Tickets to Metallica’s two Auckland shows sold out in just 20 minutes this morning, leaving some angry fans empty-handed.
The tickets went on sale at 9am and promoters for the two shows, on October 13 and 14 at Vector Arena, said they were sold out by 9.20am. Stuff.co.nz was swamped with feedback by irate fans who tried to buy them over the internet, but couldn’t get through.
“I was on the website from 8.50am and nothing. Both pre-sales failed and sure enough no 25th birthday for me. It was going to be the best start to my honeymoon too,” said a poster called Chris. “Once again, the Ticketmaster website is unstable and not up to modern day needs,” said another poster called Mark. Fans who camped out overnight at Real Groovy in Auckland told Stuff.co.nz they spent the night chatting to other fans and sleeping.
“I’ve been sleeping, talking to strangers, and sleeping again,” said a Metallica fan of 20 years.
“I was going to go down to Britomart, but I came down here and saw these guys and thought, ‘I’ll just get in here with these guys’. I’m third in line. It’s alright,” said another.
“It’s never too long to wait (for tickets),” said a third fan. “As long as we get one.”
Queues were “right around the corner” at Real Groovy’s Queen Street store in Auckland this morning, a staff member said. They were still selling tickets at 9.30am.
A handful of fans also camped out overnight at Real Groovy in Wellington.
One fan who tried to score tickets over the internet said: “General sale tickets were gone so fast, by 9.02am when I got through they were gone. Here’s hoping for a third show.”
Promoters said the second show for October 14, announced on Monday, was to be the last, and no extra shows in New Zealand were planned. A small number of tickets could be released at a later date, promoters said. Meanwhile, a special offer from Air New Zealand will mean Christchurch Metallica fans will be able to travel to Auckland to see the band for $1. Bruce Parton, from Air New Zealand’s discount ticketing site Grabaseat, announced the special offer yesterday. “We’ll give 120 seats [from Christchuch to Auckland] at a dollar,” he said. “All you have to do is have a Metallica ticket.”
Parton said the themed flight would have a “party atmosphere” with “black T-shirts and long hair”.
The Grabaseat sale is on now. http://flightbookings.airnewzealand.co.nz/vgrabview/en_NZ/
Metallica last performed in New Zealand at the Big Day Out in 2004.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/entertainment/3690820/Metallica-tickets-sell-out-fast
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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Tiki Taane’s song Always On My Mind was a hit locally – and it could become an international hit too thanks to its inclusion on console karaoke game Sing Star.
“They just sent me an email – I had a read through and said, ‘Yeah, I’m keen as,” Taane said about his 2008 hit, which climbed to the top of the charts in New Zealand and sold more than 30,000 copies. The track, from his solo debut album Past, Present, Future, will be available on Sing Star for the next 10 years – as well as being converted into different languages for versions of the game in foreign countries.
“I don’t play PlayStation or Xbox or any of that stuff, although I did play Sing Star once at a mate’s house party,” he said. “I mean I love playing video games, but it makes me scared ‘cos I’d spend days and days on it but I’ve got a business to run and I’ve got a record to make, and man if I started playing video games it’d be all over.”
When asked if he got tired of being asked to play Always On My Mind he said: “No way man”.
“That one song has made everything I have ever worked for over the past 18 years happen. I have been working really hard for that one song and all of a sudden it’s blown up.
“So I’ll play it any time anyone wants to hear it. It’s affected other people too, it’s touched others so I can’t hate that song – it has given me such an amazing life and everything’s really cool”.
Taane said his life had changed a lot since he toured as the front man of dub act Salmonella Dub.
He refers to himself as a businessman who owns his own music, art, record label and publishing rights. He now has control and doesn’t have to conform to a major label. “I’m this tattooed Maori boy who’s a bit rough around the edges and I walk into this corporate world and I’m walking away on top. There are people who don’t see the full picture.
“You know I should be getting high fives and pats on the back for that because I’m representing the underground the underdogs who are slaving away and struggling and have been slaving away for years. And finally I get to peek up and play ball with the big guys.”So these people who say I’m selling out, I find it ridiculous because they don’t know the history of myself, I’ve worked really hard for this”.
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/3683087/Waititi-releases-new-remixed-Poi-E-video
Filmmaker Taika Waititi says he’s pleased with the response to his remade version of the Poi E video as he seeks to put the song back on top of the charts by Christmas.
“It’s great to see a NZ classic get another chance in the charts”.
The popular Patea Maori Club song, originally recorded in 1983, has shot back to prominence after featuring in Waititi’s smash-hit film Boy. Written by linguist Ngoi Pewhairangi and Dalvanius Prime, the song dominated the New Zealand music charts for 22 weeks, including four weeks at number one in 1984.
It briefly re-entered the charts last year following a Vodafone promotion and is the only Kiwi song to chart over three decades. Poi E was an accidental hit in its time. After failing to garner interest from record labels or commercial radio, an appearance on the television show Eye Witness saw its popularity soar. The new version combines scenes from the original with scenes from Boy.
“It’s nothing amazing, I cut it together in a day … It’s hard to do something too different with limited material but I think it captures the soul of the film and it’s pretty fun to watch.”
Waititi tweeted on Saturday night that he was putting the finishing touches on the new version.
He had earlier written: “I do declare! After 26 years the song Poi E (from Boy) is now back in the NZ top 40! Let’s try and get it to #1 by Christmas!”
His bid has drawn widespread publicity, with a Facebook group drawing well over 2000 fans and a Twitter account both dedicated to the bid.
