2019 is quickly drawing to an end, but this week a stack of new gigs were announced including several in Germany and the United States!
In Germany, the band are now booked to perform in Koln on the 23rd August, with a visit to Berlin penned in for the 25th. Meanwhile, the previously solitary Punk Rock Bowling gig in Las Vegas on the 25th of May has now been accompanied by gigs in Boston on the 21st, New York on the 22nd and Oakland, California on the 27th!
UK based fans were also catered for with new gigs announced for Westonbirt Arboretum, Tetbury on the 13th June and Thetford Forest, Suffolk on the 20th June.
The response from fans regarding the announcement of the Westonbirt gig was mixed to say the least. The last time the band performed there the crowd were left waiting and waiting after the support band left the stage as an international England football game went into extra time. When Madness finally appeared the set was around one hour in length as the band were unable to play past the imposed curfew. Many fans clearly remembered this. The mood this week wasn’t helped by the forthcoming 2020 gig featuring a whopping £5.70 booking fee, ramping the ticket price to an eye watering £52.70 per person.
Moving on, and this week’s MIS Feature reports on a brand new single and b-side from the one and only Bed and Breakfast Men. Unlike Madness’ latest release this will be playing host to a limited CD run with all monies raised going towards the Make a Wish Foundation charity.
We have links to both videos and further information if you’d like to purchase one of the band’s CDs. Dig deep. It’s for a very good cause.
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
New Single – The Bullingdon Boys
Unfortunately we’ve not received word of a physical release, but you can now listen to this new release on Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited or purchase it via Amazon for 99p.
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 814 – Sunday 14th December to Saturday 20th December 2014
The band had been extremely busy over the course of the past week, with the Magnificent Dix trundling up and down the country where they performed in Plymouth, Bournemouth, Leeds, Newcastle and Birmingham.
Fan reviews we’d read had been extremely positive, and although it was unfortunate that Carl wasn’t in the line-up it seemed to have done little to dampen the support fans had for our favourite group.
Steve Farthing of Facebook group “Madchat” commented about the Birmingham gig;
“What a fantastic gig at Birmingham last night! I will go as far to say it was the best one I have been to.
Lee was loving his new position up front with Suggs and was really playing up to the crowd. The six looked relaxed, happy and united.
… The six of them can still put on a fantastic gig”
The band may have been a man down, but they were pulling out all the stops for their fans.
Over in our “Buy it” section we covered the new “Mad Head” tour programme, with a detailed review from the one and only Jonathan Young. Jonathan’s review was glowing, and he even commented how good the size of it was, meaning you could easily roll it up and put it into your pocket at gigs.
Moving on, and in “Live and Intensified” we began to cover reviews of Madhead tour gigs which had been and gone. This week we covered 6th December at the Brighton Centre, 8th at the Plymouth Pavillions, 9th at Bournemouth International Centre, 11th at the First Direct Arena, Leeds, 12th and Newcastle Metro Radio Arena and Saturday 13th at the LG Arena Birmingham.
Elsewhere, and in our Specialized section we revealed that Woody had taken time out at Sandford to give fans an interview. Not only that, but Specialized were also promoting your chance to win a meet and greet with Madness at the O2 in London on the 20th December. Very nice!
With the band well and truly in the middle of a major UK tour it probably came as little surprise to see the band being so active on Facebook. We featured tweets from Mike, Chris, Mark and Woody.
We brought this issue to an end with news from Woody who reported that he was avoiding shaving for the month of December in an effort to raise money for a charity aiming to beat bowel cancer.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 554 – Sunday 13th December – Saturday 19th December 2009
News had been flooding in thick and fast over the past seven days, and we ended up with so much material that any non time sensitive contents was held back until the following week. It was rare for us to do this, but this was one occasion where we were simply swamped with copy.
We kicked-off the issue with a transcript from a recent copy of The Big Issue magazine. The article was lengthy, featuring a potted history of the band up to that point plus interviews with Suggs and Carl. We suggested to readers that if they enjoyed the article they make a donation to The Big Issue’s Just Giving page.
