City of Blinding Lights - U2 - not a named city... but based on New York...
There is a connection here with New York, which was explained on this Wikipedia post:
The chorus was inspired by U2's first concert in New York City following the September 11 attacks during their 2001 Elevation Tour. When the lights illuminated the audience during a performance of "Where the Streets Have No Name", the band saw tears streaming down the faces of many fans. Upon seeing this raw release of emotion, Bono shouted, "Oh you look so beautiful tonight"; later, the band integrated the line into the chorus. The fans' passion, along with the resolve of the city following the attack, were the primary inspirations for many of the song's other lyrics.
One of the purposes of this blog is to broaden your musical horizons and introduce you to some new music, and aim to make some geographical connections along the way.
They are from Skeleffteå in Sweden and were founded in 2003.
The musical style of Moon Safari is characterised by a symphonic rock sound with five-part vocal harmonies, and plenty of changes in time signature and tone and mood within the same song
One of their long songs is named after the place where they were founded.
A new book about the music scene in Sheffield by Daniel Dylan Wray was mentioned a few weeks ago. The development of Arctic Monkeys was included in the book. This Guardian article explores their starting point, influenced by other local bands.
“It’s 12 noon in London, 7am in Philadelphia and around the world, it’s time for Live Aid”.
It was the 13th of July, 1985 and the world waited with anticipation as the stage at Wembley Stadium was poised to launch Live Aid. BBC Radio 1 DJ Richard Skinner famously declared,
Everyone remembers this particular set, which was also recreated for the film 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
I have been a big Queen fan for as long as I can remember, and over the years I have built up a large collection of memorabilia. I also collect vinyl records in particular that today numbers into the thousands.
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
I have everything from Air to ZZ Top in the collection and have always enjoyed sifting through the 45s, 12"s & LPs in record shops in any city that I visit.
However, the really valuable stuff, the stuff that is in protective covers, and the stuff that my kids can sell off for a small fortune when I pop my clogs is by Queen and their varied associated solo projects.
The reasons for this were brought back to me recently when I was invited by Russel Tarr – my friend and history teaching colleague at the International School of Toulouse – to be the next guest on a series of 'Desert Island Discs' secondary assemblies.
I recounted how I played the piano from a young age and so I have naturally been attracted to music involving the piano and piano players. Early on, I remember hearing ABBA playing at Christmas parties at my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire and listening to Stevie Wonder in amazement at how fast and talented these artists were at playing live and in the studio.
I explained to Russ how my Uncle Dave introduced me to the world of collecting as we used to go ‘bottling’ in the old Victorian dumps around Harrogate in the early to mid-1980’s.
We used to come back with all sorts of treasures including marble bottles and porcelain marmalade jars! Whilst uncovering hidden treasures, I used to love listening to his stories about travelling around Europe in the 60’s and 70’s following bands and living an amazing footloose existence.
I particularly remember Dave’s story about him and his brother - my Uncle Brian, heading down to Wembley Stadium to watch a collective of artists perform at a charity concert for Ethiopia in 1985 – Live Aid.
He originally went down to watch ‘The Quo’ but was so taken aback by Freddie and the boys that day, that later in July of 1986 he headed back down to Wembley with Uncle Bri for one of the two dates that Queen was performing with ‘The Quo’ in support. Incidentally, when they arrived back at Leeds train station after Live Aid, his Ford Escort had had its windscreen bricked in and so they had to drive back up to Harrogate with the wind blowing through their hair! Rock ‘n roll!
Uncle Dave and his Live Aid ticket - these are now worth quite a bit of money - image courtesy of Matt Podbury.
That story and many others he recounted made visiting W.H. Smith’s a must and I spent hours and hours thumbing through music books and magazines trying to find out everything I could about Queen and their secretive singer.
I have early memories of listening to and buying the Queen Album ‘A Kind of Magic’. However, Dave told me that ‘the’ song to listen out for was from way back and was called 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
A visit to Woolworths later and I had managed to secure Queen’s Greatest Hits 1 on cassette with my Christmas money, and I didn’t get much past track 1.
What a song!
