Three minutes! That’s all it took for the 1,000 ticket allocation for the rock-bottomed-priced Electric Ballroom tickets to be snapped-up, if our Madness friends on Facebook are to be believed.
We knew they’d go fast. Just not quite so fast. Our concern is that the ultra-low ticket price is a double-edged sword. Sure, this opens up the affordability to so many more people, but on the other hand you may get people buying tickets who won’t turn up as “it only cost a few quid” and they have something else to do that night instead.
Some MIS readers have been very lucky to get tickets so expect some YouTube videos and reviews in future issues. For the majority of our readers this will be the only way to find out what went on at this 40th anniversary gig.
If you were one of the lucky few to bag a ticket yourself please send in your review and we will be sure to print it.
See below for all forthcoming Madness and Madness related gigs and events. If there’s something we’ve missed off or you feel should be added then please let us know.
Call Parkdean Resorts Sandford direct on 01202 622513 and press 0 for reception to book tickets.
Buy It
Retro Madness Time Limited Offer
Posted Sunday 3rd November
SPECIAL OFFER! All our official T Shirts (1992-2016) 3 for the price of 2 …offer is for 4 days only, over 200 designs to choose from, all are unsold stock from old tours, all are still brand new unless otherwise stated. Prices start from just £3.50 each including UK p&p!
We have redesigned our clothing pages to make them more user friendly. We now have 3 pages; a page for smaller sizes, a page for medium sizes and a page for large sizes, to promote this new design we are offering a buy two get third free deal on all T Shirts, Polo Shirts and Sweatshirts, pick and mix whatever styles and sizes you want. The way the deal works is buy whatever 3 items you want and we will refund you via Paypal for the cheapest one within 24 hours of your purchase. Buy as many sets of 3 shirts as you like, the cheapest will be free for each purchase of 3 shirts. The deal will end at midday this Thursday or while stocks last:
TWO TONE RECORDS was created in 1979 by The Specials founder Jerry Dammers. The label spawned a youth movement and a number of well-known artists and singles through its tenure including the aforementioned Specials with key singles ‘Gangsters’, the UK Number singles ‘Too Much Too Young’ and ‘Ghost Town’. They also helped launch the careers of Madness with ‘The Prince’, The Beat with ‘Tears of A Clown’, The Selecter with ‘On My Radio’ and The Bodysnatchers with ‘Let’s Do Rocksteady’ (The Bodysnatchers). The label ended its chart run of singles with ‘Nelson Mandela’ by The Special AKA.
This 40th Anniversary 7” Collection has been curated by Jerry Dammers, selecting his favourite 12 singles released on the label between 1979 and 1984.
– Presented with their original sleeve designs in a bespoke 1960’s style carry case
– A Bespoke Two Tone 7” slip mat
– 7” Art Card signed by Jerry Dammers.
Celebrating 40 Years Of Madness – The 1979 Retro Range (Plus new T-shirts)
This Limited Edition MADNESS XL 40th Anniversary TOOTAL Scarf is now available @ The MADSTORE!
When Madness decided to celebrate their 40th Anniversary of entertaining the British Public, by launching a Strictly Limited-Edition Silk Scarf, teaming up with iconic British Accessories brand Tootal was the obvious choice.
Using Tootal’s centuries of Silk Scarf expertise and heritage within the Ska scene, the Band was instrumental in the design process, incorporating the unmistakable Madness logo with a nod to their truly outstanding 40th Anniversary.
Taking inspiration from their archives, Tootal took vintage styling and added Madness’ flamboyance into the Design.
This unique collaboration piece by Tootal for Madness is made from luxurious pure silk.
Before We Was We: The Making of Madness by Madness
The band’s first official book.
The story of how they became them. It’s a journey full of luck, skill and charm, as they duck and dive by day and make the name in London’s exploding music scene by night, zipping around the capital in their Morris Minor vans. Their formative years, 1970-79.
