Latest news with #Hollies
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Iconic '80s Singer's Return With Solo Album After Reunited Band Triumph Has Fans ‘So Excited'
Iconic '80s Singer's Return With Solo Album After Reunited Band Triumph Has Fans 'So Excited' originally appeared on Parade. After wrapping a slew of high-profile concert dates with the Go-Go's, including stops at the Coachella and Cruel World festivals, Belinda Carlisle is returning to her solo career with the June 5 announcement of a new album, preview single and special event. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will release Once Upon a Time in California on Aug. 29, 2025. The set, produced by Gabe Lopez, features 10 cover songs that were favorites of Carlisle while she was growing up in the Golden State. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 The lead single, Carlisle's version of the Hollies classic 'The Air That I Breathe,' is due Friday, June 6. Fans, and even some celebs, were thrilled by the news. ADVERTISEMENT 'WOW beautiful cover i'm ready for some new music 🔥,' posted Carlisle's new friend and fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sammy Hagar, referring to the cover art for the first single. 'So excited for this album! And the photos / artwork look stunning 😍,' added another. Carlisle explained the inspiration behind the new album in a statement. 'I was born and raised in California at a time when music was an important part of Californian culture. I lived and breathed music, it was my great escape--a refuge of fantasy and imagination. Every day after school and when it was summer vacation, I would listen and sing along to the music on the radio for the entire day. Always fantasizing about being a singer myself, one day,' she said. 'This collection of songs is the best representation of what I loved back then that I could think of-- listening to it brings back so many memories of a time and a California that doesn't really exist anymore,' she added. 'That's not meant to sound like a bad thing, it's just different - there was an innocence and energy back then that was unique and magical. Things I doubt will ever be felt in quite the same way again. Here's to the California of my dreams.' ADVERTISEMENT Carlisle also recently posted about her birthday party, which will include special guests Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her Go-Go's bandmate Kathy Valentine. It's set for Aug. 28 in London with 100% of the proceeds going to the Animal People Alliance. Iconic '80s Singer's Return With Solo Album After Reunited Band Triumph Has Fans 'So Excited' first appeared on Parade on Jun 5, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
Irish Independent
24-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Fancy a mansion for under €1m? Here are four sprawling country piles that won't break the bank compared with Dublin
With market prices in the capital at such a premium, it is no wonder that some buyers are looking beyond the Pale for better value. With that in mind, here are four sizeable properties around the country that give bang for their buck compared with Dublin options. River Run Lodge, Glann Road, Oughterard, Co. Galway (€985,000): A gated entrance leads onto a tarmacked driveway leads to the front and side of the property where there is access to a garage. The house is constructed of block with a rendered exterior, under a concrete tile roof which is well appointed throughout. Originally designed as a bed and breakfast, this beautiful home offers a variety of uses in its current configuration. Sandy Lane, Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford (€695,000): This sprawling country home is most definitely a one off and presents an opportunity to acquire what one would describe as a little piece of a highly sought after area on the South East coastline. Located only a stones throw from many beautiful beaches and Kilmore Quay village, its location offers a very attractive marina, award winning restaurants and shops. The residence is bright and spacious with uniquely designed interiors. Some of the notable extras are the natural stone walls, quality tiling, handcrafted kitchen, jacuzzi shower and bath, sauna and steam room to name a few. There is a sense of light and airiness throughout the entire house and while the interior is outstanding, this quality of living externally is equally as impressive with the easily maintained grounds (c. 0.59 acre) offering a feature natural stone wall, mature shrubbery and garden sleepers. Mount Ashley, Glebe, Roosky, Co. Roscommon (€675,000): The property is a striking and capacious period residence with generous living/reception spaces together with spacious bedroom and ancillary accommodation. Mount Ashley sits on circa 10.76ha of fully enclosed, private grounds and farmland and is located just on the outskirts of Roosky. The residence boasts its own gate lodge and is approached