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ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 5, 2015 27 NEWS/FEATURES Trey Anastasio (from left), Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead perform at Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well Show at Soldier Field on July 3, in Chicago, Ill. (AP) Colorful envelopes decorated by tick- et-seekers for Grateful Dead shows are shown on display at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois on July 2. (AFP) Trainor Scott Variety NEW YORK: Meghan Trainor is post- poning two shows because of a hemor- rhage on her vocal cords. The 21-year-old pop singer made the announcement on Instagram late Thursday. She said “doctors want me on complete vocal rest until they are healed.” The “All About That Bass” singer had been scheduled to perform in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday and Uncasville, Connecticut, on Saturday. Trainor wrote that she’s never missed a live show and that she’s “truly sorry to everyone who has bought tickets and made travel plans.” Her next show will be on Tuesday in Lansing, Michigan. The Grammy-nomi- nated performer’s hits include “Lips Are Movin’” and “Dear Future Husband.” (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑ DANVILLE, Ill: The childhood home of actor Dick Van Dyke could be torn down after a central Illinois city condemned the dilapidated building. The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports that the 89-year-old actor took to Twitter this week to call attention to the Danville home he and brother Jerry lived in during high school after relocating from Missouri. The star of “Mary Poppins” and televi- sion’s “The Dick Van Dyke Show” recalled the “happy memories drifting around in there” in a tweet to his 85,200 followers. Van Dyke told the (Danville) Commercial-News he’d like to know if the home is fixable. “If it could be fixed maybe we could do something like take a collection up or something,” he said. “Danville is my home and I do still care.” Mayor Scott Eisenhauer said the city didn’t know the Van Dyke connection when it condemned the house in December. The property’s last owner died in 2011. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑ LOS ANGELES: After winning Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s East of the West competition with “House With a Turret” in 2012, Ukrainian helmer-writer Eva Neymann world preems her third feature “Song of Songs” in the main event. Exquisitely lensed and beautifully styl- ized, it uses the stories of Sholem Aleichem to create the now-extinct world of Russian Jewish shtetls. Previously a documaker, Neymann turned to fiction with adaptations of two Singer Maman Mouhamed Vall performs on the opening night of the first edi- tion of the Salam Festival in Dakar on July 2. Created by Senegalese singer and politician Youssou N’Dour, the religious music festival will see perform- ances by artists from Senegal, Egypt, Morocco and Mauritania. (AFP) works by Friedrich Gorenstein. Why Sholem Aleichem? Neymann says: “‘Song of Songs’ to me was a treasure in which simplicity and fragility are the strong- holds. Here you have real beauty, the deepness that allows one to soar high ... The novel is very special and stands out from his other works, in fact, in the film I have used directly and indirectly frag- ments from across the whole of Sholem Aleichem’s collected works.” Neymann works again with talented d.p. Rimvydas Leipus, of whom she says, “I wish to keep working with him until retirement us do part.” Together they create images of mesmerizing beauty. She notes: “We mainly tried to create our own world, inspired by observation of daily life, memories, impressions and dreams.” (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑ LONDON: A judge has delivered sweet music to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, ruling that a rival ensemble can’t call itself the United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra. Judge Richard Hacon has said that similar names had confused fans of the Hawaiian stringed instrument and “caused damage to the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain’s goodwill.” The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, founded in 1985, took legal action against its rival, founded in 2009 and made up of British musicians based in Germany. Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain founder George Hinchliffe said the ruling made it clear “that copycat musical per- formances cannot trade off the reputation of established groups.” The orchestra says it has played more than 1,000 concerts and performed along- side Robbie Williams, Cat Stevens, Madness and the Kaiser Chiefs. (AP) Dr Dre launches new show on Apple Music NEW YORK, July 4, (AP): Dr. Dre will be busting through your speak- ers with a new radio show on Apple Music. On Friday, the 50-year-old rap mogul announced a new radio show called “The Pharmacy,” which was to premiere Saturday at 6 pm EST. The hour-long show dedicated to West Coast music will stream every other Saturday. Apple Music made its debut this week. Apple bought Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s Beats