If you were a young girl in 1997 or earlier, there is a good chance that you spent a decent portion of time fantasising about life as Nick Carter’s girlfriend or having the New Kids on the Block boys singing “Step By Step” especially for you; I know I did. Fast forward fifteen odd years and I find myself in a near packed out Adelaide Entertainment Centre, waiting to the boy band supergroup that is NKOTBSB (New Kids on the Block & Backstreet Boys ) take to the elaborate set up that was the stage. Johnny Ruffo , grand finalist in the 2011 season The X Factor and heartthrob to many Channel 7 viewers across the country, had scored the national support slot for this tour. I had no idea he’d branched into a singing career after his appearance on the talent show, but judging by the screams that followed his appearance tonight, I was clearly living under a rock. Ruffo’s set showed off his skills as a dancer and his take on many pop hits by artists including Usher and Bruno Mars . His love for Michael Jackson was exhibited through a medley of tracks and an impressive set of dance moves paying homage to the entertainer. Flanked by two dancers who didn’t really seem to do much for the stage show, Ruffo was in many ways, the perfect choice for show opener tonight. He knew how to work the crowd and even though his original songs didn’t stray far from the pop formula currently dominating the commercial charts at present, he knows how to work with what he has. I can’t explain the anticipation that began to build within the half an hour it took for the catwalk and stage to be reset. Heralding the main act was an introductory set of visuals projected on a massive screen, showing each member of both bands as the music began to speed up and intensify. It was like every – now grown up – female in the audience reverted back to the late 80s/90s versions of themselves within this time and, once the screen had dropped and it was realised that ‘Holy shit, New Kids and Backstreet Boys are actually on THE SAME STAGE’, the screaming was phenomenal. NKOTBSB opened with a mash-up of “Single” and “The One”, sampling Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”, before an epic show which lasted about two hours and featured roughly 30 songs. I’d been interested to see how the show would be divided between the two bands and as it continued, it was evident that these performers had a routine akin to a well-oiled machine. Utilising the catwalk cleverly, when one band would finish a song, the lights would go out before the next band would appear already in position on the main area of the stage and so on. The dance moves that made both bands’ film clips so memorable were performed in fine form, pyrotechnics were blasting from different areas of the stage and the costume changes NKOTBSB underwent did well in harking back to some memorable (willingly and unwillingly) moments back in the heyday of their careers. For the people who’d paid the $820 for the full VIP package got their money’s worth, as members of both bands would proceed to venture into that area of the crowd to get up and close and serenade the swooning (call me bitter, I don’t care). Nick Carter in particular, seemed like he’d been studying old BSB film clips in preparation for tonight, looking and sounding the same as he did back then. Donnie Wahlberg , as always, brought the badass element to the NKOTB performances, earning screams with each strip down, showing off his rather impressive physique. It was amazing to realise how many lyrics I still remembered tonight, from NKOTB’s “Please Don’t Go Girl” to BSB’s “Shape of My Heart”, the range of songs featured tonight was fantastic. Hits including NKOTB’s “Step By Step”, “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” and “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever)” competed with BSB’s “All I Have To Give”, “As Long As You Love Me” and “I Want It That Way” in terms of crowd response and participation, culminating in an explosive finale featuring a mash-up of “Hanging Tough” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”. Confetti cannons showered the bands and crowd upon the end of the show and it was clear that for a lot of people this probably would have been the gig of the year. Yes, the bands were older and yes, the amount of crotch grabbing and thrusting bordered on slightly overdone, but it was undeniable that NKOTBSB are seasoned in the ways of bringing massive arena audiences completely undone. Understandable, considering how long both have been in the game for, but even now, more than a decade on, it was definitely a sight to see. With all the 90s bands crawling out of the woodwork, this was the one you’d wanted to be a part of the most; One Direction fans take note, these are the guys they’re modelled off.

Plasmatics Butcher Baby (7 inch single) 1980 Stiff UK Records Wendy O. Williams – Vocals, Richie Stotts – Lead guitar Michael David – Bass Stuart Deutsch – Drums 1 Butcher Baby 2 Fast Food Service (Live) 3 Concrete Shoes When I bought this single, I was probably fifteen; at that age I bought anything called [...]

Guy Pearce has been having a pretty damn good year in 2012. The actor's been moving towards stardom since "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert" and "L.A. Confidential" fifteen years ago, and looked to turn into a megastar after "Memento," but when big-budget studio picture "The Time Machine" was a flop, he seemed to shift back into being a character actor, delivering many memorable turns ("The Proposition," "Factory Girl") but mostly resisiting stardom. But in the last few years, he's had a flurry of success: small roles in two Oscar-winners in two years with "The ...

