Latest news with #Wakeman
Fox News
14-04-2025
- Fox News
Wayfair's Big Outdoor Sale offers unmissable camping deals
The Wayfair Big Outdoor Sale features up to 50% off on a variety of outdoor products, so now is the perfect time to stock up on all your camping gear. You can find tents, coolers, sleeping bags, cots and more on sale. Prepare for a fun-filled camping season and take advantage of Wayfair's sale, running now through April 15. Original price: $34.95 Instead of lugging around a bulky sleeping bag, a Wakeman sleeping bag is lightweight and equipped with compression straps. The straps push air out of your sleeping bag when you're packing it up, making it a great option for backpackers or anyone looking to save space. Original price: $129.95 Sleeping on the ground isn't always ideal when you're on a camping trip, so raise up your tent with an outdoor truck bed tent. You can comfortably fit two people in this tent, designed for 5.5- to 6-foot truck beds. Other than the fact that it rests in the bed of your truck, this tent has all the same features campers love about other tents: a removable rainfly, multiple windows for ventilation and built-in organization pockets. Original price: $349.99 The Coleman Pro 55-quart hard cooler is an ideal day cooler for taking to the beach, or a great camping cooler for weekend trips. The wheels and collapsible handle make it easy to roll long distances. You can hold up to 92 cans without ice, and your drinks and food will stay cold for up to five days. Original price: $349.99 Believe it or not, you can cook gourmet meals even when you're camping in the woods. A good camp stove or grill goes a long way, and a Coleman single-burner gas grill competes with the best of them. The pop-up stand makes it easy to grill from anywhere, and the 19-inch cooktop means you can cook for all your family and friends. The top holds up to 10 burgers and a family-sized breakfast. Original price: $239.99 When you're getting ready to go camping, make sure you grab an outdoor lantern that can withstand anything. Coleman's three-pack of battery-powered lanterns preserve battery life and are water- and impact-resistant. You can easily light up your entire campsite with the four different light modes, including low, medium, high and flashing. Original price: $138.80 Feel like you're sleeping on your bed at home with this Intex queen air mattress. The built-in headboard ensures your pillows won't fall over the edge, and the ultra-plush design keeps you extra comfortable throughout the night. There's also a built-in foot pump that makes it easy to blow up the air mattress quickly. Original price: $140.99 Sleep like a king while you're camping with a heavy-duty folding cot. The cot is made from durable steel bars that quickly fold up when it's time to pack up. The cot supports up to 800 pounds and fits easily in most car trunks. Included is a water-resistant sleeping pad that's soft, supportive and easy to roll up when you're getting ready to go. Original price: $71.25 The Sleeman lightweight camping cot is a no-frills cot for campers who like to rough it a little more, without having to sleep on the ground. The strong metal frame supports you while you sleep, and the foldable design makes it compact and easy to store. Original price: $123.99 This folding double-camping chair gives you a comfortable place to relax while you're out in the woods. The chair is extremely durable and supports up to 700 pounds. It's also equipped with two wine glass holders, two cup holders and side pockets. It's even better than your couch at home! Despite the double design, the chair is still lightweight at just 14 pounds. For more Deals, visit Original price: $123.99 Ideal for tailgating, camping or just hanging out on a hot day, this waterproof car awning can shade up to eight people. The waterproof fabric gives you somewhere to spend rainy days while camping. It's easy to set up: Just attach to your back wheels, stake the polls in the ground, and you're good to go.
