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God bless Rod Stewart

God bless Rod Stewart Not even creepy celebrity horse-whisperer Alan Yentob could wholly ruin last week’s highly entertaining BBC Arena special on Rod Stewart. His contributions were laughably witless all the same. “You look just like brothers!” he exclaimed excitedly of Rod and long-time mucker Ronnie Woods, which may have been true 40 years ago. These days they don’t even look like cousins.

Tropicalia: Alegria, Alegria! The brief, exhilarating history of a Brazilian musical revolution.

When unpleasant right-wing governments seize control by one means or another, a lot of wishful thinking often goes on among radical artists. Hard times, they speculate, will encourage a new counterculture; angry political art will flourish in the face of oppression. We heard a lot of this rhetoric from dissenters trying to put a positive gloss on the election of David Cameron in 2010. But as yet, a provocative cultural revolt against the Tories, if there is one, remains too underground to register on most radar.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, London, July 13, 2013

We find ourselves in the wrong bar by mistake. Arriving at Hyde Park for this second London show on the Stones' 50 & Counting tour, we're issued with numerous coloured plastic wristbands that are intended to identify where we can travel around the site. There is this bar, that tier, this restaurant, these toilets... one of the first questions we're asked as we enter the site is whether we have a dinner reservation.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, London, July 6, 2013

When The Rolling Stones appeared here in 1969, they played on a stage so ultimately flimsy it afterwards could have been towed away on the back of a truck or broken down on the spot and sold for scrap. Unlike the Stones, it was not built to last.

First look – Springsteen & I

Nick Ferraro started out as an Elvis tribute act around his native Philadelphia in 1986. On October 19, 2009, wearing his full Vegas Elvis costume, he went to see Bruce Springsteen at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Spotting Ferraro in the crowd, Springsteen launched into “All Shook Up” before pulling him on stage to join in. As the song finished, Ferraro – perhaps enjoying his moment of glory a little too much – started singing “Blue Suede Shoes” before Springsteen politely took the mic off him, ushering him off stage with the legend, “Elvis has left the building.”

On class, hate, The Rolling Stones, the Tory Party, Glastonbury 2013 and the problem with Mumford & Sons…

At some point on Sunday night, it seems as if quite a few restless people watching the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage started Googling “threw”, “bottle” and “Mumford & Sons”. For the past 36 hours, the most popular page on www.uncut.co.uk has been an old news story from 2010, in which The Fall’s Mark E Smith articulated his dislike for Mumford & Sons, mistook them for “a load of retarded Irish folk singers," and claimed he threw a bottle at them during a festival in Ireland.

Bruce Springsteen, Hard Rock Calling, London, June 30, 2013

In case we need reminding, the last time Bruce Springsteen played Hard Rock Calling – at Hyde Park, last July – a curfew was broken, the PA switched off, and Springsteen and a guesting Paul McCartney were silenced mid-song. It seems unlikely there would be a repeat of such shenanigans this year.

Glastonbury 2013: The Complete Uncut Review

For the past few days, Uncut’s Tom Pinnock took a relatively idiosyncratic path around Glastonbury Festival 2013. Here are the reviews he filed over the weekend, featuring Elvis Costello, Portishead, Goat, Robyn Hitchcock, Matthew E White, Melody’s Echo Chamber and, of course, The Rolling Stones

Matthew E White at Glastonbury 2013 – review

Glastonbury's final day starts with blazing sun, but cloud thankfully emerges along with a cooling breeze - good conditions in which to see Matthew E White on the West Holts stage.

Elvis Costello at Glastonbury 2013 – review

What with the sun blazing dangerously down on Worthy Farm, everyone seems to be in a blissful mood at Glastonbury this afternoon. Extraneous, and in some cases, all clothing layers have been shed, and the Southwest's supply of UV facepaints has been decimated.
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