The U.K.'s Barclaycard Mercury Prize has announced a number of significant changes for it upcoming Nov. 1 awards: This includes a new location, a series of gigs featuring nominees for the prestigious award and a new television partner in Channel Four after the BBC hosted the awards for the past fifteen years.

Goldroom - Fifteen (feat Chela)

The Stone Roses have seemingly begun recording new material ahead of their re-union tour. After fifteen years of rumour, speculation and heartache in the end all it took was a simple press conference to confirm that The Stone Roses had, in fact, reformed. Promising a world tour and new material, the mercurial Mancs then penned a deal with Universal and Columbia. Now it seems that The Stone Roses have already begun to lay down material for their proposed third album. Actor Chris Coghill is a close friend of the band, and is currently working on a film about their epochal ...

[Here are new tunes from a few L.A. bands we've written about in the past...] Goldroom, “Fifteen (feat. Chela)” (via Facebook) — The last time we heard from producer Josh Legg, aka Goldroom, his synths had taken on a more festive feel with “Morgan’s Bay,” but Legg — who is also a member of the [...]

Lucky Boys Confusion guitarist, Joe Sell, passed away May 15th near the band's recording studio. Sell had been in the hospital months prior due to pancreatic problems. He was 33. Lucky Boys Confusion released the following statement on their facebook: We are saddened & devastated to hear the news of our bandmember, friend & brother Joe Sell's passing this morning. The five of us have toured, recorded & performed as one for the last fifteen years. More importantly, we've all grown up together. There simply are no words right now. We send our truest condolences to the entire Sell family ...

Original Dixieland Jass Band : Tiger Rag [ purchase ] For some reason, this post was out of place, requiring me to delete the original and repost. In a couple of weeks it will be my 30th reunion at Princeton University, so “Tiger Rag” seemed like the right song for this week. The picture is my class’ logo; our theme is “30 Rocks,” which fits with my participation in this blog and the fact that I worked at WPRB for 3 and a half years. Also, Alec Baldwin’s character on the show “30 Rock,” Jack Donaghy, went to Princeton, and based on ...

South Florida native Hi-Rez recently delivered his latest project The Window, which is the 18-year-old rapper's fourth and what many are hailing as his most complete and lyrically dense mixtape to date. The fifteen track tape features production from a handful of producers such as Zero Gravity, Gm3 and Joel Johnston, who handled the bulk of the...

Six months after completing the US leg, rap royalty Jay-Z and Kanye West finally bring their highly anticipated Watch The Throne Tour to UK soil. And it’s undoubtedly worth the wait. It’s not hard to see why Yeezy and HOV refer to themselves as “The Throne”, as cocky as it may be. Jay-Z, an emerging billionaire, has more US number one albums than Presley">Elvis Presley, with a successful career spanning over fifteen years. And his protégée Kanye West is close on his heels. While at times it’s easy to dislike Mr West, the flamboyant rapper’s ...

In this edition… Invisible Oranges dissects the classic Neurosis LP, MetalSucks salutes to Gods of Thunder, black metal figurines from Citizen Brick and much, much more!   Neurosis Souls at Zero Turns 20 (Invisible Oranges) Fifteen Metal Gods, Then & Now: The Live Performances (MetalSucks) Norwegian Black Metal Minifigures Now Available (Blabbermouth) Indie Metal For The Masses [...] Related posts: Metal Sunday – New Releases For April/May ’12 Metal Sunday – 02.12.12 – A Look Back 2011, News and more! Metal Sunday – Classic Videos, New Releases and more!

Change Up is the first collaboration between electronica producer Hiatus – real name Cyrus Shahrad – and Matt Falloon, singer of breaking UK soul band Smoke Feathers, but it’s a record more than fifteen years in the making. The pair met as English students at university, where they legitimised a reluctance to attend lectures by [...]

Yesterday, we posted a pictorial comparing old photos of metal musicians to more recent ones, because people get older and closer to death with every passing second, and as nihilists, we find that hilarious. Today we thought we’d do basically the same thing, only with videos, because people sound different as the years pass and [...]

Yesterday, we posted a pictorial comparing old photos of metal musicians to more recent ones, because people get older and closer to death with every passing second, and as nihilists, we find that hilarious. Today we thought we’d do basically the same thing, only with videos, because people sound different as the years pass and [...]