What a bit of piano work!
What a genius!
In fact, for my Desert Island Discs, I didn’t choose 'Bo Rhap' but went in with a deep cut track that clearly showed Freddie building up to writing this opus. The track that I chose is called 'The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke' and I recounted how I used to listen to the 1974 album containing that track (Queen II) at a time when everyone else at school was listening to Guns N Roses and Ice Cube! Give it a listen – it is truly bonkers, and I have no idea how you even start to write and record something like that on your second album! The piano work is magnificent.
Fast forward a few years to around about 1993, and on one visit up to Harrogate I remember Dave talking about his mate named Paul who he had lived with in London, and back in his Ealing Art School days happened to know and hang out with a certain Freddie Bulsara (as he was then known) and had taken some photos of him during his pre-Queen days as a student.
Sadly, by 1993 Freddie had died and Queen were working on what would be their last album containing vocals left behind by their singer. There was peak interest in the band and at the start of ‘93 some relatively unknown Freddie solo songs had been remixed and released to great commercial success.
Freddie’s solo work with Montserrat Caballe had also been played extensively the year before as the soundtrack to the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.
I said to Dave that he really should tell Paul to dig out the photos and see what they were like, as there was bound to be huge interest in anything Freddie related, particularly from this time period where there were no photos in circulation.
I was sure that my favourite monthly magazine, Record Collector would be more than keen to have a look.
About a year later, I got a lovely surprise when Dave posted me a birthday card with a very cool black and white image of a guy playing a guitar in a room with a Jimi Hendrix poster on the wall behind him.
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
Dave was a brilliant graphic designer and always used to come up with something special for birthday cards!
I didn’t register who the guitar player was and opened it to find a birthday note from him with an additional section telling me that he hoped I enjoyed this never-before published photo of Freddie on the front!
Bloody hell!
It was him too, and Paul had finally located the old albums and found some real gems! Paul also lived about five doors down from Dave in Harrogate and so a conversation started about what he should do with them.
Tim left Smile to be replaced by Freddie, and Chris left to be later replaced by John Deacon.
Paul knew Chris from years back, and had been in contact with him after talking to Dave. They had set off down to London to go and visit Queen's HQ and some auction houses with the photos.
You can read a copy of the letter below that Dave sent me in late 1995 with the details of what happened that day, and how they bumped into Brian May while they were there...
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
Paul managed to make some decent money from the pics, and they began to appear in other music publications and even on the 1996 Freddie Mercury Solo collection – a lavish box set that cost me a small fortune back in the day!
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
What happened next?
Come back in a few days to find out more!
Matt Podbury is a Geography teacher with nearly a quarter of a century of classroom experience, and he has been teaching at the International School of Toulouse for the last 17 years. Matt authors www.geographypods.com and www.ibgeographypods.org and also works for the IBO. He can be found on Discogs with the user name podders79 and adds a few extra vinyl records to his collection every month.
Well, there's no shortage of these as I was a teenager in the 1970s and developing my musical tastes...
Mike Oldfield was a key person during this time... and I was disappointed to miss his first live shows.
I remember being in the car when I heard the first extracts from his album 'Incantations' which was played as part of his Exposed tour dates at Wembley in 1979. The 3rd side of this album is basically a long guitar solo...
In the early 80s, as a student at Huddersfield Polytechnic I came across a tape cassette of an album called 'The Mathematician's Air Display'
The music was interesting and ended up with a long track.
This is in two parts...
Here's Part One
And Part Two... the longer of the two, with some excellent drumming from Pierre Moerlen, and Mike's guitar work is excellent too. It's crescendo-tastic.
From Wikipedia....
According to critic Jukka Hauru, "Northern music is recognisable by its robust bass lines, which rise and fall as smoothly as the Finnish seasons. Other characteristics of Nordicness include harmony, even rhythm, discipline, cartoonishness, repetition, simplicity, even naivety – all curse words for the convoluted, stilted modernism".
A few more musical bits to add... I'll continue to add these over the next five and a bit weeks...
The BBC coverage of the match in Canada tonight showed a clip of the Bosnian song...
