Mike’s Blog

Suzanne Vega - iTunes Live - Koko/London

I got two tickets yesterday to go and see tonight’s concert at the Koko in Camden/London. The gig, which was part of the London iTunes Live Festival featured Seth Lakeman and Suzanne Vega!

To be honest, I didn’t really know Seth Lakeman before, but it was a wonderful concert, and will certainly invest some of the 10 free songs on iTunes that every guest at the concert got in some track from him!

The main act was Suzanne Vega, which was excellent! A lot of the songs she played were recent, and as such not so well known for me, but she didn’t miss to play the classics, that we all know from many years back, including Luca! Listening to those songs brought back some old memories! Really nice evening!

Merry Christmas to all of you!
There couldn’t be a better day for me to post the following video. The text is based on a true story. In 1897, a little girl wrote a letter to the New York Sun (one of New York’s newspapers at the time). She basically only had one question: Is there a Santa Clause. The letter ended up at the Desk of Frank Church, one of the editors at the Sun. This short clip contains his response as it was published 110 years ago in the New York Sun.

You can read all the details about the story at Wikipedia.

Credits go to David Ippolito, who took the story and included it in one of the songs on his Christmas album from 1999 (Just a Thought for Christmas). Please visit David’s website and listen to his podcast and his music. I love his music since the day that I saw him play live at “the hill” in New York’s Central Park.

(video clip: WinterMuse from johnnycli)

I uploaded some more video clips that I took at yesterday’s Paul McCartney concert at the Roundhouse in Camden/London onto YouTube.
Enjoy and let me know what you think.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

I had the pleasure to go and see Paul McCartney playing live at the Roundhouse in Camden last evening. The concert was part of the BBC Electric Proms and sold out since a long time! It was a wonderful evening. Seeing McCartney live, in a rather small location like the Roundhouse is just amazing! He was performing some of his new songs, but the focus was clearly also on the old classics! Spectacular! Great audience, singing along during most of the songs, and McCartney clearly enjoyed his time on-stage!

Have a look at the following short clip. I captured much more, and will upload some more shortly.

One of the websites I visit on a regular basis is thatguitarman.com. I had the pleasure to see David Ippolito playing his guitar live at the hill in Central Park twice on my trips to New York City a few years ago. Last week, October 9th would have been John Lennon’s 67th birthday. Have a look at the video below to see why I love NYC so much! I don’t know any other place where things like this would happen! To use David’s words: I love the city!

Last Thursday I went to see Herbert Grönemeyer at the Royal Albert Hall here in London. I was kind of hoping that it would be a nice evening, and guess what: It was even better! It was certainly one of the best concerts that I have seen this year!

Grönemeyer clearly enjoyed playing at the Albert Hall, and guess what, the audience was amazing!

Below is a short clip which I took during the concert. I have some further clips,and as soon as I get to it I will edit them together an upload them.

As a lot of you know by now, Apple has scheduled a “special event” this Wednesday. I am not going to repeat all of the rumours of what will be announced, but, jut for the fun of it, here is my prediction:
It will be the long awaited new iPod. Using the OSX and having the same nice UI as the iPhone! Now, it might even have wireless build in, but if it does, it will only make sense if it will also finally allow wireless iTunes synchronisation, or direct access to the iTunes store.

As usual, there will be the “one more thing” at the end. And that one will be the announcement of the availability of the complete Beatles collection in the iTunes Store. Why? The phrase on the invite gives it away. “The beat goes on” were the last words of the final Beatles press release!

Another nice weekend in London! The weather was wonderful and there is always something new to see in London. One of this weekends events was the Carnaval del Pueblo in Camberwell (next to Elephant and Castle in South London). It is the biggest latin Carneval event in the UK, over 100′000 visitors last year. I spend most of Sunday afternoon/evening there with some friends, and it was great fun! Although, I have to say that maybe some of us had too many cocktails/beers at the end, but hey, great fun! Great music, great fun fair, great environment, great people and all of this together with lot’s of sun made it a wonderful event!

Among the many events this weekend, was also the Greenwich & Docklands festival. A series of events were happening in the area. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t really that favourable on Sunday, but at least on Saturday, I was able to enjoy some of the performances.

We are in the middle of the OpenAir Festival Season. I went to HydePark Calling today, mainly to see Peter Gabriel. I arrived at the Festival area shortly after five, and although there were a lot of people there, my first impressions were still that I have been at better OpenAir festivals in the past. Huge are, but not too many activities. Anyway. The first act we saw were “The Feeling“. I have to admit that I never heart of them before, but actually enjoyed it! A refreshing sound

from a young, energetic band. They really enjoyed there time on stage!

The next act on the main stage were “Crowded House“. As expected, great fun! A lot of the old songs and a few new ones! Some good old memories….

But unfortunatly, well, we are still in London, the worst thing happened. Although dark clouds were hanging over London the whole day, it didn’t really rain a lot, with the execption of a few short showers, but the sun always managed to get through again quickly. That was about to change during the last third of the Crowded House concert. As if it was the revenge of the weather gods…Neil Finn (front man of Crowded House) used the F-word against the threatening dark clouds, and the result was that it started to rain..well, really rain! Within minutes we were soaking wet. The shower, combinded with thunder and lightnings lasted for 15 minutes…

After Crowded House finished, we were on teh point of leaving, without even waiting for Peter Gabriel to start, since it was still pouring down…ob teh way to the exit we decided to go into one of the tents (Stage 3), since, although it was already packed with people, just when we passed by they allowed some more poeple in. Well, again a positive surprise. We saw the last 15 minutes of Seth Lakeman. Never heard of him before, but certainly worth listening to.

Wehn we got out of the tent, it had stopped raining, so we changed our mind and went back to the mainstage to see Peter Gabriel! What a disappointment! Terrible selection of songs..I didn’t know most of the songs. He explained tha the selection of songs was based upon a list of songs chosen by visitors of his website. Well, I guess only real hardcore fans were participating in that poll. You could clearly notice that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know most of the songs. Anyway, we decided to leave in the middle after an hour into the concert, since it started to rain again, and we really didn’t enjoy it that much.

Still a great afternoon/evening. No regrets!