by a tree lined, sweeping driveway. The entire site is stocked with a variety of mature trees, shrubberies and hedgerows. The lands are in pasture and meadow but would have potential for residential or commercial tourism development, subject to obtaining the necessary consents, and given its close proximity to River Shannon system at Roosky Quays and direct access off N4 Route. This sale presents a rare opportunity to acquire such an elegant residence of scale with extensive grounds, yet located just on the village outskirts, convenient to all of Roosky's amenities and River Shannon location. The Hollies, Kilcullen Street, Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow (€495,000): The Hollies is a double fronted detached period home full of charm and character approached by granite steps and with granite sills on front windows. It sits on an elevated site overlooking the street and has all the necessary ingredients that anyone looking for a home of distinction will want. Ideally situated on Kilcullen St., in the heart of Dunlavin, this location could not be better as it is within walking distance of all amenities. The property comprises of hall, dining room, sitting room, kitchen/ breakfast room, utility, six bedrooms, two bathrooms and attached garage / workshop on a large site area with good side entrance and ample parking.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The top 10 grounds to watch Test cricket
The hushed ambience of Lord's, the boisterous nature of Edgbaston or the glorious views to be found at Dharamsala or Newlands? There are some special places to watch Test cricket, and here Scyld Berry names his 10 favourites. Queen's Park in Port-of-Spain would have been on this list if it had not fallen into decline, owing not least to poor old drainage, and been overtaken by a new stadium in southern Trinidad. India's newest Test ground has taken its place. I must confess I have not been there - England played there after I had retired from touring - but in my imagination I have followed the footsteps of Kim into these hills, and those of the pundits whom Britain sent to measure the short distance to the Russian border. Mountains retain a simplicity that is lacking in the plains, and here it is in the form of a small basic stadium - which, like most stadiums in south Asia, could not be bothered to construct a roof to protect ordinary spectators from the sun, only VIPs. What sets it apart is the view of the Himalaya, even if the snowline recedes annually. Up the road the Dalai Lama has been living in exile since 1959, and yellow-robed lamas pad silently, lending the area a peace not to be found in the plains. Once New Zealand's only purpose-built Test ground, Wellington's Basin Reserve can be delightful but it can be bone-numbing too when gales howl through the gap between North and South Island. Of England's management, even Brendon McCullum, though a New Zealander, wraps up warm for Wellington. A modern purpose-built ground, on the other side of North Island, has therefore taken Wellington's place. The view from one end is mundane, towards the marshalling yards where wagon-loads of trees are brought by train from denuded hills for shipment; but, viewed from the other end, the Mount is magical. Most of its original flora has been preserved, and the green of New Zealand vegetation has its own luminosity. Down to earth, the pitch helps seamers not spinners, like all the country's pitches; but a definite result has been achieved in all five Tests to date, once by Bangladesh in one of the all-time shock wins. If you want to attend a single day of Test cricket in England, and cannot afford the king's ransom which is a ticket for Lord's (with a full view), Edgbaston has to be the answer. Even if little or nothing is happening in the middle, the Hollies stand will conjure up something. What could be more mundane than a Test between England and the modern West Indies? Yet last summer the Hollies conjured virtuoso performances out of Mark Wood, who launched rockets as if he were Cape Canaveral, and Ben Stokes who smote the fastest Test 50 for England off 24 balls - as, of all things, an opening batsman. The Hollies chants are humorous, truly witty at times if the Australians are in town, no longer foul-mouthed and obvious. T20 finals day is also an occasion like no other, a whole day and evening of singing bonhomie. The enormity of Eden Gardens sets it apart: a few stadiums are bigger in their footmark, like the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Ahmedabad, but what they gain in capacity they lose in atmosphere. Eden Gardens, when packed to the gunwales, can never be quiet, whether by day for Tests or night for the IPL. The crowd indeed has been known to take over as the principal actor, by rioting in a couple of Tests in the 1960s, and forcing a World Cup semi-final to be abandoned when India were under-performing. A walk across the