Tuesday 2 March 2010

Following the recent cancellation of the Lost Weekend Festival, The Thermals have unfortunately announced the cancellation of their upcoming Australian tour.

Ticket holders for the band's concert at Oxford Art Factory should contact their point of purchase for a full refund.  Chugg Entertainment and The Thermals apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Reviewed by Bernard Zuel
Sydney Morning Herald
February 19, 2010

THERE are rules at an AC/DC concert and everybody knows them. That's why there is more black than a Greek widow's convention. Why there's more flashing red horns than a bull's nudist colony. Why bourbon-and-Coke is holy water and beer a meal. It's why the few fools in white T-shirts are looked at with the same suspicion as vegetarians at a butchers' picnic. Mate, are they taking the piss?

Still, there was nothing more incongruous than a hot pink Hummer blasting out boy band disco in the car park. That's far weirder than a man near retirement age cavorting in schoolboy shorts on stage. That, after all, is the essence of rock'n'roll, isn't it?

So do not ask for whom the school (hell's) bell tolls ... because no one will hear you once Angus Young opens the throttle on Runaway Train, taking his solo down the long, long runway spearing appropriately phallically deep into the stadium.

Hey, don't blame me for the sexual imagery, we're talking a band built on single entendres - and a double dose of Young guitars, with Malcolm's punishing chords making Back in Black meatier than a stadium pie. And never, ever sloppy.

In fact the only loose part, apart from the ciggie dangling from the drummer's mouth, of an AC/DC show is the straggly thin and disappearing hair on Angus's noggin, drenched in sweat long before he plays the circular riff of Thunderstruck half an hour in and then skips along a glass section of the floor with a camera underneath. Those are some white on white legs there, Angus. Maybe next time they should consider playing a daytime show. Just a thought.

By Kathy McCabe
Daily Telegraph
February 19, 2010

The AC/DC faithful flocked in their tens of thousands to worship at the cathedral of rock last night.

Preaching to more than 70,000 of the converted at ANZ Stadium, AC/DC extolled the virtues of a life lived hard and fast in the name of rock 'n' roll.

With a knowing wink and their wicked sense of humour, Australia's greatest stadium band thrilled the fans with a concert they are not likely to witness again.

Every single member of the crowd would take away a memory stamped into their musical DNA forever.

Perhaps it was the naughty perennial school boy Angus Young teasing them as he peeled off his green velvet blazer, his tie, his white shirt and then slowly lowered his shorts to wiggle his AC/DC boxer-shorted bottom at them.

Maybe it was frontman Brian Johnson playing conductor, whipping the crowd to pump the air with their fists and scream their lungs out.

Equally impressive was his sprint down the 75m Angus Walk to leap into the air and grab the Hells Bell's cord to ring it throughout the stadium.

Many would shake their heads at the searing display of proficiency and musicality of rhythm section Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd who were as solid as a bank vault.

And then others played air guitar along with the unforgettable riffs which have made the man in the driver's seat, Malcolm Young, one of the most revered rhythm guitarists of all time.

And it wasn't just about the music. The Black Ice tour sets a new benchmark for a rock 'n' roll visual sensory overload.

The stage roof was flanked by two giant red blinking devil's horn caps which seemed to synchronise with the miniature versions adorning thousands of heads in the audience.

The giant rock 'n' roll train which announced AC/DC's arrival on stage shortly before 9pm was certainly a prop hard to top.

And then of course there was Rosie - the giant sexy inflatable - who has been making her appearance felt at the band's concerts for more than two decades.

Of course if the band was to play every fan's setlist, the show would go for days.

As it was they drew heavily from their latest record Black Ice, including the song War Machine which won them their first Grammy a few weeks ago.

But they also delivered a liberal dose of the classics including Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, TNT, You Shook Me All Night Long, High Voltage and an epic version of Let There Be Rock, which featured Angus spinning around on a hydraulic platform which rose above the crowd at the end of the catwalk.

During High Voltage the band paid tribute to their late frontman Bon Scot on the 30th anniversary of his death by flashing iconic images of him on the video screen.

You have two more chances to see AC/DC at ANZ Stadium on Saturday and Monday with limited tickets still available.

The Daily Telegraph
February 18, 2010 11:13PM

THE AC/DC faithful flocked in their tens of thousands to worship at the cathedral of rock.