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.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Yahoo
2 American women attacked by shark in Bahamas' Bimini district, police force says
Two American tourists were bitten by a shark in the Bahamas and needed to be airlifted for their injuries, police said. The Royal Bahamas Police Force said police in Bimini, a westernmost district of the Bahamas known for beaches and fishing, are investigating after two American women were victims of an alleged shark attack on Feb. 7 around 6:30 p.m. According to the police force, the women, who are both from the U.S., sustained injuries while swimming in the waters at Bimini Bay. They both initially received treatment at a local clinic before being airlifted to a hospital in New Providence, Bahamas for further medical attention, police said. One of the women's injuries was deemed "serious," the police force said. The Royal Bahamas Police Force did not immediately respond to questions from USA TODAY Monday. The Bahamas have had 34 unprovoked shark attacks dating back to 1580, according to the Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File. This makes the Bahamas the ninth-highest of all the tracked countries, with the U.S. (1640), Australia (706) and the Republic of South Africa (262) in the top three, the data tracker shows. Americans been bitten by sharks two other times in the Bahamas since 2023. In December 2023, a 44-year-old woman from Boston was killed in a shark attack while paddle boarding with a family member. "CPR was administered to the victim; however, she suffered serious injuries to the right side of her body, including the right hip region and also her right upper limb," former Royal Bahamas Police Sgt. Desiree Ferguson told USA TODAY about the attack at the time. Then in January 2024, a 10-year-old boy from Maryland was hospitalized after being bitten on his right leg while participating in a shark tank expedition at a Bahamian resort. Florida native Marlin Wakeman spoke to the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, about surviving a shark attack that occurred on April 26 in the Bahamas at Flying Fish Marina on Long Island. He recalled working on a marina charter boat when he accidentally fell into a "shark den" and was subsequently attacked by two of the sharp-toothed creatures. 'I was like, hey man, I don't really wanna die right now, this ain't it," Wakeman recalled. Wakeman managed to survive the attack when the boat's captain came and pulled him away from the attacking sharks, he said. One of the shark's bites narrowly missed a femoral artery in the 24-year-old's leg, which could have caused him to bleed out and die. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shark attack in Bahamas injures 2 American women, police say
USA Today
10-02-2025
- USA Today
2 American women attacked by shark in Bahamas' Bimini district, police force says
Two American tourists were bitten by a shark in the Bahamas and needed to be airlifted for their injuries, police said. The Royal Bahamas Police Force said police in Bimini, a westernmost district of the Bahamas known for beaches and fishing, are investigating after two American women were victims of an alleged shark attack on Feb. 7 around 6:30 p.m. According to the police force, the women, who are both from the U.S., sustained injuries while swimming in the waters at Bimini Bay. They both initially received treatment at a local clinic before being airlifted to a hospital in New Providence, Bahamas for further medical attention, police said. One of the women's injuries was deemed "serious," the police force said. The Royal Bahamas Police Force did not immediately respond to questions from USA TODAY Monday. Bahamas have had 34 unprovoked shark attacks since 1580 The Bahamas have had 34 unprovoked shark attacks dating back to 1580, according to the Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File. This makes the Bahamas the ninth-highest of all the tracked countries, with the U.S. (1640), Australia (706) and the Republic of South Africa (262) in the top three, the data tracker shows. Americans been bitten by sharks two other times in the Bahamas since 2023. In December 2023, a 44-year-old woman from Boston was killed in a shark attack while paddle boarding with a family member. "CPR was administered to the victim; however, she suffered serious injuries to the right side of her body, including the right hip region and also her right upper limb," former Royal Bahamas Police Sgt. Desiree Ferguson told USA TODAY about the attack at the time. Then in January 2024, a 10-year-old boy from Maryland was hospitalized after being bitten on his right leg while participating in a shark tank expedition at a Bahamian resort. Florida native Marlin Wakeman spoke to the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, about surviving a shark attack that occurred on April 26 in the Bahamas at Flying Fish Marina on Long Island. He recalled working on a marina charter boat when he accidentally fell into a "shark den" and was subsequently attacked by two of the sharp-toothed creatures. 'I was like, hey man, I don't really wanna die right now, this ain't it," Wakeman recalled. Wakeman managed to survive the attack when the boat's captain came and pulled him away from the attacking sharks, he said. One of the shark's bites narrowly missed a femoral artery in the 24-year-old's leg, which could have caused him to bleed out and die.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How a London brand succeeded in dressing everyone east of Old Street
