Monday, June 11, 2012

Slight News update for Monday June 11th, 2012

Hi folks, hope you all had a great weekend, how many folks reading this went to the UK's Download festival?
Friday seemed a bit of a washout, with a bunch of bands not getting to play, one of those being Swedish rockers Europe ... Joey Tempest posted a statement on that whole situation on the band's website and Facebook pages. Details in the news section.

Well, have a great week folks. I was drumming again in public yesterday for the first time in almost three years, one performance yesterday morning and one in the evening, with temperatures outside being 90°F+ ... Loading and unloading gear, a nightmare. Phew!
Anyway, enough on that, Cheers, Al



Def Leppard fans, Free New York City gig, this Friday morning


This posted over at Def Leppard's website, it seems the band is kicking off a series of free gigs, arranged through the Fox TV channel, in New York City this summer.


Fox & Friends Summer Concert Series - NYC Free Show Performance
For those of you living in the New York City area, Def Leppard will be performing live on the morning television show "Fox & Friends" (Fox News Channel) Summer Concert Series on Friday June 15th.
 All fans are welcome to stop by and see the band perform live. 
Please arrive at 7am. Details below.
 Fox & Friends Outside Stage:
 1211 Avenue of the Americas (48th & 6th Avenue)
 New York, NY
 Show time: 7-9am
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-friends/all-american-summer-concerts


 

Download Festival washout Friday 8th June and more

It seems a bunch of band's lost out to the weather and traffic delays on Friday at the UK's Download festival, including Swedish rockers Europe. Later the weather seemed to ease some and organisers got things back on track and for the most part it seemed that the acts that did play, made up for things somewhat, later on.


It was a pretty strange mix for many, crossing over some different genres for sure with The Prodigy headlining Friday night and some serious metal acts, alongside regular rock acts of the melodic / pop rock variety.

I really wouldn't want to be at a festival with such a mix like Download was this year - I do like some of the acts though ... - , for a Friday that looked like this:
The Prodigy, Machine Head, Terrorvision, Fear Factory, Night Wish, Opeth, Little Angels, Lawnmower Deth and Slash to name just a few ...


Saturday's bill was headlined by Metallica, who apparently played a half an hour longer than planned and went down a storm!
Other bands on Saturday's bill had included:
Tenacious D, Biffy Clyro, The Mission, Cockney Rejects, Gun, Killswitch Engage, Halestorm, Saxon, Steel Panther, Theory of a Deadman, The Treatment and many others.

Sunday was seriously an all out metal day and was headlined by Black Sabbath, but also featured:
Anthrax, Soundgarden, Megadeth, Rage Against The Machine, Black Label Society, Lamb of God and many more, but did include some regular rock acts that are often raved about such as:
Furyon, Heaven's Basement, Rival Sons, Sebastian Bach and one of my favourites in Shinedown.

I know that a lot of UK rock fans in recent years, have really taken to Europe in a festival setting, so it must have been pretty disappointing for many there when the band did not appear, as most of them had been stuck in traffic on their way there ...

The band were also disappointed by events and shared this message from the bands frontman Joey Tempest:

We're so gutted!
Not making the gig at Download 2012 happen.


A sincerely heartfelt apology to the people that came to see us at Download and ended up waiting in vain. We tried everything we could to get there in time but in the end it was beyond our control. We have now learned that there were perhaps up to 20000 people waiting in front of our stage at Download to check us out and that there was a massive reaction when the organizers announced Europe couldn't make it!!!! That makes this whole thing even harder to take! We had so been looking forward to this gig!


It started already early in the morning at the airport. Three band members were two hours late flying into Heathrow due to bad weather and backlog at Heathrow. Then we battled up towards Donington in the tourbus. More bad weather and severe traffic prevented us from making up the time necessary. We spent another two hours stuck in traffic. We asked for police escort or smaller cars to transport us the last bit, but they simply coudnt get to us.


In a last desperate effort as we we were getting close to the venue we sent our crew (running) by foot to the venue so they could start setting the gear up! as the toubus coudnt move through the traffic close to the gig.
In the end we just couldn't make it. We were so close, thats why the organizers announced things so late from stage. However, the organizers at Download were cool and invited us to next years Download.


What a truly surreal and disappointing experience. But I guess shit happens and life goes on!


Hope to see you in November on our UK tour. The response to BAG OF BONES have been truly amazing in the UK so we are ready to give something back. The autumn tour will be special indeed.


All the best


Joey / Europe

Official site:
www.europetheband.com/


There's pretty good coverage from Download to read over at these sites:
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/music/


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