Bosnian band Dubioza Kolektiv has transformed a song about disillusionment with the American Dream into a viral anthem powering Bosnia and Herzegovina's World Cup dreams. The track is called “I Am From Bosnia - Take Me to America.”
Here's the song...
The teams came out to the familar 'Sirius' from the Alan Parsons Project.
After a bit of Bublé, Alanis Morissette sang 'Oh Canada' - the national anthem.
A second posting for today as I need to mention an anniversary of one of the best concerts I ever went to.
I was fortunate enough to be present at the Hammersmith Odeon on the 12th of June 2005 (I was in Block 9 Row E Seat 38 in the Circle...) for a performance of "The Way Up" and other music - almost 3 hours of sublime jazz. The late Lyle Mays was awesome as ever, and I loved seeing Pat with Antonio Sanchez on drums once again. It's a pity they stopped working together.
I can't believe that's now over 20 years ago...
Here's the Introduction to the piece, recorded in South Korea in April that year. Then check out the whole piece.
Musicians: Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Steve Rodby, Antonio Sanchez, Cuong Vu, Gregoire Maret, and Nando Lauria.
This was hosted at the Brighton Dome. I've seen a few bands there since, including Sigur Rós.
The competition was much smaller back then and voting was done very differently. And of course Australia hadn't moved to Europe back then...
The details of who voted for who are outlined on the Wikipedia entry for the competition. These days there is a very geographical pattern to where votes are cast...
You'll need to scroll down the page a little to read it.
Coming soon: two guest posts by Matt where he shares his love of Queen, his record collection, seeing the band live and connections through family and friends. They are well worth reading.
The FIFA World Cup starts today with the first match: Mexico vs. South Africa.
The World Cup was inaugurated in 1930, but it wasn’t until 1990 that the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, began to adopt songs that would become the official soundtrack of the global soccer tournament, which happens every four years.
"Three Lions on the shirt" was recorded by Baddiel and Skinner along with the Lightning Seeds for the 1998 World Cup - originally for Euro 1996....
I saw this performed live by the 'Lightning Seeds' back in 2023 when they supported 'The Who'.
"World In Motion" was released as a single in 1990 to celebrate England's appearance at the 1990 World Cup in Italy (Italia '90). The video features appearances by numerous English footballers and a famous rap by John Barnes.
Songs which are always going to get your attention.
I decided to go for this one...
"The point of the journey is not to arrive".
Prime Mover by Rush from the album 'Hold your Fire' which came out in 1987. This was when the band were using more synthesisers than on previous albums.
I bought this from a record shop in Leeds on vinyl as an import I seem to remember... very exciting to hear it for the first time when I got back home... that sort of thing doesn't really happen any more, which is sad...
Earlier this week - in the early hours of this morning UK time - Rush took to the stage at the KIA Forum in California, where they had performed their last gig in 2015.
This was the first of 4 nights here as part of their 50th anniversary tour, and their debut full live performance with drummer Annika Nilles. The show was sold out. Ticket prices were high (though not quite at World Cup levels).
In 1987, Rush had recorded a song with Aimee Mann on backing vocals. I've blogged about both Aimee and the song already. But then something special happened and Aimee (who lives in the area) came out to perform the vocals live with the band.
Two of my favourite musical acts of the last 40 years performing together. I suppose it's too much to ask that she will appear with them at the O2 next March....
Spoilers: Setlist is here. They have apparently rehearsed almost 40 songs, so the setlist will not be the same each time.
Their 2nd show at the Forum is tonight, when we will perhaps see some of the other songs they are performing.
Here's Aimee's Instagram...
Update
The 2nd night at the Forum revealed a very different set list to the first one, and more songs which will potentially form the set list when I see them next year - and included the whole of 2112!
And what was great is that Aimee came out again for 'Time Stand Still'.
I always enjoy hearing this performance from Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Steve Rodby and Nana Vasconcelos.
It's called 'Ozark'.
Here's a studio version. "Ozark" is from "As Falls Wichita, so Falls Wichita Falls", a collaborative album by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, released in 1981.
