Monday 28 June 2010

Stevie Wonder closes Glastonbury

Music legend Stevie Wonder brought the Glastonbury music festival to a close.

The US star, 60, was the final headliner on the Pyramid stage and thrilled the crowds with many of his greatest hits including Superstition, Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours, plus a cover of Human Nature, as a tribute to Michael Jackson.

The Motown favourite also celebrated the event's 40th anniversary. He was joined by festival organiser Michael Eavis for his last song Happy Birthday.

This year revellers went for bikinis and bare chests instead of the traditional raincoats and wellies. It is the first time the four-day event has been completely dry since 2002.

As well as Wonder, the show on Mr Eavis's dairy farm in Pilton, Somerset, also saw appearances from Shakira, Muse, Radiohead and Snoop Dogg. The Scissor Sisters were joined by special guest Kylie, who had to pull out of Glasto in 2005 when she was battling breast cancer.

Festival-goers were also able to see England's humiliating World Cup defeat. Around 80,000 supporters watched the action on two giant screens which were specially erected.

Friday 25 June 2010

Stevie Wonder: Fans get no ticket and no refund


Consumers face Hyde Park concert disappointment to Stevie Wonder.

Consumers who have bought tickets for Stevie Wonder's Hyde Park concert on Saturday night through online ticket agency Hydeparkconcerts.com have been left with no tickets and no refund from the company.
Sent to one customer in an email, Hydeparkconcerts.com suggested putting in a claim to the lady's bank as the company was unable to refund the monies paid. The email read: 'Unfortunately we have been let down by our suppliers for your tickets and are unable to supply them. Because we no longer use the merchant service provider that charged you we are unable to issue a refund back to the card that was used to book.
'Please contact your card issuer and instruct them to perform a chargeback for goods not received. If you paid by credit card then your booking will be insured under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. If you paid by debit card then Visa scheme rules will allow you to retrieve the funds.'

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Stevie Wonder Plays the Classics -- and Talks Politics

Stevie Wonder promised the Bonnaroo crowd "some song-travelin" Saturday night and that's exactly what they got. The legendary R&B singer's two-hour set offered a trip through four Wonder-full decades (the '90s were conspicuously skipped) with the occasional detour for politics.

"Let's keep it real," said Wonder as the 13-piece backing band played the opening notes of "Living for the City," his seminal 1973 narrative on race relations. "We can never let no one ever get us back to a place like this again. Never. No Tea Party -- I don't care. You want to be a supremacist? Then be the supreme of getting people together."

He also had some advice for anyone confronted with racist talk. "You say, 'Hey what's that smell? It smells like some bullshit!' Are we in agreement?" A resounding roar from the crowd meant the answer was "yes," though hearing the affable star swear may have helped tip the scale.

Wonder's performance was, for the most part, a constant string of feel-good moments. He initially walked onto the stage soloing on a keytar -- a signifier of the supreme funkiness to come. He dug out a trio of '80s hits to get the party started, hollering, "Saxophone!" halfway through "As If You Read My Mind," and summoning an era-appropriate solo.

Then Little Stevie came out -- voice high and bright -- as he revisited 1966 via "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" and "For Once in My Life." Each song was given a proper Motown finish, ending in stuttering big-band fanfare and, of course, harmonica for the latter.

He and the band stretched out over classics like "Higher Ground," "Sir Duke," "Superstition," and "My Cherie Amor" while tens of thousands sang along. For "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," Wonder split up vocal duties between the men and the women, recreating the song's trademark Latin melody. Later, he led the crowd through a series of increasingly difficult notes.

"You sounded kind of good," he said with a laugh. That was generous.

Armed with a talk box, Wonder eventually made a well-received returned to the groove, first covering Parliament's "Give Up the Funk," then playing a funked-up version of Whitfield and Strong's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."

Wonder was spry at 60, and clearly in a good mood as he stepped up onto the piano bench to sing his upbeat 1982 hit "Do I Do." He also played the consummate bandleader, more than once commanding his players to switch key mid-song.

Monday 14 June 2010

Hot at Bonnaroo Stevie Wonder


Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z endured sweltering temperatures to wow crowds Bonnaroo festival at the year.
Hip hop star and the soul legend headlined during the four day US festival, where over 75,000 music lovers sweated it out on a 700 acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee.
Introducing Stevie, US TV host and comic Conan O'Brien shouted to the crowd: "All the mud, all the rain, all the heat -- it's all worth it."

Thursday 10 June 2010

Stevis Wonder: Usher wants another duet with Stevie Wonder


At the year's Glastonbury Festival Usher hasn't ruled out pulling on his wellies and joining his old pal Stevie Wonder .
After performing the group became friends Higher Ground at President Barack Obama's inauguration, and now the younger star has tipped his hero to be the must see act on the pyramid stage at this month's festival.
'I don't think there's an audience that Stevie can't win over with his voice,' Usher told Sky News.
'If he can't then maybe there's something wrong with their ears! I wish him well at the show.'
Glastonbury headliners are well known for bringing on particular guests, and Usher says he'd jump at the chance of playing down on Worthy Farm even if the mud might spoil his designer clothes.
'Eventually I'll play anywhere, as long as you've got a stage and a microphone I'll do it,' he smiles.
Usher has just performed on Britain's Got Talent to promote his 6th album Raymond V Raymond, which contains his number one single OMG.
Despite some current quotes which suggested he wasn't a fan of TV reality shows, he says the stars of last week's final deserve their shot at fame, however fleeting.
'Everybody has their view of talent,' says Usher.
'I think everybody deserves a moment in the sun and this is obviously a show that's actually worked and is very popular.
'We've left the time where the star has kind of been preserved. I have no issue with it, I've seen very odd things, some of it is hilarious, some of it is intended for comedy and some of it is intended for a true career being built.'