If you've ever spotted a pair of slightly curved navy slacks cut awkwardly above the ankle anywhere east of Old Street (and, if you've ever been anywhere east of Old Street, then you almost certainly have), the chances are they were bought at Studio Nicholson. The brand was founded in Hackney by designer Nick Wakeman 15 years ago with a simple but strict premise: it would offer womenswear in a stern, neutral palette — 'darkest navy' remains the signature — with subtly off-beat silhouettes pinched from classic films ('specifically those from 1976 to 1996') and Japanese octogenarians ('I've got a thing for them'). Her intention? 'I just didn't want people to look like an idiot in it,' she says, deadpan. 'We're not really shouty. The clothes have to do the talking,' she continues, her ironed straight blonde hair brushing a plain black cardigan. 'It's not about marketing or puffball skirts, à la Jacquemus, the wally,' she says of the French designer with a penchant for going viral on Instagram. 'Just try these clothes on and see how you feel in them. I'm sure you'll love it.' Initially, Studio Nicholson (named after her great-grandmother 'Nanan' Nicholson) enjoyed success in Japan, before rocketing from strength to minimalist strength here. It expanded to menswear in 2017, opened a Soho flagship in 2021, branched out to Tokyo in 2023, launched hardwear-less handbags last year and only last month swung the doors open to its first east London outpost, on Redchurch Street. Artist Sarah Lucas and Rochelle Canteen's Margot Henderson are already regulars. Opening new stores does not faze Wakeman, 51, any more. 'We just opened our fourth store in South Korea, our second one in Tokyo, and another in Kyoto yesterday,' she says. A Marylebone location is also slated to open this side of summer. Expansion is rapid, then. 'When I started it, it was just me at my kitchen table and the possibilities were endless, but I couldn't afford to do any of them,' she says. 'Fifteen years later, the possibilities are still endless, but we can actually action them. That's the exciting part.' When we speak, though, she is recently off the Eurostar, having sold her wares to the menswear buyers of Paris Fashion Week. One eye is winking with tiredness. Did she enjoy herself? 'No,' she says, sharply. 'Let's face it, I've been doing it for about 28 years, so I'm done with it.' Wakeman has a head-on, fuss-free energy and a wry British wit — it's not hard to imagine her being an intimidating character to work for. When I relayed this to a friend after our conversation, they laughed. 'Have you seen the clothes? What did you expect her to be like?' They had a point. Studio Nicholson is to east Londoners and chic architects what The Row is to the Upper East Siders in New York — quiet luxury to the point of silence; androgynous garments that at first might seem unremarkable made spectacular by considered fabrication. Alongside the best dressed Brits, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore and Cillian Murphy are all fans. On screen, the designs were a signature of the wardrobe of Lydia Tár, the steely conductor portrayed by Cate Blanchett in the 2022 film — 'she's quite a strong woman who wears the trousers' — and feature in Pedro Almodóvar's recent The Room Next Door. 'I think the directors are looking for something normal and classy when they use us, which I think we are,' says Wakeman. Unlike The Row, however, where blazers start at £3,000, Studio Nicholson is expensive but not wildly unattainable. It's sometimes likened to a bridge between Phoebe Philo's Céline and Cos, with jeans at about £200, jumpers £300 and jackets ranging from £350 to £1,000. Not for lack of quality. 'I prefer fabric to clothing,' says Wakeman, who studied textile design at Chelsea School of Arts after a childhood spent in Hampshire with her father, who ran a construction business, and mother, a self-taught seamstress who never let her dress in pink. 'Fabric is the key to making a successful garment. I don't think designers understand that.' Her relationships with factories in Italy and Japan are essential, and have been developed over more than two decades (in 1999 she founded her first label, Birdie, with Japanese label Beams, before selling it in 2007). 'They come to us, we work on exclusives, and we have a checklist of words we look for in a new fabric: is it spongy? Does it make you feel something? Is it shiny? Is the weave prominent?' They then produce them in typical Nicholson mid-tones ('bone grey', 'straw', 'feather', 'fossil' — these are just the men's trousers). While she doesn't rule out pops of brightness ('I actually quite like them,' she protests) Wakeman is affronted by vibrant colour blocking. 'Let's face it — no one's walking around in turquoise,' she says. 'I really can't work out who wears that sort of colour. Artists, maybe… It's very easy to get dressed if you've got a very tight palette. I don't know anyone that grey melange doesn't suit.' Her other style rule: keep it authentic. 'There's nothing worse than seeing a woman who can't walk in a pair of heels, or the skirt is suddenly over the knicker line — in the wrong way. It's just awful,' she says. These principles all equate to four female and six male 'drops' per year that do not tend to vary massively. 'We have similar pin-ups each time — Jeremy Irons is my number one — and then each collection we throw in a few extras; we had a bit of Mickey Rourke for spring 2025.' Instead, new territory comes with fresh categories. Fragrance will be next, for 2026, followed by homeware — but not sofas; 'more what you wear at home, because I don't wear my outdoor clothes indoors,' she says. After successful recent collaboration with shoemaker Paraboots, more are on the horizon, too: with bagmaker Porter-Yoshida in May, Macintosh in September and Asics later this year. 'I have a hungry CEO nipping at my heels every day,' she chuckles. So the steady burn of Studio Nicholson will not die down anytime soon. Oh, and Wakeman will not be leaving London either. 'It's home,' she says. 'I'm about to turn 52, where am I going to move now? No one wants to live in New York. I certainly don't want to live in Paris. I've toyed with the idea of living in Japan but London's got freedom, which lots of cities don't have,' she says. 'We're a bit naughty — that sort of suits me.' Studio Nicholson's spring 2025 drop available soon,