Gardens themselves - cricket balls flying to all parts - heightens the expectation and, once the morning smog and Hooghly mist have been burnt off, the cricket can be as dramatic as anywhere. In March 2001 here, when down and almost out against full-might Australia, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman staged the greatest of all Test partnerships (376) and, possibly, of all sporting comebacks. The Melbourne Cricket Ground has lost its original soul: it was constructed on the edge of the new colony of free settlers as a cricket ground, then Australian Rules was invented as a winter pastime to keep the club's cricketers fit. But now corporate hospitality and Aussie Rules rule; the cricket pitches are drop-ins; Victoria have moved out to St Kilda. Only for its Boxing Day Test and the Big Bash does the MCG survive as a cricket stadium. The Sydney Cricket Ground has not quite gone the same way, so long as the main pavilion and the Ladies stand remain in all their urbane glory of painted green ironwork and wooden benches. Here Australia's finest cricketers have always strode out to the middle, or to the nets behind the pavilion to go through their paces in the public eye. Being the Oval of Australia so to speak, where the last Test venue of each summer is staged, the SCG is where the greats bow out to their well-earned applause. After this winter's Ashes will it be Steve Smith, or one or two of Australia's fast bowlers, and/or Ben Stokes? The stands are pleasing enough, and especially the stretch of turved embankment known as the Oaks, but it is the clarity of the light that makes Newlands dazzle in the mind's eye and memory - and Table Mountain. Few would remember the Mountain if it were shrouded in cloud or Scotch mist, but its normal backdrop is a sky as unpolluted as only a southern hemisphere's can now be. The ground's Test history, dating back to 1889-90, has become multiracial, so that all of the world's best cricketers of the last generation have performed here - and, most notably perhaps, not one of South Africa's exceedingly fine and fast bowlers, but Shane Warne, who bowled almost the whole of one burning day in 2002, and finished with a match-winning six for 161 off 70 overs - in one innings. This square does give everyone a chance, not only the pace bowlers who wax at Centurion and Johannesburg. Trains to Newlands from central Cape Town are rumoured to be not always safe - so stay if possible at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, so called because planted in its garden were the first grapevines in South Africa that were brought to fruition, back in the 17th century. No Test ground in England has such demotic origins as Trent Bridge, the product of professional cricketers like William Clarke, who moved into the Trent Bridge Inn after marrying the landlady, Frank Parr whose famous tree has now gone, William Gunn, who made cricket bats with his mate Moore, and Arthur Shrewsbury who captained England more than anyone before amateurs took over. Cricket in Nottingham remains the game of the people. Corporate hospitality boxes are few; celebrities do not sit in the stands waiting to be seen by cameras as in London; the crowds flowing over the Trent's bridge take possession of this ground and its soul. Freshness also stems from the prevailing greenness, not only of the turf but of officials in their blazers, reminding us of Sherwood Forest on Nottingham's other side. The ground's proportions are not classical: the new Radcliffe Road stand had to be built almost vertiginously steep to fit into the confines, but the boundary behind square-leg was short enough for Johnny Bairstow to launch Bazball in his match-winning hundred against New Zealand in 2022. It can be a paradise for batsmen, and spectators too. Little can be said for day-night Tests, except for increased viewing figures in the evening for broadcasters, and crowds dwindled in Adelaide as dinner time approached, but this winter the Test will be restored to its diurnal glory. (If it had been yet another day/nighter, I would have been tempted to replace Adelaide in this list with Christchurch's Hagley Oval, though Arctic winds can make it unbearable in its exposed parkland.) Adelaide's splendour begins with the old road bridge and the new footbridge that make it the most accessible of all Test grounds; continues with the embankment of the Hill that has been allowed to remain, and the old wooden scoreboard on it, which still creaks in the sun and wind like an ancient mariner's ship; and carries round to the nets out the back, and the marquees where the affluent of South Australia can indulge in the finest of local seafood, wine from the hills and fruit from the Riverina. Oh, and the pitches are also excellent - if a pink ball is not darting round on them under floodlights - and mostly produce a fifth-day finish. If you could go for a day-long picnic beside the sea anywhere in the