Latest news with #YoungBlood
Glasgow Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
I saw Sophie Ellis-Bextor perform in Glasgow's Armadillo
Can we adopt Sophie Ellis-Bextor and call her our own? The London-born singer brought disco to the Armadillo on Saturday night - and a whole lot of enthusiasm for the city. And flattery about this Scottish city will get you everywhere with Glasgow fans, Sophie. (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) Looking as fabulous as ever, dressed head to toe in sparkles of course, the star opened up proceedings with Relentless Love before amping up the atmosphere with her cover of Cher's 1979 hit Take Me Home. She said - while rhyming off facts about Glasgow with the same ease as a native - 'It's always a pleasure to be here. 'I love Glasgow very much, I do. 'The city has been such a big part of me and my music . 'I remember playing King Tuts, Oran Mor, The Garage, and Kelvingrove. 'It's always a pleasure to come back.' (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo May 2025. Pic by Calum Buchan.) Showcasing those iconic velvet smooth vocals on Young Blood, the 46-year-old sounded exceptional while the new track Vertigo, taken from her upcoming album Perimenopop, gave fans a glimpse of what's to come. The party, however, really got started with a disco mix that included a cover of Modjo's Lady (Hear Me Tonight), ABBA's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, and of course, the song that launched it all for Sophie, Spiller's Groovejet (If This Ain't Love). What's great about Sophie is her ability to dance on stage like no one is watching. You're instantly drawn to her energy, and it's magnetic. She's geeky, truly knows who she is, and it's incredible to watch. Her voice is so unique, it gives her brand of disco an edge, and let's face it, you know when Sophie is singing. (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo May 2025. Pic by Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo in May 2025. Pic Calum Buchan.) Taking in the admiration from her fans, she asked: 'Shall I just cancel the rest of the tour? What is the point? 'Shall we just move here?' And with a resounding yes from the fans, it was time for that song that was given a new life thanks to a little movie called Saltburn. Murder on the Dancefloor sent the crowd into a complete frenzy, and rightly so, it's an incredible pop anthem. READ NEXT: I saw Anastacia live in Glasgow - and she revealed her Scottish 'addiction' READ NEXT: I saw Kylie Minogue at the Hydro in Glasgow - it was a legendary performance (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo May 2025. Pic by Calum Buchan.) (Image: Sophie Ellis-Bextor plays Glasgow's Armadillo May 2025. Pic by Calum Buchan.) Signing off with a smile, she said: 'Thank you, come see me again sometime,' before an encore of Bittersweet and a surprise appearance on the balcony to sing A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed.
The Spinoff
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The DJ-free zombie station that grew out of the corpse of Today FM is… actually good?
Channel X proves people don't want to hear news, sport, weather, or generally anything that reminds them of human existence in the last 20 years. The last human sound to play on Today FM was a sob. Presenter Tova O'Brien had just accused her bosses of killing the station without ever giving it a chance. A sad heave was audible as the intro to 'Young Blood' by The Naked and Famous came on, its synths drowning out the tears. The musical takeover was a harbinger of things to come. A few months later, Today FM was replaced by Channel X, a DJ-free zombie station devoted entirely to tracks from the late-90s to early-2000s, aka the Millennial-Gen X Nostalgia Zone. Its only voice breaks are ads, several of which seem to be unpaid musings from an unnamed MediaWorks employee. 'Channel X does endorse Bluey this school holidays,' said one recent entry. 'We do not endorse Ms Rachel.' I accidentally found the station during one of my car radio's periodic nervous breakdowns. It spun haphazardly through the wavelengths near the Greville Rd motorway off-ramp, eventually finding purchase on 106.2FM just as The Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark started Creed-voicing angstily about stopping a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice in 1996 hit 'The Freshmen'. Replacing a well-funded talk radio brand with a literal playlist is the kind of thing a media company does when it's slowly shrivelling into oblivion. But since that moment by the Albany poo ponds, Channel X has been one of my go-tos. Indications are I'm not alone. One of Channel X's latest ads calls it 'New Zealand's fastest-growing radio station'. In the second commercial radio ratings survey for 2024, it registered a 4.8% audience share in the 18-34 age bracket, and 4.3% in the 25-54 demographic. Today FM only registered a 1.4% overall market share in 2023. An informal survey of The Spinoff's predominantly Millennial and Xennial workforce would suggest those numbers are continuing to grow. Several staff members have admitted to being Channel Xers. 