As part of their national tour taking fans by storm, ACDC preached to more than 70,000 of the converted at Sydney's ANZ Stadium.

AC/DC extolled the virtues of a life lived hard and fast in the name of rock 'n' roll.

With a knowing wink and their wicked sense of humour, Australia's greatest stadium band last night thrilled the fans with a concert they are not likely to witness again.

Every single member of the crowd would take away a memory stamped into their musical DNA forever.

Perhaps it was the naughty perennial school boy Angus Young teasing them as he peeled off his green velvet blazer, his tie, his white shirt and then slowly lowered his shorts to wiggle his AC/DC boxer-shorted bottom at them.

Maybe it was front man Brian Johnson playing conductor, whipping the crowd to pump the air with their fists and scream their lungs out.

Equally impressive was his sprint down the 75m Angus Walk to leap into the air and grab the Hells Bell's cord to ring it throughout the stadium.

Many would shake their heads at the searing display of proficiency and musicality of rhythm section Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd who were as solid as a bank vault.

And then others played air guitar along with the unforgettable riffs which have made the man in the driver's seat, Malcolm Young, one of the most revered rhythm guitarists of all time.

And it wasn't just about the music. The Black Ice tour sets a new benchmark for a rock 'n' roll visual sensory overload.

The stage roof was flanked by two giant red blinking devil's horn caps which seemed to synchronise with the miniature versions adorning thousands of heads in the audience.

The giant rock 'n' roll train which announced AC/DC's arrival on stage shortly before 9pm was certainly a prop hard to top.

And then of course there was Rosie - the giant sexy inflatable - who has been making her appearance felt at the band's concerts for more than two decades.

Of course if the band was to play every fan's set list, the show would go for days.

As it was they drew heavily from their latest record Black Ice, including the song War Machine which won them their first Grammy a few weeks ago.

But they also delivered a liberal dose of the classics including Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, TNT, You Shook Me All Night Long, High Voltage and an epic version of Let There Be Rock, which featured Angus spinning around on a hydraulic platform which rose above the crowd at the end of the catwalk.

During High Voltage the band paid tribute to their late front man Bon Scot on the 30th anniversary of his death by flashing iconic images of him on the video screen.

According to ... well, everyone ... she's beautiful, incredible and we can't get her out of our heads.

Orianthi, the 25 year old South Australian blonde "rock-chick" guitarist who found fame in Michael Jackson's This Is It movie and with her debut single, the Top 10-peaking hit, According To You, was today announced as the support for the five-date Australian leg of John Mayer's Battle Studies Tour which starts at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on April 30 and ends at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on May 8.

Tickets for the concerts go on general sale this Friday, February 19, from Ticketek and in Sydney from Ticketmaster.

Just weeks after being the only Australian performer in the We Are The World remake, the LA-based guitar prodigy is excited to be coming home soon.

A believer that "dreams do come true" - and in her case, and then some! - Orianthi is no stranger to rubbing shoulders with stars of the 'super' kind.

She's been mixin' it up with the 'big boys', as the say, since she was a teenager.

Her first support was opening for Steve Vai when she was 15.  Next up was ZZ Top.  She jammed with Santana when she was 18.

"Insane," she says.

In 2009 it was on-stage with Carrie Underwood at the Grammy Awards.

Then, in a modern twist on the old-fashioned fairytale, she didn't get the 'call', but rather, the 'email' - via MySpace - from Michael Jackson's Musical Director asking if she wanted to audition for This Is It.

"I didn't think it was for real," she said.

"Getting into his band, actually being hired, by MJ, was a really special and amazing moment, there were tears."

Supporting John Mayer is another star-string to her dream-bow and it's doubly special and amazing because she's coming home to Oz.

"It's amazing, I get to play with a lot of my Idols.  It's pretty surreal," she said.

Orianthi has got the pedigree, and the chops, to go guitar-to-guitar with Mayer, himself a virtuoso.

"I think in life you should go with what you sort of 'get' and I sort of 'got' playing the guitar, you know, but I guess that's my path to walk down in life."

"It's a true double whammy," said promoter, Chugg Entertainment's Executive Chairman, Michael Chugg of the concert line-up.  "It's going to be great."

And to Orianthi, the last word, "I just love playing, it makes me really happy."