by Dre company last year. Apple’s new streaming service features live radio programming, including shows hosted by Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga. The service is giving users a free trial for three months and will later cost $10 per month. Music ‘Lot of soul’ Beverly, Maze return to ‘fest’ NEW ORLEANS, July 4, (AP): For 15 years, thousands of fans dressed all in white entered the Superdome on the final day of the Essence Festival anticipating the soulful sounds of Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, who also dressed in his signature white pants, shirt and baseball cap, would sing into the wee hours of the next day. Then in 2010, that experience ended when a new festival produc- er decided to end the long tradition of Maze as the festival’s closer — to the disap- pointment of many despite the great talent tapped to close, includ- ing Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Lionel Richie, Aretha Franklin and Earth, Wind and Fire. This year, Beverly and his group are back on the festival’s main stage. And, although he’s not scheduled to close the entire affair, fans welcome his return and the return of the mas- sive Electric Slide held on the Superdome’s floor. “Frankie Beverly and Maze defined the Essence Festival,” said Anita Brown of New Orleans. “They keep you out of your seat throughout their shows. I haven’t witnessed that type of atmosphere with any other soul artist or group. To reunite them with the festival means that I need to bring my danc- ing shoes!” Kevia Stroder, of Richmond, Texas, said Beverly’s presence was missed. Presence “A lot of people I know stopped going to the festival because he was not a part of the lineup. But I’m look- ing forward to seeing them this year and I will be dressed in all my white,” she said. “We love Maze and Frankie’s music because they sing with a lot of soul and he sings from the heart. We just need his presence there and he can leave the rest to us because you know the crowd will sing everything for him.” In an interview with The Associated Press, Beverly said he’s as eager to return to the festival as his fans are. “We were doing that thing for 15 years and it was very hard not to be there,” he said. “They (festival organizers) seemed to want to change it. I didn’t think it was a good idea because it’s a fantastic festival, up there ranking with some of the best in the world. It seemed silly to change something that was- n’t broken. “But I’m very excited about this performance.” Although Beverly, 68, didn’t play Essence Festival, he was still performing regularly in New Orleans, including at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Bigger “Once we started playing Jazz Fest, those people down there real- ly got geeked up. The crowds kept getting bigger and bigger and it turned into a godsend. It makes us feel good to have a city that loves us with all their heart. It’s more than a blessing.” Michelle Ebanks, president of Essence Communications Inc, said Beverly and Maze are a treasure and their appearance coincides with the festival’s recognition of the 10- year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. “Friday night, we will celebrate the resilience of New Orleans with an epic performance by the leg- endary Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. The Superdome will light up with a sea of all-white as Maze closes out Friday night’s concerts with classic hits that express love, triumph, joy, pain and happy feel- ings,” she said. Also: KINGSTON, Jamaica: Government officials, lawyers and artists participated in a conference last Wednesday to hash over ways of giving Jamaica a competitive advantage from reggae, the home- grown music that long ago went global. Industry Minister Anthony Hylton described reggae as “part of the heart and soul” of Jamaica. But he acknowledged that the island’s struggling music industry needs to be better protected and monetized. “Reggae has given Jamaica much in the way of international prestige but there remains more that we can achieve on the economic side of things,” Hylton said at the “interna- tional reggae day” gathering. Starting in the late 1960s, Jamaica’s exuberant music scene helped transform the Caribbean island into a cultural powerhouse. Reggae’s global popularity exploded in the 1970s with the rise of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and other charismatic Rastafarian reggae stars. Beverly Psychedelic send-off Grateful Dead prepare to quit stage CHICAGO, July 4, (AFP): As rock legends the Grateful Dead retire from the stage, their thousands of tie-dyed fans are gathering one last time in an enduring sign of how the band pio- neered alternative culture. In one of America’s most sought- after tickets in years, the Grateful Dead are putting on three shows in Chicago from Friday in what the aging artists say will likely be their finale. The Independence Day weekend concerts also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead, whose phenomenal connection with “Deadhead” fans comes even though the band only once entered the main- stream Top 10 chart — in 1987, late in their career, with the song “Touch of Grey.” Instead, the Grateful Dead both