'It's replaced Radio NZ in my car,' said one high-ranking Spinoffer. 'Sorry.' No need to apologise. I don't listen to RNZ either, and most especially not that putrid show Mediawatch. I'm too busy vibing to 'Truly Madly Deeply' by Savage Garden on Onewa Rd. It's hard to say why. Channel X really has no right working as well as it does. Every streaming service on Earth offers basically the exact same product. If I want to listen to late-90s to early-2000s hits all I have to do is fire up The Cranberries or The Killers radio on Spotify. But there's something joyless in these services' ruthless hyper-targeting of revealed preference. Ironically, MediaWorks' most human-free station is more listenable because it still retains a trace of humanity. It works because it sometimes doesn't work. There are curveballs, duds, and most importantly, surprises. You might have to sit through a violent bout of Avicii, but it's worth it to spontaneously revisit a song you've barely thought about since the ride to your sixth form ball. The model appears to be catching on. Last month, Channel X's rival NZME station Gold FM dropped its presenters to become music-only. The trend will likely accelerate as cash-strapped media companies look for ways to reduce overheads on pointless things like 'paying to keep human beings alive'. Channel X may be the first horseman of the radio apocalypse, its pitiless scythe sweeping down upon Jono and Ben, Matty McLean, fill-in drive host Matilda Green, Clint and Bree, and in a great blackening final blow that portends the end of all things, Simon Barnett. But for now, it's a refreshing break from the modern world; a Millennial nirvana where our aging brains can once more approximate that peerless feeling of hearing a great song you don't have on CD crackling down the radio waves. This isn't Coast FM or the Breeze, where the need for audience growth has resulted in horrendous decade-mixing mashups of Third Eye Blind and Rod Stewart. The year is specifically 1998, and you're in your mum's car listening to ZM. Soon you'll snap out of the nostalgic daze. But when that music is playing, no one can hear you sob.
The Independent
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Jesse Colin Young death: Youngbloods singer dies at 83
Jesse Colin Young, the singer-songwriter who led the rock band the Youngbloods, has died. He was 83. The band's biggest hit 'Get Together' was initially released in 1967, but received renewed interest after being used in a radio announcement by the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1969, and went on to reach the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Young's soulful vocal and the song's entreaty that 'Everybody get together' and 'Try to love one another right now' made it an anthem of the hippie era. Young's wife and manager Connie Young announced he died at home in Aiken, South Carolina on Sunday, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Young was born Perry Miller in Queens, New York on November 22, 1941. His parents, originally from Lynn, Massachusetts, were both fans of classical music and encouraged their son to learn piano. In 1959, he won a scholarship to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and studied classical guitar there until he was expelled. He attended Ohio State University for a semester, but later transferred to New York University so that he could perform as part of the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene. He chose a stage name that combined the outlaws Jesse James and Cole Younger, and Colin Chapman, founder of the Lotus sports car company. Young released his debut album, The Soul of a City Boy, in 1964 and the follow-up Young Blood in 1965. Young then met folk guitarist Jerry Corbitt and the pair decided to form a duo known as the Youngbloods to tour Canada. They later added guitarist and pianist Lowell "Banana" Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer to the group, becoming the house band for the Cafe Au Go Go night club in Greenwich Village. In 1967, the group released their debut album The Youngbloods. The record included their version of 'Get Together', which had been written by the singer-songwriter Chet Powers. The song became their signature hit. The group released a second album Earth Music just a few months later and became prolific, releasing three more albums in the next few years: Elephant Mountain in 1969, Good and Dusty in 1971 and High on a Ridge Top in 1972. After the band split, Young continued as a solo artist. He released 15 more solo albums, most recently Dreamers in 2019. He was married twice. He had two children, Juli and Cheyenne, with his first wife Suzi Yong. Juli was the subject of the title song from Young's fourth and most successful solo album, 1973's Song for Juli. Young met his second wife, Connie Darden, in the 1980s. They also have two children, Tristan and Jazzie, who are both musicians.
