Tony Squires on Damien - 3/12/06
Dec 21, 2006 7:14:04 GMT 10
Post by dededom on Dec 21, 2006 7:14:04 GMT 10
*sorry this is a bit old I only just found it, but I usually enjoy Tony Squires' musings*
Foaming Elton on his soapbox
By Tony Squires
December 03, 2006 12:00
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,20853143-5009160,00.html
Sir Elton John set up camp in the Sydney Entertainment Centre this week, breaking the record for the number of concerts performed at the venue.
He's said, "Hello, Sydney'' from that stage 40 times over the years.
Sir Elton, who can be wonderfully sweet and famously vicious, had a couple of good old-fashioned cracks while he was here: one at Prime Minister John Howard's stand on same-sex marriage.
That stand being, "I'm all for them, so long as by same sex you mean they have the same idea about sex - you know, that it should be between men and women, in a locked bedroom, on a bed, and not very often and with the lights out''.
Elton, on the other hand, has married his bloke, which is all very good and modern.
The other thing that got his goat (whatever the hell that means) was that the only place his new songs get a guernsey is on stage, with radio stations ignoring them.
He's been around a long time, let's face it, producing some of the most recognisable and anthemic songs of a generation.
It's those songs that radio stations and concert audiences are interested in, wrong or right.
Plenty of punters at the Entertainment Centre this week would have been calling for Crocodile Rock, Your Song or Candle In the Wind.
There is, however, very little chance they'd have been standing on their hind legs and bellowing, "Do 'I Must Have Lost It on the Wind' from your new album, The Captain and the Kid.''
We always like the old stuff better than the new stuff. Frankly, with Elton, the old stuff is better than the new stuff.
While Elton may worry about his new gear being paraded on radio, Damien Leith will have no such concerns.
He's been swanning about this week with a bemused look on his face, wearing the Australian Idol sash and tossing his first single at enthusiastic radio programmers. Night of My Life, which could so easily have been a bog-ordinary power ballad, has become a pretty vehicle for his fabulous falsetto.
This bloke can really sing.
Sadly, the finale at the Opera House featured some spectacular moments of singing in the key of z-flat.
The group massacre of Coldplay's Fix You was excruciating. The song was slaughtered in a moving feast from the forecourt stage, up the carpeted steps and into the main drama theatre, with the final 12 idolists taking turns to wrap their tonsils round the corpse and flog it with their dubious harmonies.
It made the annual rock eisteddfod look subtle.
It made Mark Holden's white tuxedo look tasteful.
I have to confess: I've grown to love Shannon Noll, and I enjoyed his cliche rock act.
But when Guy Sebastian starts thrashing a guitar and telling me he's hot for "elevator love'', I'm moved to watch something more credible. Like Today Tonight.
Naomi Robson's chair-vacating speech was a doozy.
Being the consummate professional she is, she even squeezed in a pre-commercial tease:
"Coming up, I'll be making a special announcement about my future.'' That's very good.
Coming up, in the next paragraph, I'll be writing a special sentence about the Wiggles.
Yellow Wiggle Greg Page's skivvy-vacating speech was also extraordinary, with the other Wiggles standing around poking their toy-gun-like fingers at his heart.
"It's the ticker, it's the ticker'', they sang, to the tune of Hot Potato, Hot Potato.
Not really. Sure, I'm not slap bang in the middle of their demographic, but I've almost become Wiggled out.
It's the big grins and the pointing that wears me down.
Fortunately for these high-income-earners, their demographic is young and it is ever-changing.
The kids love them.
It must have been incredibly tough for Page and the rest of the team for him to pull off the least flattering of the skivvies - yellow - and pass it on to Sam Moran.
The up side of being a Wiggle is that you entertain the world's young people and you get paid a bucketload of cash.
The down side is that every time you're quoted, your name is preceded by "blue excruciating, or "purple Wiggle'', or "the other Wiggle''.
In reality, Greg Page and the rest of the boys have conquered the world. He deserves a rest.
Foaming Elton on his soapbox
By Tony Squires
December 03, 2006 12:00
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,20853143-5009160,00.html
Sir Elton John set up camp in the Sydney Entertainment Centre this week, breaking the record for the number of concerts performed at the venue.
He's said, "Hello, Sydney'' from that stage 40 times over the years.
Sir Elton, who can be wonderfully sweet and famously vicious, had a couple of good old-fashioned cracks while he was here: one at Prime Minister John Howard's stand on same-sex marriage.
That stand being, "I'm all for them, so long as by same sex you mean they have the same idea about sex - you know, that it should be between men and women, in a locked bedroom, on a bed, and not very often and with the lights out''.
Elton, on the other hand, has married his bloke, which is all very good and modern.
The other thing that got his goat (whatever the hell that means) was that the only place his new songs get a guernsey is on stage, with radio stations ignoring them.
He's been around a long time, let's face it, producing some of the most recognisable and anthemic songs of a generation.
It's those songs that radio stations and concert audiences are interested in, wrong or right.
Plenty of punters at the Entertainment Centre this week would have been calling for Crocodile Rock, Your Song or Candle In the Wind.
There is, however, very little chance they'd have been standing on their hind legs and bellowing, "Do 'I Must Have Lost It on the Wind' from your new album, The Captain and the Kid.''
We always like the old stuff better than the new stuff. Frankly, with Elton, the old stuff is better than the new stuff.
While Elton may worry about his new gear being paraded on radio, Damien Leith will have no such concerns.
He's been swanning about this week with a bemused look on his face, wearing the Australian Idol sash and tossing his first single at enthusiastic radio programmers. Night of My Life, which could so easily have been a bog-ordinary power ballad, has become a pretty vehicle for his fabulous falsetto.
This bloke can really sing.
Sadly, the finale at the Opera House featured some spectacular moments of singing in the key of z-flat.
The group massacre of Coldplay's Fix You was excruciating. The song was slaughtered in a moving feast from the forecourt stage, up the carpeted steps and into the main drama theatre, with the final 12 idolists taking turns to wrap their tonsils round the corpse and flog it with their dubious harmonies.
It made the annual rock eisteddfod look subtle.
It made Mark Holden's white tuxedo look tasteful.
I have to confess: I've grown to love Shannon Noll, and I enjoyed his cliche rock act.
But when Guy Sebastian starts thrashing a guitar and telling me he's hot for "elevator love'', I'm moved to watch something more credible. Like Today Tonight.
Naomi Robson's chair-vacating speech was a doozy.
Being the consummate professional she is, she even squeezed in a pre-commercial tease:
"Coming up, I'll be making a special announcement about my future.'' That's very good.
Coming up, in the next paragraph, I'll be writing a special sentence about the Wiggles.
Yellow Wiggle Greg Page's skivvy-vacating speech was also extraordinary, with the other Wiggles standing around poking their toy-gun-like fingers at his heart.
"It's the ticker, it's the ticker'', they sang, to the tune of Hot Potato, Hot Potato.
Not really. Sure, I'm not slap bang in the middle of their demographic, but I've almost become Wiggled out.
It's the big grins and the pointing that wears me down.
Fortunately for these high-income-earners, their demographic is young and it is ever-changing.
The kids love them.
It must have been incredibly tough for Page and the rest of the team for him to pull off the least flattering of the skivvies - yellow - and pass it on to Sam Moran.
The up side of being a Wiggle is that you entertain the world's young people and you get paid a bucketload of cash.
The down side is that every time you're quoted, your name is preceded by "blue excruciating, or "purple Wiggle'', or "the other Wiggle''.
In reality, Greg Page and the rest of the boys have conquered the world. He deserves a rest.