This is the riotous coming-of-age tale of seven unique individuals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor basement to the Top of the Pops studio. In their own words, they each look back on their past and how during those shared adventures, they formed a bond that’s lasted forty years. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.
This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby goes back in time to report on what was going on in the world of Madness 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 808 – Sunday 2nd November to Saturday 8th November 2014
This week, in the run up to the House of Fun Weekender, which was due to take place in just three weeks time, we took you back to before 1979 and the earliest days of this band that would go on to be called Madness. These were their formative days in North London as The Invaders.
We invited you to turn the clock back to 35 years ago by reading this week’s feature.
We also had a peek back at The Stiff Records era in an exclusive extract from a new book by Richard Balls entitled “The Stiff Records Story”.
Over in “Showtimes” we reported that there were still a few places left for the House of Fun Weekender in Minehead, but that they were all 4 person plus accommodation only. Time to get friendly with a few other lonely Maddies if you wanted to attend without forking out a small fortune.
Next, and in “Live Intensified”, we plugged a string of gigs for Ian Dury and The Blockheads covers band “The Blox”. If you wanted a slice of the late great Ian Dury then this was a perfect chance to hear some great music.
Further on, and our MIS Feature was an exclusive excerpt from the new book by Richard Balls – The Stiff Records Story. If you wanted to see if this book was for you or not, now was your chance before having to part with the pennies.
Following this we had our second MIS Feature, which this time focussed on The Songs of The Invaders. Why? Because the Friday night of the House of Fun Weekender would be playing host to “The Invaders Vs The Dangermen”. In this article we gave you a potted history of this pre-Madness outfit and some of the songs we could possibly expect to hear.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that polling had now closed on the Mad Chart 2014, with the results currently being tallied and collated. Once the counting had ben completed the top 40 was to be DJ’d during The Mad Chart Show at The Big One 3 and at The House of Fun Weekenders in just two and three weeks time, respectively. Issue 811 of the MIS was already being set aside to be a special issue for the top 100.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 548 – Sunday 1st November – Saturday 7th November 2009
Paul Rodgers got this issue off to a roaring start with the news that for a sixth successive week and an eleventh week in total this year, Madness were in the top 40 with an album. The question was, which album?
The Madness album in the top 40 this week was once again Total Madness, which slipped 3 places to 39. Unless album sales had dropped dramatically week on week (there was always some fluctuation) Paul estimated that it was likely to have sold roughly 6,000 copies in its sixth week on the chart.
Those with an O2 mobile phone contract may have been aware that as customers they were able to get their hands on O2 Priority Tickets up to 24 hours before they went on general release to the public.
Keen to make it one of the reasons why you stayed with them (or possibly moved to) as your mobile provider, O2’s ad agency had recently put together a minute long TV commercial.
Entitled “The Walk”, this advert showed a variety of singers/bands taking the walk from their dressing rooms to the stage. It’d been beautifully filmed, and Madness featured in it a number of times.
Competition news next, and how did you fancy getting your hands on a pair of tickets for the London O2 or Edinburgh New Year’s Eve shows? Well, by entering two separate competitions you could be in with a chance.
All you had to do was sign-up with your details to be in the running. Simple!
In sports news we revealed that Woody was at it again. At what? Taking part in the London Marathon, that’s what. Yes, our favourite drummer had signed up to for the 2010 London Marathon and was raising money for Cancer Research. Woody commented on his JustGiving page that;
“This year, I hope to break the 3hr 30min mark and raise £8k for Cancer Research UK!”.
Following this we took a look at Apple’s App Store where a new Madness app had recently appeared. Entitled “The Mad App”, we were told that it would deliver up to the minute news feeds, gig information, exclusive wallpaper, access to videos and more.
We weren’t sure where the app pulled its news from so were unable to vouch for its accuracy, but as it was free we suggested you took a look at it.
This issue drew to a close with the news that Spanish TV Show ‘Aplauso TV’ now had their own YouTube Channel.