world, Galle is as beautiful as anywhere, for its combination of natural and man-made finery. Throw a Test match into this setting and the day out is almost complete. At whichever end of Galle's ground you sit, you have sea to either side: either the Indian ocean, featuring a distant tanker or wooden fishing boats coming home, or the port side, where they unload their catch straight on to the harbour wall. If you are sitting with the city of Galle behind you, a no less delicious sight: the walls of the old fort built by the Portuguese then Dutch in their pursuit of spices, which were stored in their handsome stone warehouses. Only those who were flogged in Latin for failing to translate 'the soldiers and the virgins love the ramparts' can dislike this view. The Fort is a Unesco site, which could justifiably be extended to include the cricket ground, which has seen highs and lows: the 800th and last Test wicket taken by Muttiah Muralitharan, and the tsunami which washed over the ground and destroyed the pavilion. A week of Test cricket here, if slow-paced, is more enjoyable still if the Sri Lankan Board has forgotten to book up the Lighthouse hotel, on the coast and just out of town, before publishing the dates. The only fly in the ointment staying there is no mosquito but the undertow which can tear the unwary swimmer out to sea, as England's spinner Gareth Batty once was. For all the changes in the global game, Lord's is still the ground of all cricket grounds, and a Test between England and Australia is the fixture of all cricket fixtures. The field is not the flattest - an eight-foot drop from the Grandstand down to the Tavern - but nowhere else is so carefully organised, every blade of grass in its place. This village-like slope indeed offers an additional test of skill for international batsmen - because it disrupts their balance, so their head tends to fall down the slope while batting at the pavilion end - and one which some of the finest have never passed: Jacques Kallis averaged ten at Lord's, Ricky Ponting averaged 16, Sachin Tendulkar 21, and no Test 50 between them, let alone a century. Yet they have all run upon this sward, every one of the finest cricketers - a combination of ancient and modern that is reaffirmed by the Victorian pavilion standing opposite the media centre. But what if the ground were known, not as Lord's, but Dark's, as MCC's second ground was called. There is something in a name - are you going to Dark's next week? - and the one time when Lord's was not the premier cricket ground in London was when Prince's opened in the 1870s, named not for royalty but after the surname of the brothers who ran it. Even then, I would say, the ground in St John's Wood would still be the cricket ground above all others, the sport's headquarters, its spiritual home.
BBC News
28-03-2025
- BBC News
Nick Gazzard: Father of murdered girl made OBE for campaign work
The father of a young woman who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend has warned of the dangers of "negative role models" as he received his Gazzard's daughter Hollie, 20, was killed in the Gloucester hair salon where she worked in 2014 after ending a year-long Gazzard set up the Hollie Gazzard Trust following his daughter's death and has been campaigning about domestic abuse and stalking since. He was made an OBE by the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace on Friday."We always said that we would have a legacy for Hollie, and we want to do good work in the area to try and prevent the Hollies of the future happening," he said. Mr Gazzard stressed the importance of educating young people about gender-based and domestic violence."It's 11 years since we've lost Hollie, and during that time we have made some progress, but it's the old adage of two steps forward, one step back."And the problem is not going away."He warned that "negative role models" can create issues for young men."There's lots of pressures around at the moment, particularly for young men, with some of the role models that are out there."So it's about trying to educate young people in particular, about what domestic abuse is so that we can prevent individuals from becoming perpetrators", he added. Mr Gazzard, who lives in Longlevens, Gloucester, said it was also important to teach young people about stalking."We can get to victims when they're young, because they might not identify that they're being stalked or that they've been stalked, or they're being abused, because sometimes it can be very subtle in how it's done," he said."The younger we can talk to individuals, the more education we get out of there."Hopefully, we can prevent more people going through what Hollie went through."On receiving his OBE, Mr Gazzard said: "It's a real honour to receive this on behalf of those individuals who are victims and survivors of domestic abuse and stalking, because we know how devastating it can be when you lose someone."