Us too Orianthi, us too!

Happy days ahead for Aussie audiences when Orianthi opens for John Mayer in April and May.

"Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are a travelling Woodstock, a throwback to the great lost days when bands thought of themselves as families and concerts were foaming whirlpools of joy." 
Huffington Post, 2009

"Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros aren't quite a household name yet, but we have a feeling they will be one very soon."
Time Out, New York, 2009

"Frolicky, feel-good sing-alongs that dip into '60s psychedelia and '70s boho-rock jam abandon, joyful vocal textures and jangly instrumentalism (there's about a dozen people onstage at once), and most notably Ebert's Messiah-like magnetism make for a compelling musical display."
LA Weekly, 2009

If you haven't caught yourself whistling along to Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros Top 40 single "Home" in recent weeks you mustn't have been listening to the radio. The first song from the Californian 11-piece hippy family band has been pricking up ears across the country, and it shows.

Their debut tour of Australia was announced just two weeks ago and their Melbourne show at the Corner Hotel sold out in less than 48 hours, the show at Sydney's Metro Theatre has only a handful of tickets left.

For those who missed out, today's news is good news, and what else could we hope for from the happiest band in America.

By overwhelming demand, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros have extended their first ever Australian tour to begin in Brisbane at The Hi-Fi on Tuesday 23 March, and play a second show on Wednesday 24 March at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. They will also stay on in Sydney just a couple more days to play at the Factory Theatre on Thursday 1 April.

All of these newly announced shows go on sale through the usual outlets at 9am on Friday 19 February, and be quick. Tickets didn't last long for their first shows, and with their fan base growing day by day - hundreds of thousands of votes placed "Home" at number 15 o Triple J's recent Hottest 100 countdown - there is no doubt these new tickets will go just as fast.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros were named one of Rolling Stone's "Artists To Watch In 2009" and it's just one of the notable places that they earned last year, appearing within a plethora of music press and pop culture blog's "Best Of 2009" lists.

They have drawn comparison to acts such as The Polyphonic Spree, Arcade Fire and any number of hippy family bands from the 60's and 70's. With their shameless happiness and boundless energy, they are winning passionate new followers at every turn. The late Heath Ledger was one such fan that backed the band from the beginning, with financial support and intentions to be a part of their first record before his untimely death.

The mastermind behind the group is Alex Ebert, former front man of indie/punk/electronic group, Ima Robot.  Ebert is also the creator of the band's fictitious namesake, Edward Sharpe, a character dreamed up during a difficult period where Ebert made an exit from the lifestyle he was lost in, one that included over indulgence and cynicism, and went back to basics. While in his apartment, he sketched out a the story of a boy called "Edward Sharpe" who was sent to earth to heal and save mankind, but kept getting distracted by beautiful girls and the power of love. Inspired by the story, Ebert found his own peace, and the affections of a stunning woman in the form of Jade Castrinos, who shares lead vocals on the single "Home".

Ebert and Castrinos enjoyed their escape to freedom and began to write music together; on their travels, they picked up a band of merry men and a white school bus and took their show across America.

Nowadays, a far cry from the front man's dark former life, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros deliver their audience a childlike joyfulness and energy that you can't help but be completely immersed in when you experience their live show.  If you don't dance, and sing, and leave the concert dreaming of a Woodstock life of hippy tranquility and unabashed happiness, you couldn't have been paying attention.

"There's a medicine show coming your way, guaranteed to cure whatever ails you."  Huffington Post, 2009

Don't miss Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros live in Australia for the first time next month, tickets on sale this Friday through the usual outlets.

Patrick Donovan
The Age
February 12, 2010

'Let there be light, sound, drums, guitar, let there be rock!' demands AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, cueing Angus Young to launch into what is either the greatest - or most indulgent - live guitar solo of the past 30 years.

While singer Brian Johnson takes a breather and AC/DC's engine room - guitarist Malcolm Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd - pump out the relentless 17-minute rhythm to their triumphant anthem Let There Be Rock, pint-sized, school-suited maestro Angus Young, 54, begins his 10-minute guitar solo by running along a 75-metre catwalk jutting out into the screaming crowd.