Why did we think you should be interested? Well, Madness had appeared on there numerous times over the years, and you could now see some of their classic performances by clicking on a number of YouTube links. Performances included Mrs. Hutchinson, One Step Beyond, It Must be Love and Cardiac Arrest.
15 years ago…
Issue number 286 – Sunday 31st October to Saturday 6th November 2004
Following last week’s sad passing of legendary DJ John Peel, we were planning to print an article in tribute to the great man.
However, thanks to the efforts of subscriber John Thorpe, he’d beaten us to it with a lookback at the great man that was far better than anything we could have compiled ourselves.
On a jollier note, we discovered that the one and only Suggs had appeared in the latest edition of adult Brit comic ‘Viz’. The story, like the majority appearing in the publication over the years, was completely farcical, revealing that “Finance experts, Opposition politicians, and Londoners over the age of 37 have hit out at Tony Blair’s latest underhand scheme – to privatise Madness frontman Suggs!”. The story continued with “Labour’s promise not to sell off the talented Nutty Boy, which was one of their key election pledges in 1997, is expected to be broken within weeks of their projected third consecutive victory at the polls next year. A vote of no confidence would then be likely to follow within days”.
Next-up was a contribution from a certain Paul Rodgers, who, in response to last week’s coverage of the Record Collector’s Madness Price Guide, felt he had to write in and set the record straight (no pun intended), as it were. Paul explained just how incorrect the valuations were, and that the price guide was so poor that it was known by other collectors for being so.
Here’s just a small snippet of what Paul had to say at the time;
“The best example I can give is the test pressing of the hard vinyl of the My Girl ballad version flexi.
When they valued it at £20 I had twice sold it for well over £100, in fact £20 was a price I would have ripped someone’s arm off to buy one to sell! I have now sold two copies 3 times (I bought the first one back years later and re-sold it)”.
Paul returned later in this issue with the news that Madness, Specials and 2-Tone fan, Dave Baker had sadly passed away in early September.
Paul explained that he would be assisting Dave’s long-term partner with the Ebaying of many items from his (Dave’s) huge collection, and that items would start to appear over the coming weeks.
On a jollier note, the issue continued on with the latest news from the Warrior Clothing web site, which urged you to get your orders in before the Christmas rush took hold. Orders over £20 would have a ska CD bundled in with them, and those over £10 could have theirs Christmas wrapped – which was actually a Christmas carrier bag! God bless ’em!
The rumours of a November tour had been doing the rounds for months, but as the month got ever closer and the news still failed to surface, things were looking doubtful. This week our doubts were confirmed when Chas explained that the November tour would not be taking place, as the band were now busy in the studio, following their signing with V2 Records.
We finished off this issue with news from Bristol’s Madness tribute outfit, One Step Below (these days known as Nuttyness), who were urging us all to snap up tickets for their next gig at The Bath Football Club, which was due to take place on the 6th of November.
The band also revealed that on the 19th of December they’d once again be supporting the legendary Bad Manners.
20 years ago…
Issue number 24 – Sunday 31st October – Saturday 6th November 1999
Finally, the day you could wander into your local music store and pick up a copy of the new Madness album was almost here. Monday the 1st of November would see the release of the first ‘proper’ Madness album since 1985’s Mad Not Mad.
A number of extremely lucky people had somehow managed to get their hands on the album a few days before release, and in this issue you could find out exactly what they thought of this much anticipated production.
On the subject of releases, by the time this issue landed in most subscriber mailboxes, the second single from the new album, Johnny The Horse, had been available for almost a week. Many noticed that this had received next to no advertising whatsoever, and we had to wonder just how this would affect sales. For internet enabled fans it was hard enough trying to keep track of shifting release dates, but what chance did those without dial-up or broadband have?!
Reports were flooding in highlighting the fact that branches of Woolies and WHSmith weren’t stocking the single, with Virgin store assistants not even aware of it’s release.