The Guardian
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We joke about who's getting their knees done': the rock veterans still touring into their late 70s
I always said I'd retire when I got to 50,' chuckles Rick Wakeman, who didn't do any such thing. Instead – after realising that far from being left adrift by pop's ever-changing styles, people were still interested in what he had to offer – he recorded another 37 albums (taking his total to more than 100), penned two bestselling autobiographies and a film score and carried on performing shows. Then last year he announced that he'd stop touring when he reaches 77, but he'll be 76 this May and his packed live schedule doesn't suggest a performer saying his last goodbyes. 'There was a time when I thought, maybe it's time to gracefully bow out,' the prog keyboard caped crusader explains, before his latest gig in Bradford. 'But unfortunately I can't. Music is the world to me. It's just become blatantly obvious that I'm going to keep doing it until they put an epitaph on my gravestone reading: 'It's not fair. I'm not finished yet.'' Elkie Brooks knows exactly how he feels. The 'Queen of British blues' (whose hits include Pearl's a Singer and Lilac Wine) has had 13 Top 75 albums in total and is on the road again at 80, having performed a 'farewell tour' when she was 40. 'The promoter thought it might be a nice idea,' she chuckles. 'I've been saying 'farewell' ever since.' The pair are not alone in rocking way past pensionable age. When rock'n'roll was considered a young person's game, the young Mick Jagger once said: 'I don't wanna be singing Satisfaction when I'm 30,' but he still tours with the Rolling Stones at 81, while other venerable rockers treading the boards include Bob Dylan (83), Paul McCartney (82), Bruce Springsteen (75) and Mavis Staples (85). Folk legend Peggy Seeger is even touring this year aged 89. 'It's like a drug,' Wakeman explains. 'Once it's inside you, you can't do without it.' The top stars don't need the money but perform because it is rooted in their psyche and the demand is there. For Graham Nash, the Blackpool-born co-founder of the Hollies and supergroup Crosby, Stills and Nash, it's about 'the passion of music, and the energy I get from performing a new song to an audience. And when it's a song I've sung a million times, I'm going to sing it with the same passion I had when I wrote it.' Seventy-five-year-old, California-born roots singer Bonnie Raitt has spent 54 years on the road and says she can't think of anything more fun. 'When I started out, my heroes were the jazz, blues and classical people who played well into their 70s and 80s. But touring is like a travelling summer camp. Then every night I get to have a party with the audience.' Stars get hooked young. Wakeman first performed in childhood and Salford-born Brooks got the bug through singing in her uncle's wedding band. Raitt watched audiences going 'nuts' when her father sang in musicals such as Oklahoma! 'None of us could believe this was his job,' she remembers. 'So once I took to it and got to open for James Taylor and Muddy Waters there was no turning back.' Nash was a teenager when he entered a talent contest at Manchester Hippodrome with his pal Allan Clarke. 'On that show were myself and Allan, who later formed the Hollies, Freddie Garrity, who became Freddie and the Dreamers, Ron Wycherley, who became Billy Fury, and Johnny and the Moondogs, who became the Beatles.' John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison had dashed for the last bus back to Liverpool by the time Nash and Clarke were declared the winners, but Nash says '2,000 people going crazy was the moment I knew I loved singing for people'. In the Hollies, he experienced the archetypal touring life: 'Five of us in the back of a Transit, trying to get to sleep on the amps and drum cases. One night the doors flew open and I fell out of the van.' Aged 20, Wakeman lived similarly during his time in the Strawbs. He chuckles. 'You couldn't get my keyboard rig in a Transit now.' Joining prog rock giants Yes in 1971 took his touring experiences to a very different level. 'Staying on Sunset Strip with a whole bathroom and a shag pile carpet. I thought: 'Bloody hell. I could move in here.'' But for older artists comfort is essential, rather than a luxury. 'I wouldn't want to be running around in a van trying to break into the business, loading the equipment and not getting decent hotels or food,' Raitt says. 'The trick is to pace yourself.' She's been touring for the last four years, and she does five months on the road out of every 12. 'Enough to keep my band and crew working with me and to keep it fun.' In her youth, Brooks hated touring. 'Just me in my little Mini with a little suitcase, driving everywhere, finding my own bed and breakfasts. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.' Now she tours the country with long gaps between gigs, pointing out that her vocal warmup, soundcheck and show still add up to more than three hours of exertion. 'You wouldn't ask Mo Farah to run the marathon again the next day, would you?' On show days, she avoids speaking to rest her voice. Raitt concurs: 'One of the great gifts has been texting and email to save your voice during the day.' It also helps to stay fit. Brooks became a black belt in aikido when she was 50. Raitt does yoga and weights, hikes and takes a bike on tour. Wakeman merely walks his dogs. 