While disaster struck at Tomorrowland, the world said farewell to heavy metal's godfather, the Prince of Darkness. Music guru David Kowalski has the latest.
Vale Ozzy
Happening right before my submission deadline was the sad news that the music world has lost John ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne, formerly the vocalist of Black Sabbath and a solo artist in his own right. I recently reported on the massive final gig he played in his home town of Birmingham, England. Looking back with hindsight, that gig now appears like something of a live wake for the man who played a pivotal role in changing the sound of rock music into something we now call heavy metal.
Osbourne’s influence on music will be felt for decades to come. Thank you for the music, Oz. Vale.
Metallica saves the day at a Dance Music festival
In the news this week is the tragedy at the Tomorrowland festival in Belgium. One day before the festival was due to begin, the main stage caught fire and was burned to the ground. Some sources claim that while the pyrotechnics were being tested, a malfunction may have caused the blaze. There was no damage to the other eleven stages, just the main one. Local authorities are not treating the blaze as suspicious.
Tomorrowland is one of Europe’s biggest dance music festivals, due to host over 400,000 people over two weekends. It will feature acts like Erik Prydz, Swedish House Mafia, Steve Aoki, Lost Frequencies and Deadmau5.
The main stage debacle has actually been rectified with the assistance of an unlikely benefactor. Metallica had a great deal of stage equipment stored in Austria from their WorldWired/M72 tour, including LED walls, stage rigging and structural components. These components were airlifted to the site and installed in record time, enabling the festival to continue. The enduring image of the festival with the charred remains of the old stage visible behind a new Metallica-powered stage has become a beacon of hope for attendees.
It was an incredible gesture of compassion across musical genres that we don’t see very often.
ELO’s spaceship crashed before it was due to land
Electric Light Orchestra, known by most by its initials ELO, had to unexpectedly cancel the last two shows of their Over and Out tour. A tour that would have meant the final ever shows of Jeff Lynne playing with the band that made his name as a songwriter and musician.
ELO had its roots in another Birmingham band called The Move. ELO was formed in 1970 in order to carry on the experiments of The Beatles with orchestral instruments. They have made big, grandiose pop tracks, occasionally with rockabilly leanings, such as 'Hold On Tight', 'Livin’ Thing', and even a souped-up extended version of Chuck Berry’s 'Roll Over Beethoven' that incorporates themes from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in it.
Lynne had been in an accident in a taxi earlier in July, where the cabbie slammed on the brakes and Lynne broke his wrist. He played the two sold-out Birmingham shows on 5 and 6 July without this guitar and managed the 9 July Manchester show, however he looked very unwell towards the end of the night. Some fans reported that he was too unwell to sing 'Mr Blue Sky' in the finale.
With the venue almost full on the 10th, it was announced that Lynne was too ill to perform that night and everyone was sent home. It was later announced he had a viral infection and doctors advised him to rest. That also meant that the huge final show in London’s Hyde Park would be cancelled. The Associated Press has reported that the cancelled gigs cannot be rescheduled.
I do wish Lynne well and hope that fans who missed out on these two shows will get to see him for the last time. For a band with such a huge legacy, it is heartbreaking to see it prematurely end in this fashion.
Ben Lee has a radical idea for the Hottest 100
With the Triple J Hottest 100 Australian Songs of all time coming up this weekend on 26 July, Australian music stalwart Ben Lee has a few choice words to say about the countdown. The Hottest 100 has become an annual party soundtrack for over 30 years now. However, there have been lots of complaints that the final list has been too generically mainstream.
Lee thinks he has a solution for it. He thinks the main Hottest 100 should be passed over to a commercial radio station and that the Triple J countdown should focus on all Australian music for the calendar year.
On his Instagram page, Lee says:
'I…feel that this initiative, this Hottest 100 Australian Songs of all time, is a little bit of a band-aid for a deeper conversation we need to be having about what role triple j should be playing in fostering Australian music culture and supporting new Australian talent.'
The big problem with this is that whether we like it or not, we are a globalised society. The demographic that Triple J targets – 12-25 year olds – are getting their new music exposure from all over the world via social media. This will be reflected in the countdown based on how they vote. Triple J radio is not the only place they get their music knowledge from.
Is there room for two Hottest 100 countdowns every year? One commenter on the post suggests that we should have an Australian music one at this time of year every year. Lee argues that this idea still puts local music at a lower priority than the rest. I would argue that doing something – anything – in the short term is better than complaining about it. Why can’t Triple J have another one on a long weekend in the middle of the year?
New music from Washington
Or Meg Washington as she now bills herself — she no longer goes by her previous mononym. As she prepares for the release of her fifth studio album in August, entitled 'GEM', Washington unleashes a new single called 'Fine'.
She has also managed to wrangle some high-profile assistance from none other than Paul Kelly himself. The track is a quiet meditative piece that Washington described to Rolling Stone Australia as:
'... a hymnal affirmation, written as a round; a set of overlapping sections. It came from wanting to sing what I wanted to happen.'
The piece has already been arranged and performed by a men’s choir in the film How To Make Gravy in 2024. This new band arrangement allows the piece to breathe and invites the listener inside to somewhere special.
Looking forward to the album.
Until next time…
LISTEN TO THIS WEEK'S SPECIALLY CURATED PLAYLIST BELOW:
David Kowalski is a writer, musician, educator, sound engineer and podcaster. His podcasts 'The Sound and the Fury Podcast' and 'Audio Cumulus' can be heard exclusively HERE. You can follow David on Twitter/X @sound_fury_pod.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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