The new Guitar Hero game will be released on the 1st of September for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 platforms, with a new array of features to build on the World Tour – four-person band experience.
The main new feature allows players to play together in the band using ANY combination of instruments – including all four players on the same instrument! I can just imagine four mates on guitar rocking along to Rammstein’s “Du Hast”, but hopefully not all wailing together to Coldplay!
Star Power is now tracked separately you’ll all be pleased to hear. No more gritting your teeth in anger as your hopeless mate fails during the ‘Beat It’ intro for the tenth time! But you can bring that player back into the game by playing your own part successfully.
(more…)
We’ve had the Isle of Wight Festival; we’ve had T in the Park, Download and Glastonbury. Now, it’s the turn of the legendary Leeds Festival in the north and the Reading Festival in the south, both held across the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The line up this year is strong as always, despite the lack of hard rock acts – see my previous post on the subject. For indie and alternative music fans, this event is eagerly anticipated.
On the Friday there’s the Arctic Monkeys and The Prodigy. Saturday’s line up sees the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Bloc Party and the mighty Radiohead. The festival closes with a bang on the Sunday with Kings of Leon following Placebo and the Kaiser Chiefs.
If you are going to it, let us know what you are most looking forward to seeing.
See the full line-up here: http://www.leedsfestival.com/home/
As for me this year, I have Pearl Jam in a few weeks, followed by Green Day in October.
Earlier this month Chris Cornell broke his silence about the Soundgarden legacy, admitting to Rolling Stone plans to release an album of B sides as well as a possible box set of previously unreleased material. Now, Kim Thayil, recently voted in the Rolling Stone’s Top 100 guitarists, has spoken to the same magazine and declared that the box set will happen, some day.
The band are currently discussing with their management ways to get Soundgarden music and merchandise out there again, so their fans can appreciate it. It does look hopeful at the moment.
The box set will include regional-only tracks, John Peel sessions and demo versions of songs that were never released.
When asked the same question as put to Chris, (will Soundgarden ever reunite?) he gave a similar answer: “I never say never … but I’m not losing too much sleep over it, either.”
Well, that’s better than a complete rejection of the idea, like recent rumours of The Stone Roses was quickly quashed. I genuinely hope to see Soundgarden play live again one day. But if not, then I’m certainly looking forward to the unreleased material.
After recent news that Papa Roach will be accompanying Nickelback on their US and Canada 2009 Tour this summer, Nickelback have announced some extra dates down under in November. The Canadian rock band will be playing in Auckland, New Zealand before moving on to Sydney in Australia, and ending in Perth.
This is great news for Australasian Nickelback fans who have been waiting a long time now to see their heroes in action for themselves.
Nickelback successfully played out to a 20,000 sell-out crowd last night at the Post-Gazette Pavillion in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania with fan favourites as well as tracks from the Dark Horse album.
Nickelback Tour dates in Australia and New Zealand
07-11-2009 Auckland, NZ (Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster from Wednesday 22nd July)
11-11-2009 Brisbane, AUS
13-11-2009 Sydney, AUS
16-11-2009 Melbourne, AUS
19-11-2009 Adelaide, AUS
21-11-2009 Perth, AUS
If you do have to pay over the odds for tickets to get to see your favourite band play live then there are ticket exchange sites as an alternative to eBay.
One site which is often described as an “official partner” of ticketing agents such as Ticketmaster is Viagogo. The site is set up to securely transfer money from the buyer to the seller via credit card or bank transfer, with Viagogo as the middle man, so to speak. The seller posts the tickets Royal Mail Special Delivery “from Viagogo” to the buyer. It works well, although the prices set by sellers can be astronomical at times.
(more…)
I maybe should have done this review when the game first came out, but I’ve been busy playing it over the past few weeks.
I am a big Metallica fan, and after buying my PS3 only a month or so ago, I hadn’t played a PS3 version of Guitar Hero before – but had all the other versions on my PS2 including the full World Tour Band set.
(more…)
In the last blog post I was explaining that buying tickets from eBay is sometimes one of those things you have to do if you really want to go to a concert and the tickets are now sold out. Over the past few years an alternative way to get tickets has sprung up; ticket exchanges where fans can exchange ticket. Sometimes the seller is encouraged to sell the tickets at face value whereas on some sites the seller sets a price and they pay the fees to the ticketing exchange host once the tickets are sold.
(more…)
There has not been much news regarding Queens of the Stone Age for quite some time despite plans for an album to come out sometime this year. This is mainly due to the fact that all the band members are still doing their own thing.
Troy van Leeuwen is playing guitar for Sweethead, Joey Castillo is touring with Eagle of Death Metal and Michael Shuman is playing bass for Mini Mansions. Dean Fertita has left the band for Jack White’s The Dead Weather. Van Leeuwen has explained that the band have now delayed plans for a new album until “around 2010-ish”.
(more…)
In the last blog post I was listing the places I go to when tickets for my favourite bands go on sale. There is no tried and tested formula as sometimes you can even get tickets by winning them in a text lottery, like I did for Live8 held a few years back in London’s Hyde Park. I got to see Pink Floyd, The Who and REM…
(more…)
Like I was saying in the previous blog article, the best way to ensure you get the best seats or those rare standing tickets is to purchase tickets from the promoter’s chosen ticketing agents. The ones that I generally use are;
(more…)
