With enthusiasm my hand shot up. “What can you play”? He asked, “The Banjo, Sir” ….He looked surprised…”That’s unusual, OK stand at the front of the class with the other boys.”
I was a young teenager during the 1960’s and one of the first questions posed in the school playground was; “Do you like the Beatles or Rolling Stones?” Being independent minded I always replied “Neither, I like the Kinks”.
In 1968 I bought my first album and it was Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. I played this very loud, much to the annoyance of my brother who was an Elvis fan. The next year however I “discovered” the Beatles.
The 1970 breakup of the Beatles was a traumatic time for John, George, Paul and Ringo. Each dealt with it in their own way. Paul lived the life of a recluse on the Mull of Kintyre, whereas John resorted to psychoanalysis to get rid of his demons. His first, brilliantly stark album, is the direct result.
John consulted the American psychoanalyst Arthur Janov and subjected himself to the extreme ‘Primal Scream’ therapy. Janov was a follower of Freud and Jung, believing that adult problems can be found in a child’s formative years. His therapy stripped away all the protective psychological barriers to determine where the childhood problems lay.
Nowhere Boy is a great new film dealing with something rarely covered in books, and never portrayed in film – John Lennon’s childhood. It brilliantly manages to evoke the atmosphere of suburban life, circa 1960.
The Director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to avoid the obvious cliche of telling Lennon’s story through his and the Beatles songs, instead there is plenty of the 1950’s music that inspired the Group during their formative teenage years.
The last album written by Roger Waters for Pink Floyd was ‘The Final Cut’. The title had a number of meanings, including the fact that Waters would leave the band after this album.
I have all Pink Floyd’s albums on vinyl, but unfortunately I no longer play vinyl records, which meant I had to replace them with CDs. (What a great thing new formats are for record companies, they keep reselling the same music, to the same customers, but in a different form)!
Leamington Spa is a beautiful town with a lot of night life, however for too long it didn’t have a large capacity, live music venue. Groups were confined to local pubs that had the space and the enthusiasm to host a live band.
This has thankfully changed! For the past 12 months Leamington Spa has a brand new live music venue called the Assembly. Although the venue is new, the building is not – it’s a beautiful 1926 Art Deco construction that has been lovingly restored by its new owners.