The solo reaches its celestial peak and confetti explodes around Young as he is raised on a hydraulic rising platform. As if that is not enough, he then sprints to another rising platform on the main stage - playing furiously while he runs - as the guitar symphony reaches a crescendo, before he descends the stairs and finally ends the song rolling on his back, like sizzling bacon in a pan.

The multi-generational crowd at the band's show at Wellington's Westpac Stadium three weeks ago shook their heads in disbelief as they pondered just how, 37 years on, a small bunch of humble, ageing and reserved Scottish immigrants still managed to put on the biggest, loudest rock show in the world.

AC/DC's anthems are part of our DNA - attending a concert is like singing the national anthem at the Boxing Day Test or joyfully hollering your footy team's anthem after a hard-fought win. They survived the death in 1980 of their charismatic singer, Bon Scott, and numerous trend and technological changes. Like Elvis Presley, AC/DC transcend age, fashion, gender, socio-economic divides and stereotypes.

''Three generations of fans are coming to these shows,'' says co-promoter Gary Van Egmond, who is touring the band for the sixth time. ''There's the 15-year-olds, their parents and their grandparents. And there's a much bigger female audience. It used to be just the black T-shirt brigade.''

It is an unlikely success story. The band, which started in Sydney's western suburbs in 1973, is far from fashionable; most of the current set is made up of songs three decades old. Their latest album, Black Ice, is solid - probably the band's best since 1980's Back in Black - but is not a patch on the early material.

Some of the songs are sexist, mired in barely disguised innuendo, and if a band came out with these songs now in these politically correct times, they would be howled down. But they are of a certain place and time, back when larrikin Scott wrote them with a nod and a wink.

Rather than be offended, the Wellington crowd - of which women comprised about a third - danced and sang along to the blues classic She's Got the Jack and the epic Whole Lotta Rosie.

Not only have AC/DC survived but their fan base continues to grow. Despite not releasing an album or touring for eight years, the band's popularity has soared to gargantuan levels. Since 2003, they have sold 23 million albums and DVDs, including greatest-hits packs Family Jewels, Plug Me In and Backtracks, and trail only the Beatles in catalogue sales for that period. Their most popular album, Back in Black, continues to sell at an astonishing rate, with 42 million sales making it one of the highest-selling albums of all time. And these figures don't include download sales; as with the Beatles, AC/DC refuse to sell their music as MP3s on sites such as iTunes.

The band last toured nine years ago on the back of their previous album, Stiff Upper Lip. The tour sold about 200,000 tickets in Australia. On this tour - which may well be their last - they will play to an estimated 750,000 fans in Australasia, including three shows at ANZ Stadium.

So how has the band managed to increase its popularity, having released only one new album?

What is it about the music of AC/DC that stubbornly refuses to leave our stereos, dance floors and collective consciousness?

Certainly, the ''nu rock'' revival at the turn of the century and the band's palpable influence on young bands such as Jet, Airbourne and the White Stripes helped connect a new generation to their timeless music.

And those bands also reminded us that no one does it as well as the originators.

Industry and peer acknowledgement has also raised AC/DC's mainstream profile. They were inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, took out their first ARIA Award in November and last week won their first Grammy - Best Hard Rock Performance for their song War Machine. At the Enmore Theatre, the biggest rock band of all, the Rolling Stones, bestowed the highest honour on the Young brothers by inviting them on stage to jam.

Over in Fremantle, where the ashes of late singer Bon Scott rest, the council erected a bronze statue on its boulevard, where Scott loved to swim when he was growing up.

Fifa Riccobono, who has worked with the band at their label, Albert Music, since their beginning, says the mystery behind the band adds to their appeal.

''They don't talk between albums; they never have,'' she says. ''And they never predict what they are going to do next. They just suddenly say 'here we are' and everyone realises that they haven't retired.''

But one day soon the band will call it a day. Their 16th album, Black Ice went No. 1 in 29 countries and Johnson, now 63, indicated in an interview in Mojo magazine last year that he would like ''to go out on top''. And while the energetic Angus Young looks like he could probably play until he's 90, it's hard to imagine Johnson's gravelly voice holding up at 70.

But just as Scott's lyrics have lived on after his death, so, too, will AC/DC's timeless rock music - long after Angus has hung up his school uniform.

Patrick Donovan travelled to Wellington courtesy of the promoter, Gary Van Egmond.