The weekend entertainment

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd9pWLrjyUg]

Eva Cassidy

I confess that I knew, or had heard a little, about the Eva Cassidy story and her untimely early death from cancer at the age of thirty three. However until earlier this year I had never heard her voice, I put that right a few months ago and my mp3 player has been plugged into my ears this past week churning out this angelic pure voice. Her voice was truly amazing, forget any of this reality television, X Factor, Pop Idol rubbish, if these shows had been around whilst she was alive they wouldn’t have dreamed of making them!

Terry Wogan has a been great service in introducing her voice to the world via his show on Radio 2, albeit posthumously, her albums have now sold millions of copies.

The following albums are worth looking out for;

• Eva by heart
• Songbird
• Live at Blues Alley

What a massive, massive star the world has missed. I hope these videos inspire you to go out and look for some of her music.

Here’s her arrangement of “Over the Rainbow” – quite superb.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUwTdqPkluY]

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The weekend entertainment

Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes

I was very fortunate yesterday to find an imported CD at South Shields Market, a copy of Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes Live at the Greek album from 2000. The double CD even features a small video clip and it is something that friends suggested that I keep an eye open for (thank heaven’s for the Flea Market!). Chris Robinson’s vocals sound so close to Robert Plant’s and Page was just electrifying in the sessions which led to a small American tour, and thankfully there are some YouTube clips to share.

Although events are almost eight years old I often wonder if the collaboration between Page and the Crowes had an sort of influence over the guitarist’s decision to eventually agree to the massive reformation of Led Zepellin for last year’s concert at London’s O2 Arena.

Here are two videos for aficionados of Page to enjoy, the first being a stupendous live performance of “In my time of dying” with it’s heavy blues influence.

[YouTube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pSTkaIGNDMw]

This second video clip features one of Led Zepellin’s biggest numbers from their very first album “Whole lotta love” (Sorry this one won’t embed.)

There is plenty of free entertainment taking place in South Shields this weekend with the Cookson Country Parade taking place this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. and Lulu kicking off the short season of free concerts in the Bents Park on Sunday afternoon. If you live nearby, get yourself into South Shields and enjoy yourselves, and wonder at the amount of work and effort our children and teenagers put in to present the carnival, we often read too much of the negative antics of just a small minority of our youth, but it must be remembered that the majority of teenagers and children often have a lot of talented positive skills to offer and they often go unmarked. So let’s get out there and support them.

I’ll be out and about this weekend with my camera attempting promote what is best about this part of the north-east, and what we have to offer our visitors. If you see me, do give me a wave!

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Great entertainment

One of the engagements which kept me away from this keyboard yesterday was a family night out at the Sunderland Empire where we went to see a performance of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on it’s farewell tour, we though the kids would enjoy it, but didn’t expect to be so enthralled ourselves. What a marvellous show which kept us captivated until 10:00 pm.

The cast included former BBC Blue Peter man, Easington born, Matt Baker playing Caractacus Potts, the inventor. His father was played by Adam Chance who used to be in Crossroads all those years ago, Wayne Sleep, who was brought up in Hartlepool, played the evil Child Catcher, Baron Vulgaria was played by former Emmerdale actor Edward Peel, Nigel Garton and Jaymz Denning were hilarious as the two spies from Vulgaria, the land whose ruler has banished children and vowed to steal Chitty, and Rachel Stanley’s Truly Scrumptious was indeed truly scrumptious. There was also a cameo performance from ‘Baldrick’ Tony Robinson. We shouldn’t forget the superb performances by the child actors either, nor the ten dogs!

However the car was the star, along with the work put in by the backroom boys. I was amazed at how the old film script could be so well adapted to suit the stage but the magic was created by the technical staff who designed and contrived the excellent backdrops, scenery, props, lighting effects and the whizz bang fireworks and pyrotechnics!

So if you want to be entertained by Potts and his family get along there, the show runs until the 7th. June before the car is retired.

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Saturday Night Take Away

Should they stay or should they go?

Full story here and here

Ring Curly’s hotline (calls charged at the normal international rate for Guatemala)

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