Last week we revealed that the band had been (or were about to) record a cover of Abba’s Money, Money, Money. News this week was that the track was going to be shown on an Abba special night, hosted by Denise Van Outen. News was thin on the ground, so we promised to post more as and when we heard anything further.
With the festive season just around the corner, we thought it was time to get our readers in the spirit, and so thanks to the efforts of one Steve Bringe we featured a transcription of an article from a 1992 edition of ‘Deadline’, which featured Suggs and Carl, and their views on the whole Christmas ‘thing’. If you were of a nervous disposition we recommended that you read with caution.
Elsewhere in this issue we gave a quick heads-up to our subscribers, reminding them that the weekly online Monday Madchats (organised by Bob Timm of about.com) were still alive and kicking, and Vince Foley emailed us with news revealing that Suggs and Carl had recently appeared on VH1 Zone 1, with Julia Carling and Gideon Coe. In the 10 minute segment Carl suggested the possibility that IF the Wembley shows sell out for December 22nd and 23rd, they would put on an afternoon performance for the kids.
Thanks to the typing efforts of subscriber Chris Byrne, the issue continued on with an article from last week’s issue of the NME.
Entitled “On the Couch – Suggs From Madness”, our favourite frontman answered all manner of weird and wonderful (most weird, though!) questions flung in his general direction.
This issue finished with a number of reviews of the new Madness album, Wonderful. Taken from official sites and from fans own views and opinions, those of us still waiting to get our hands on tomorrow’s release could at least get some idea of what we were missing.
Rob Hazelby
MIS Feature
New Release From Nick Woodgate
Just to let you happy people know that I’ve released a remix album called ‘With a Word (Remix)’.
It’s available to stream from Spotify and Apple Music.
I’m very proud of this as I remixed and mastered it myself, and I think it sounds amazing!
I used the same console as was used in the making of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album, and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. I’ve also mastered it with the console that was used to master these albums with so its got an analogue feel but manipulated in a digital way.
I’ve now sold out of CDs of my ‘The Music’ album and a huge thank you to anyone who bought a copy in the last month.
In an exclusive collaboration for BBC Children in Need, a whole host of stars have got together to record an entire album to raise money for this year’s appeal.
It must be love has been covered with the following people singing.
▪ Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech, Sweeney Todd)
▪ Jim Broadbent (Iris, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)
▪ Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Fleabag)
▪ Shaun Dooley (Gentleman Jack, Gunpowder)
▪ Luke Evans (Beauty And The Beast, Fast & Furious 7 & 8)
▪ Suranne Jones (Gentleman Jack, Doctor Foster)
▪ Adrian Lester (Trauma, Hustle)
▪ Himesh Patel (Yesterday, EastEnders)
▪ David Tennant (Good Omens, Doctor Who)
▪ Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who, Trust Me)
A special 60-minute programme will follow the entire recording process and explore all the behind-the-scenes action as the actors face the challenging task of laying down their bespoke tracks at the legendary recording studios Rak and Abbey Road Studios in London. Each of the actors will handpick a song that is most significant to them and receive expert guidance from Brit and Mercury award-winning record producers and songwriters, Guy Chambers and Jonathan Quarmby.
You can hear the album out now on Spotify
Thanks to Jade Partington for the news.
Madness to Round off 40th Anniversary Celebrations With Camden gig for 1979 Ticket Price
This one made us smile as in the article the MIS has been referred to as the Madness Informations Service. It also infers we’re “official”, which we’re not.
Camden to get Hollywood-Style Music Walk of Fame
A spin-off of the Los Angeles attraction, featuring paving slabs commemorating musical greats, will be launched in the London borough early next year.
Don’t forget to take advantage of the time-limited special T-shirt offers over at the Retro Madness (http://www.retro-madness.co.uk) web site. The offers run for only 4 days, so get in quick. This could be a great opportunity to bag something cheap for yourself or to stock up on the Christmas presents for a Madness fan you love.
