Loaded: 30/10/2009
POP-UP: Jack White's label will open a store in London for just two days
Friday October 30 2009
They may have been on the road to make yet more millions off their old songs, but Fleetwood Mac put in a performance at The O2 last weekend that took cynics such as me by surprise.
For two-and-a-half hours Stevie Nicks, a remarkably youthful looking Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie played with an enthusiasm and verve to appease anyone grumbling over the high price of tickets.
Hearing Nicks sing their finest song, Sara, was especially lovely as was the obvious joy Buckingham derived from the middle aged folk in the front rows.
What wasn't nearly so pleasant was having two loudmouth gentlemen in the row behind, both of whom were incapable of keeping their mouths shut during the performance and utterly oblivious to the furious glances of those around them. The situation was made all the worse by their cretinous friend from Cork who came over to them several times to crack schoolyard, homophobic jokes about his county's hurling goalkeeper Dónal Óg Cusack.
If any of you three laminate-wearing buffoons are reading this, stay away the next time someone offers you a freebie -- and give the tickets to someone who would really appreciate them.
- Much has been made of the fact that a chunk of Paul McCartney tickets for his sold out show in The O2 on December 20 cost €156.25 a piece. One wonders just how much extra money a man valued at £500m actually needs.
Yet, when it comes to bang for your buck, I know I'd much rather shell out that sort of cash for Macca than €20/€25 to see Fintan O'Toole, Matt Cooper, Pat Leahy and Shane Ross flog their new books on the recession in Dublin's National Concert Hall on Wednesday or spend up to €60 to share a room with war correspondent Robert Fisk and interviewer John Bowman in the same venue on Thursday.
Pause for a moment to reflect on the ticket prices for these journalists who don't have to worry about equipment and personnel and then consider the amount of gear and bandmates that McCartney will have to bring to Dublin for what is likely to be a compelling pre-Christmas concert. Suddenly, his inflated prices don't seem quite as preposterous.
- Rather than moaning about the leaking of their new single online, LCD Soundsystem are making 20,000 copies of Bye Bye Babau available as a free download from lcdsoundsystem.com
James Murphy had originally planned to release the eagerly awaited song on November 7 to coincide with Indie Store Vinyl Day, but when the song found its way onto the internet, the New Yorker's response was refreshingly grown-up. It's a pity other musicians of LCD's stature can't follow suit. Are you listening, Animal Collective?
- A week after giving a lecture to Trinity College's Philosophical Society, the enterprising Jack White has announced that his record label is to open a shop in London -- for two days only.
Third Man Records will launch its first UK "pop-up store" in east London's Shoreditch Church today and tomorrow.
The firm has previously created temporary shops in New York and Los Angeles.
The outlets sell all Third Man releases, memorabilia from White's bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, as well as unspecified rare items. In the case of the London store, organisers promise a "limited run of exclusive merchandise" that could include T-shirts, CDs and limited-edition seven-inch singles
Pop-up stores have also hosted surprise gigs by Third Man bands. As The Dead Weather are performing in London on October 29 and 30, there seems a good chance that the group -- which features The Kills' vocalist Alison Mosshart -- will swing by Shoreditch and preview songs from their forthcoming second album.
- Jarvis Cocker will host a new radio show on BBC 6 Music starting next year. The ex-Pulp frontman will take over Stephen The Office Merchant's Sunday 3.30pm slot from January.
"I'm looking forward to it," Cocker told BBC radio luvvie Steve Lamacq. "I think Sunday afternoons have a special atmosphere, and I will be doing something that is appropriate to that -- or maybe inappropriate, I don't know."
- John Meagher
Irish Independent