A re-enactment of the Poi E dance in Wellington’s Manners Mall is being organised by GSL Network, the company that made the website for Boy. The time and date for the mass-dance has not yet been released. Poi E appeared to run out of puff this week after it dropped to 22nd place on the Official New Zealand music chart, released today. It had previously peaked at number 19. Dalvanius Prime’s family had earlier said they welcomed the song’s new found success and hoped to set up a trust in his name to help promote Maori music.
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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Does he need a giant guitar case to put it in?
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The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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A second Metallica concert was announced today and both events take place at Auckland’s Vector Arena, on October 13 and 14.
A media release from de Launay Enterprises exclaims: “Due to an overwhelming demand during the current pre-sale period, second shows have been added to Metallica’s long awaited World Magnetic Tour of New Zealand and Australia!”
All Kiwi Metallica fans will have to travel to Auckland if they want to see the band play in New Zealand this year.
The concerts are promised to last more than two hours each and will feature material drawn from throughout Metallica’s career, on a custom built stage and with their full world tour production.
Tickets go on general sale Thursday May 13 with pre-sales said to be running now.
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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http://www.3news.co.nz/Metallica-announce-second-Auckland-show/tabid/418/articleID/154984/Default.aspx
Playing this invisible instrument is not easy. But here in New Plymouth, we have a champion. Ben Greaney, 24, has won the air guitar national championship twice, the second time last weekend beating nine others.
Usually competitors have to qualify for the nationals by winning a regional final, but New Plymouth didn’t have a competition this year. It was cancelled for some reason.
“So I managed to get a wild card straight to the final because of my past accomplishments.”
There was no big cheque for the winner. Playing the air guitar has not been a lucrative career for him, he says. And, unlike in 2006, he didn’t win tickets to the worlds in Finland in August.
The rules changed. The prize was flights to and accommodation in Canberra to compete in the Australian air guitar championships. The winner of that wins air tickets and accommodation for the worlds.
2010 New Zealand (NZ) Champ: ‘Ben Greaney’ aka ‘The HellmuTT Experience’.
Age: 24 / eternal. Occupation: unemployed / free spirit. Preferred playing hand: Right.
Free Round song: ‘Power To Love’ by ‘Jimi Hendrix’.
Air Guitar Style: face melting watchamacallit
Musical influences: Psycodelic rock blues
Rock quote: ‘Even though you can’t experience and enjoy the pleasure of being hellmuTT, you can still enjoy the pleasure of the hellmuTT experience.’
There might be two Ben Greaneys. There is the quiet Greaney, who is shy when it comes to talking about himself. He works doing “heaps of different things” at an aluminium place in Bell Block and wears jeans and a T-shirt with Guinness written across the front. He has a bit of rocker look going on, with shoulder-length unruly blond curls and bit of facial hair.
And then there is the other Ben Greaney, the one who rocks to Jimi Hendrix and Angus Young wearing bright yellow and black tie-dyed tights, big furry boots and a colourful shirt.
The one who calls himself The Helmutt Experience.
He is not entirely sure, so he reckons, about how the name came into being. It had something to do with having a few drinks and wearing a beer box on his head.
Knowing how to play an actual guitar, helps in playing the air guitar, he says. It helps him play in time to the music.
Some people ask him why doesn’t he play the real guitar.
“They say, You don’t have any skills compared to someone or other who plays the guitar.”
But, he says, he has a whole different skill set.
Greaney has come full circle in his air guitar career, having gone back to what he was doing originally. And he did a riff off last weekend, which he had never done before.
A riff off is where the competition ends in a tie and the finalists go on stage together and play to music they haven’t heard before.
http://www.airguitaraustralia.com/AAGC.htm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/features/3672783/Airhead
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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Trent Reznor has unveiled initial details of a new band outside of Nine Inch Nails, “How To Destroy Angels”
Nine Inch Nails gave up playing live following a show in Los Angeles last September, and now frontman Reznor has revealed that he has formed a new group called How To Destroy Angels. But the rocker assured fans, “NIN is not dead and I am about to work on some material that I believe will be quite different than previous NIN very soon.”
Reznor is joined by his wife Mariqueen Maandig for the project.
The pair have posted up videos featuring snippets of new music at Howtodestroyangels.com. They are expected to release material this summer – having posted up the message “Self-titled six-track EP out this summer. Exact date TBA”.
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The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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Dancer Jaered Glavin, 21, choreographed a 6 1/2-minute Lady Gaga-inspired routine over 12 hours of rehearsals in the space of two weeks, for a workshop run by the ballet company.
He uploaded the video to YouTube a week ago and it has already been viewed more than 50,000 times, making it New Zealand’s top-rated YouTube clip this month. It has also been featured on Lady Gaga’s official fan page and received international attention.
Glavin said most of the groups at the workshop used classical music scores and more traditional dance steps. “I wanted to go a bit mad and just have a lot of fun with it.”
It was his first choreographing stint since he trained at the Royal Ballet School in London. Glavin, a big Lady Gaga fan, chose the track Bad Romance (Starsmith Remix) and selected six Gaga-ettes, fellow Royal New Zealand Ballet dancers Katie Hurst-Saxton, Katherine Grange, Clytie Campbell, Lucy Balfour, Antonia Hewitt and Maree White. The dancers, decked out in blonde wigs and skimpy outfits, fused Gaga’s distinctive pop style with traditional ballet moves.
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The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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When Moby ran a competition to create the official video for his new single ‘Wait For Me’ you could imagine things were going to get creative. One of the competitions runners-up has become a bit of a hit viral online.
http://www.nextnoize.com/2010/05/moby-wait-for-me-video.html
Until next time keep rockin’
The 0800 Jukebox crew.
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