In Soundbites today we take a run through some of the latest news from The Charlatans, Biffy Clyro and Happy Mondays, as well as the memorial service for Ronnie James Dio, and we take a quick look at a perfect album for this summer’s festival season.
Manchester’s The Charlatans played the first of two gigs at London’s Roundhouse venue last night (31/5), in celebration of their 1990 debut album ‘Some Friendly‘. The band played the album in it’s entirety during the show, including firm fan favourites such as ‘The Only One I Know‘ and ‘Sproston Green‘.
Biffy Clyro surprised fans of 90s band Sunny Day Real Estate by appearing as the group’s support band at a gig at London’s HMV Forum. After leaving a hint on their Twitter page which read “Anyone in Kentish Town, north London tonight…? Shhhh, it’s a secret,” the three-piece played an eight-song acoustic set for the Washington four-piece who reunited in 2009.
A memorial service for the late singer Ronnie James Dio drew thousands of fans when it was held in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, LA last Sunday (30/5). Dio’s cousin and bandmate David Feinstein told the service: “He touched all of us with his music and his message and his magic. I know that Ronnie truly loved all of you. He had a great appreciation for your loyalty. I’m talking about all you out there, all the fans.”
Great to see Stornoway’s debut album ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ trouble the UK top 20 this week. It’s a brilliantly chilled out, folky record and will be perfect at a festival this summer when you’re trying to recover in the tent after a long, long night of over-priced, watered down beer.
Shaun Ryder has told XFM his band Happy Mondays were interested in performing their album ‘Pills, Thrills N Bellyaches‘ in full in September, but has decided to work on his Greatest Hits album instead. “We were actually going to do that in September, we were going to play Pills N Thrills and sacked it and did this instead,” he told the station. “On the Greatest Hits, we’ve got a couple of tracks from my new solo album, I get to play Black Grape and some Mondays tunes so it’s really good fun to do.”
