The festival takes place Aug 20th to the 23rd. The day Madness are appearing hasn’t yet been confirmed but we’re assuming it’s not the 23rd as they’re booked to appear in Koln, Germany then.
Let’s hope a Paris date and/or further French gigs are announced over the coming weeks. The band haven’t performed in France since November 2017!
Naturally, if further French (or any!) gigs are announced we’ll be sure to let you know. Mexico, perhaps? Check out this week’s MIS Feature.
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.
16th – The Courtyard, Herefordshire’s Centre for the Arts
17th – Bristol, Royal Redgrave Theatre
19th – Exeter, Corn Exchange
20th – Westlands, Yeovil
21st – Aldershot, Princes Hall
22nd – Hertford Theatre
23rd – Forum Theatre (Malvern Theatres)
24th – Warrington, Pyramind and Parr Hall
25th – Lythan St. Annes, Lowther Pavilion
27th – Hexham, Queens Hall Arts Centre
28th – Dundee Rep Theatrre
29th – Aberdeen Music Hall
30th – Edinburgh, The Queen’s Hall
Buy It
30% off Everything at the Official Madstore
If you’ve still got some money burning a hole in your pocket following the recent festive spending spree then you may be interested to learn that the band are currently offering 30% of everything (excluding music) on the Official Madstore.
Once there, add whatever takes your fancy to your basket. Then, at the checkout enter the code DEC30.
Happy shopping!
I Remember Way Back When
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 817 – Sunday 4th January to Saturday 10th January 2015
Here we were; our first full issue of 2015!
As usual, our intro lamented the slowdown of news; something we always experienced at this time of the year. We were certain that this would only be a temporary lull, as the band would soon be gearing up for Operation Grand Slam this summer, and the latest Madness Weekender in November.
We continued out short series of “Lookback” articles, which this week covered May to August; charting some of the highs and lows from those warm spring and summer months.
Our MIS Feature this week was something slightly unusual; the top 200 Madness collectibles. This list was currently at 100 entries, which Chris Carter-Pegg had recently put together for an article in Record Collector magazine. Chris was now asking for your input to get the list up to a whopping 200 entries.
We brought this issue of the MIS to a close by announcing that the Specialized 3 – Mad Not Cancer album was in the running for the Ska/Reggae Album of the Year in the Reggae Steady Ska web site’s annual vote. MIS readers were encourage to vote for the album using the link we provided in this very issue.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 557 – Sunday 3rd January – Saturday 9th January 2010
We got things underway with Government related news as we reported that Suggs was to star in a new television advert for the UK Government web site direct.gov. Our favourite frontman appeared at regular intervals throughout the commercial, busking and playing a variety of instruments. All this was backed by Madness’ version of It Must be Love.
If you were one of the many who received money for Christmas but didn’t know what to spend it on, help was at hand. Thanks to the lovely people over at Retro Madness this week’s special offer was the 12” of the second and last single to be released by Chris and Lee’s band The Nutty Boys / Crunch – “Magic Carpet” from 1996. The 12” was brand new and in mind condition. Not only that but it included a 7 page press. All this could be yours for a mere £4.99. With the postage weighing in at £3.00 included in the price, you were essentially getting this for £1.99!
The main “meat” of this week’s issue came courtesy of the one and only Paul Rodgers. Paul began by wishing MIS readers a happy new year before diving in to a chart related lookback at 2009.
Commenting in his article, Paul said at the time “At the time of writing Madness have spent 62 weeks on the top 200 in 2009, with 11 of them in the top 40, and 37 of them in the top 100”. Impressive stuff!
We brought this week’s issue to a close by reporting on Virgin Media’s competition that telecommunications giant was currently running. Entitled “Best Comeback of 2009”, Madness were one of the groups/individuals in the running. Despite the dact that Madness hadn’t been away (at least not that decade) we pointed you towards the full list of nominees and voting links.
15 years ago…
Issue number 295 – Sunday 2nd January to Saturday 8th January 2005
Following on from last week’s news that the band had put the unreleased `Perfect Place` on their site for download, we now had news of further rarities that had been made available online.
In an effort to ensure that Madness fans could get access to long lost tracks and bootleggers weren’t able to make money from something that wasn’t theirs, Madness Trading Ring subscriber Kevin Tizzard had made a number of old and unreleased recordings available for download (for a limited time) from his web site.
Elsewhere in this short new year’s edition of the MIS we featured an article looking at the vintage style gig posters being used by North London band M.O.T.
Band drummer, Dan Fossard told us at the time;
“I do um meself, each ones a task now days..the first one was an altered bus pass with the destination of the gig and that..the second was delboy’s van with jag on the side with peckham and paris and that…the third was a photo of us and the mini…and now its this comic strip-esque thing…any ideas for the next one? its hard to keep up with ‘um.”