helped define the countercultural spir- it that blossomed in the 1960s and became a harbinger of later alternative scenes by creating a community that bonded precisely because the band was out of the mainstream. Deadheads, many sporting tie-dye shirts and dabbling in the drugs of the era, would travel from show-to-show as much for the music as for the com- munal experience. Opportunity “It was almost like you were going to church. You went and you felt ener- gized, you got cleansed,” said Greg Griffith, who traveled to Chicago from Virginia and said he has gone to more than 100 Dead shows starting in 1973. “You would always just wait for the next opportunity to see them,” he said. Formed in the cultural ferment of the San Francisco area in the 1960s, the Grateful Dead were generally described as psychedelic rock but brought in elements of blues, country, bluegrass and jazz. The Dead adopted jazz’s defining trait of improvisation, which con- vinced traveling Deadheads that each show would be different and not a repeat of the night before. ‘Large int’l fan base’ X Japan to play concert, premiere film in London LONDON, July 4, (AFP): X Japan, one of the country’s biggest rock bands, will play in the 12,000- capacity SSE Arena Wembley in London next year as it wins an increasingly large international fan base. The concert will come after the release of their first studio album in 20 years and a documentary on the iconic band, digital ticketing plat- form AXS said Friday. The group’s sixth studio album, and first since 1996’s “Dahlia”, will be released on March 11, with the show at the 12,000-capacity SSE Arena in Wembley in north London happening the following day. Tickets go on sale Saturday. The live performance will be accompanied by the world pre- miere of an as-yet-untitled film directed by US filmmaker Stephen Kijak that “chronicles the evolution and groundbreaking history of Japan’s most iconic rock band,” AXS said. The band played at Madison Square Garden in New York last year. More details on the album and a possible tour are expected to be announced by drummer Yoshiki at the Japan Expo event in Paris on Saturday, and he will be joined by singer Toshi at London’s Hyper Japan on July 11 to debut a song from the new album. X Japan are one of the defining Japanese heavy metal bands, quoted as a major influence by other major Japanese rock bands Luna Sea and L’Arc-en-ciel, and have enjoyed a large fan base that includes former Japanese Prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. The band formed in the 1980s are considered founders of the “Visual Kei” genre, which saw Japanese rockers sport outra- geous make-up and hairstyles rem- iniscent of the country’s Kabuki theatre tradition. X Japan disbanded in 1997 after a series of end-of-year stadium concerts at Tokyo Dome and lead guitarist Hide died the following year. The band reformed in 2007 but has only released a handful of tracks since, including “I.V.”, which was used to accompany the clos- ing credits of US horror movie Saw IV. In 2014, Yoshiki released a clas- sical piano album which was accompanied by an extensive world tour. The Grateful Dead also pursued marketing strategies that were ground- breaking at the time but inspired many copycats. The band set up its own label and ticket office and personally recorded messages on a telephone hotline for fans. The legacy endures, even as the band also sold tickets online for the final shows. Fans drew colorful Dead- themed artwork on envelopes seeking tickets — hundreds of which were put on display at the Field Museum across from the Soldier Field football stadi- um where the band is playing. Many Deadheads went on to promi- nence including late Apple founder Steve Jobs and former vice president Al Gore. Deadhead Patrick Leahy, the senior- most US senator, told AFP after the concerts were announced that the Dead had a “unique sound” and revo- lutionized interaction with fans. “It’s not surprising that very succes- ful people find the music compelling and engaging, because it’s complex,” said Rebecca Adams, a professor who has studied Deadhead culture. “You have to have certain sensibili- ties to get the music and, whatever your economic background is, you have to be pretty smart,” said Adams, director of the gerontology program at the University of North Carolina- Greensboro. Adams said that Deadheads had some antecedents, such as the New Age movement, but that the band man- aged to nurture an enduring communi- ty. “They made some decisions that created a structure that brought people into touch with each other ... and led a lot of people to form identities around them,” she said. Nearly 500,000 people sought tick- ets online for the Chicago shows when they went on sale in February, setting a record for vendor Ticketmaster, in addition to thousands who sent old- fashioned money orders by mail. As resellers tried to fetch more than $1,000 per ticket, the Grateful Dead added two additional shows that took place last weekend near San Francisco. By one measure, the Grateful Dead are 2015’s top attraction, drawing 65 percent higher sales per show than concerts by pop superstar Taylor Swift, according to ticket resale site StubHub. Music