'We recently sold a house and in one of the outbuildings I came across this strange equipment,' he chuckles. 'My wife said: 'That's the gym you built four years ago.'' As a member of Yes, he enjoyed excesses such as mocking a studio up like a farmyard, after which his keyboard had to go for repair because it was full of woodlice. 'We'd come up with mad suggestions,' he chuckles. ''Why don't we travel by camel?!' It was ridiculous, but it was the 70s.' His own excess stopped at drugs – 'I've never popped a pill or smoked a joint' – but, he says, too much booze and cigarettes gave him a series of heart attacks by the age of 25, so he quit both. 'I try not to think about all that,' he admits, more seriously, 'because you ask yourself: 'Should I still be here?'' 'Honestly, to go on at the Newcastle Fiesta in 1964 or 65 you needed half a bottle of brandy,' argues Brooks, who admits that in Vinegar Joe, the band she formed with Robert Palmer in the 1970s, taking cocaine was like having a cup of coffee. 'The thing was, we'd go on in Sheffield at 10pm, then we'd be doing a gig in the London Roundhouse at 3am. Two shows a night. I often wondered why the record company were taking cocaine but we were taking it just to stay bloody awake.' She stopped after meeting Trevor, her sound engineer husband of 47 years, who didn't touch the stuff. 'I wanted him to like me,' she says. She last drank alcohol before a show in 1979, when 'a stomach upset meant I couldn't keep anything down'. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion 'By your 30s, staying up drinking and doing drugs and not sleeping aren't wearing so well,' considers Raitt, who had also got 'sucked in' to the rock'n'roll lifestyle. 'The next thing you know your liver is shot or you're not recovering from colds or you lose your voice, say stuff you don't mean or you're sloppy on stage.' After a 1987 skiing accident, she had to take two months off after surgery so took the opportunity to get sober, go on a diet and lose weight, in preparation for a video shoot with Prince. 'The biggest change was not partying all night after the show but it proved serendipitous: I got famous at the same time I got sober. Then I saw other people who'd got sober and they were singing and playing better than ever, so my last excuse was gone.' In Nash's autobiography Wild Tales, he describes mind-boggling 70s tours involving helicopters, limousines, coke dealers and five-hour shows that went on past midnight, but life is different now. 'I was never really an addict,' he insists, 'but I stopped taking cocaine 40 years ago after I went to an aftershow party and saw everybody smiling, but the smiles never reached their eyes. I realised they must be looking at me and seeing the same thing.' He still uses marijuana before shows, but says, 'I'm about to turn 83. I don't have a vocal coach, I do 22 songs a night, 25 shows a tour. Songs such as Military Madness or Immigration Man are still relevant and I'm singing as well as ever.' Some older stars carry scars from a lifetime on the road. Along with those heart attacks, Wakeman has had 'double pleurisy, double pneumonia, arthritis, diabetes' and has to plunge his throbbing arthritic hands into an ice bath after every show. 'I had some health problems in America this year and if it wasn't for the show I'd have been in bed or calling the medics,' he reveals. 'But when you go on stage, something takes over – adrenaline or whatever – and you feel great, until you're back in the dressing room and you feel dreadful.' Raitt has had to postpone shows in recent years because of laryngitis or 'wear and tear' and says her older musician pals joke about 'who's getting their knees done or who's got tendonitis and so on. But in every city there are parks I love to go to, friends I love to see. And there are people who saw me in the 1970s who still come and see me now.' Younger fans discover veteran artists through parents, radio, magazines or streaming. It amazes Nash that he can pack a hall at his age and Wakeman appreciates every second in ways he could never have done when he was younger. What would make him stop performing? 'If I couldn't play like I want to. I never want to hear people walk out of a concert and go: 'He used to be really good.'' Raitt wants to prove that she's as 'badass' as ever, but insists: 'I'm not slowing down and I'm not going to stop until I can't do it any more.' Brooks jokes that when she can no longer hit the high notes, 'they'll find a place for me in Tesco on the tills'. Nash saw Spanish guitar giant Andrés Segovia play when he was 92. 'And he knocked me on my ass with the energy and brilliance of his performance. So I think: 'Why not me?'' Perhaps there's a life lesson here for all of us. As Raitt puts it: 'If you find something you love doing, keep doing it.' Elkie Brooks plays the Lowry, Salford, 16 March, and is touring until 2026; Bonnie Raitt tours the UK from 1 to 17 June, starting at the Usher Hall, Belfast; Graham Nash is touring from 4 to 19 October, starting at the Glasshouse, Gateshead; Rick Wakeman and the English Rock Ensemble tour the UK from 12 to 29 October.