We finished off this issue with news that Simon Roberts had taken over the reigns of the MIS web site, and we busy working on a site revamp. Unfortunately Simon had recently suffered a hard disk crash and was currently in the process of attempting to recover any data he could.
20 years ago…
Issue number 33 – Sunday 2nd January to Saturday 8th January 2000
As the majority of us came to expect, the world didn’t come to a grinding halt as the last hours and minutes of 1999 trickled slowly away. Instead, most of us woke up rather late on New Years Day with sore heads and dodgy stomachs.
The internet was still there, and yes, MIS Online was still clunking away, too.
With everyone out seeing in a new decade and millennium it came as little surprise to many that news had almost dried up, resulting in a lean edition of the weekly MIS.
Still, one person who was still firmly rooted in front of their keyboard was Total Madness Mailing List subscriber, Yannick Pollet who had this to report:
“This is official news for the Belgian Madness fans. Madness is playing in Belgium the first weekend of August on Marktrock in Leuven.
What about that for millennium news”.
As this moment in time we were unable to substantiate any of the above information, but we promised that as soon as we heard anything further we’d let you know.
Moving on, and it was time for the die-hard collectors to think about shelling out yet more money for their hobby. Recorded at the DM store on the 30th of September 1999, and yours for a hefty £15 plus £2.50 postage and packing, was a fully edited fan video of the day’s events.
The video also included Abbamania and Madness on Jools Holland. The tape came in a fully photographic quality box featuring pictures from the day, designed in the familiar Madness style.
Elsewhere in this issue we featured a transcription of the ‘Madness Record Library’ section of the latest edition of fanzine, Nut Inc.
This issue (14) covered the history of Cardiac Arrest and it’s b-side In The City. The article reminded us that this was the first single since the band’s debut that failed to reach the top 10.
Next-up was a transcript of an interview with Suggs and Mike from a late 1999 appearance on BBC music show ‘Later With Jools Holland’.
This interview covered chatter of the recently released ‘Wonderful’ album, the style of Mike Barson’s piano playing, and a brief overview of how the band got together in the first place.
We finished off this issue with two articles – the first from Vince Carden who looked into the influence of Madness on American bands and Madness’ view on the Stateside Ska scene. The second came from Vince Foley, who was kind enough to give us a brief lowdown of the goings on in the past 12 months in the world of Madness.
Rob Hazelby
MIS Feature
MIS Mexico
We do have a branch of the MIS over in Mexico. Out there the fans have been enjoying the videos of the 40th anniversary.
Seen from The House of Fun Top 40th, The Electric Ballroom & The Past Present Future of The Roundhouse.
Domingo Munzo has recently been speaking to the band, via Chris’s Cupboard and Mark on Twitter. He told us of seeing the band’s recent work…
“The Top 40th I really Enjoyed it.” and ” the Before we was we track sounded more like an overture for me” Sunday
There are no current confirmed gigs for Mexico, but recent band replies have hinted at least with comments such as “You never Know”, “We would love to” and “Good news to come”. Since then they have announced May 2020 dates for the USA.
The band stormed the “Vive Latino” festival in the country some years ago with a set received as well as a Madstock reunion.
Rumours always happen in Mexico of a Madness return. Thus far always coming to little more than 2 tone hyping desires.
Vive Latino in late April was rumoured again this year, but they have announced their 2020 line up already.
Sunday tells us…
“At least 3 years in a row Vive Latino rumoured them and lately one which is called “Skatex” but is done by an independent promoter so I did not think was very likely. Still some media was spreading rumours of that latest one and there was even a poll since there was going to be a surprise headline act and a media included Madness on the poll. (which they won BTW) at the end it was the other band included on the poll whom ended up playing on it.”
Others are not in Mexico City but quite big and had heard had been great. Pulso GNP is around 3 hours from Mex city and is held around May or June.
Coordenada is around 8 hours and also held between May or July. All of them are from same promoter of vive latino”
Let’s see what happens. I would love it if it’s not to be a festival and we could have a more intimate gig but anyways I would be hugely happy to having them back.”
MeXLico?
We can but dream.
Sunday also tells us he plans a Mexico MIS podcast.
“I Want to do a podcast with all band members or at least someone talking about their top 40 set list favourites talking and presenting one song each so to have it and save it and if it becomes the dream true then release it to aim the Mexican mis followers”
Jonathan Young/Sunday Munoz
Time
We’re just about done for this week, but before we go this popped-up in our Facebook feed just as we were about to blast this week’s issue out across the internet:
As soon as we have further information as to what our colleagues over at the French MIS have planned for this 40th anniversary tribute E.P we’ll be sure to let you know.
