Glastonbury supremo Michael Eavis today confirmed that U2 will headline next year’s Glastonbury festival, set to top the Friday night bill on the Pyramid stage in their first ever appearance at the festival. Eavis had promised something special for the festival’s 40th birthday and in managing to persuade veteran rockers U2 to play Glasto, he’s pulled off a real coup with the quartet set to fly back from the US where they will be mid-tour to perform…
Before the beginning of this year I had never been within a continent of any member of the Jackson family. Michael was an eccentric faded pop star and his brothers were mythical creatures from around the time of my birth, freeze-framed in my brain wearing brown flares and comedy affros. However, 2009 proved to be a year where my Jackson spotting would finally up its game, and also proved to be a year that they will never forget. Beginning in March at the O2 with Michael, I have now been in the same room as every member of The Jackson 5 bar Randy - so if you’re reading Randy and fancy a coffee, get in touch…
The voice from Tiger Bay is still going strong as she’s proved recently with new album The Performance, which saw a host of artists writing for her including Gary Barlow, Manic Street Preachers and the Pet Shop Boys. Here, Shirley Bassey talks about still having a vocal coach, recording her new album and how she was born to do it: “Even when I had my first job in a factory and I was wrapping up enamelware for export I’d just sing and people would stop working…”
So, we saw them perform it live(ish) on Sunday night’ s X-Factor, all dressed in white looking like they had just walked off the Flying Without Wings music video in possibily the cheesiest X-Factor moment ever. If you thought that was a one-off hammed up performance for the camera, think again: the official music video is far, far worse…