Further on we had a gig review from thisisplymouth.co.uk, who were covering the recent Madness gig in Plymouth, which took place on Monday 7th December. The web site described the gig as “storming”, and commented that the band “were on fine form”.
Gig news and reviews continued as we featured a transcript from The Swindon Advertiser, where although the reviewer mentioned that they could have done with stilts, such was the difficulty of seeing the band, it “could not ruin what was a truly fantastic performance”.
In tribute news, The Surrey Comet gave both The Specials and Madness a bit of a plug as they promoted a forthcoming gig by tribute band Ska Wars, who would be perfoming at Kingsmeadow, the home of Kingstonian FC this coming Saturday.
The writer stated that “For ska fanatics this promises to be a Christmas party to remember”.
We continued with the magazine/newspaper transcriptions with a lengthy article from The Guardian web site covering the anniversary of the sad passing of Ian Dury, plus interviews with band and family members. If you were even slightly interested in Ian Dury and the Blockheads then this really was well worth your time.
Next, it was over to Paul Rodgers for another one of his semi-regular Madness Chart Musings. Although Madness were no longer in the top 75 Total Madness had done a great job of holding fast in the top 100.
Norton Folgate’s fortunes had fluctuated wildly since the silver edition had been released. The special edition saw the album soar from 196 to 112, only to disappear from the main chart the following week.
The One Step Beyond issue continued to do well, sitting comfortably inside the Indie Chart top 50.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that Union Square had launched a web site dedicated to its heritage label, Salvo Music. Jonathan Young reported that the USB audio sticks produced during the Christmas tour were now available to purchase from the Concert Online web site, priced at £19.95, and 13 year old Leah Rix gave her thoughts and opinions on the recent Newcastle gig.
15 years ago…
Issue number 292 – Sunday 12th December to Saturday 18th December 2004
With only 12 more shopping days and one more edition of the MIS newsletter until Christmas we urged those who hadn’t already bought all their presents to get their skates on. However, before shopping online or getting down the local high street, we recommended readers sit back and relax with this week’s issue.
This week we looked at the Christmas edition of “The Ska Surgery”, which was due to take place at The Electric Ballroom on Tuesday the 21st of December. Running from 8:00pm to 2:00am, and featuring the best 2Tone, Trojan and Old Skool Ska, it promised to be a cracking night.
A few days prior to this issue being sent out across the net we were contacted by Paul Cary, maintainer of the Tim Firth web site. For those of you with memories as bad as ours, Tim Firth was the brains behind the much-loved Madness musical.
Paul was keen to get Madness fans to take a look at the pages, as the site featured background information about the show (story, original cast line-up and reviews), plus a selection of wonderful photos taken from the show.
To finish off this issue we gave a heads-up on the next J.A.G gig which was due to take place at the Dublin Castle on Friday 7th January 2005, and asked that if any readers were planning to attend the Ska Surgery night down at the Electric Ballroom on the 21st to write in with a review.
20 years ago…
Issue number 30 – Sunday 12th December to Saturday 18th December 1999
Last Monday supposedly saw the release (at long last) of the Madstock 4 DVD across the UK. We say `supposedly`, because although we’d had mails from one or two friends from various corners of the British Isles to say `I’ve just picked up the new Madness DVD….` we’d yet to see it in any shape or form. A quick chat and look at the new release listing with a member of staff in HMV produced some unusual results. On their system it said that it was to be released on the 6th of December, but in the field which denoted how much stock they had, it said it had been put back.
Still, the lucky few who had managed to get their dirty mitts on this new release reliably informed us that it was a region free PAL disc. This meant that it should work on US players.
Rumours reaching us this week were that next single was going to be a double A-side featuring the excellent `Drip Fed Fred` and `Elysium`. If all went to plan, this was expected to see the light of day towards the end of February 2000.
Moving on, and many readers were surprised to see how quickly the Rex gig had sold out considering there had been no advertising for the event (apart from in the MIS Online Bulletin’s and on the Total Madness Mailing List). Well, it turned out that the show didn’t sell out due to massive demand, but was actually CANCELLED!! The details we had were sketchy, but the cancellation was apparently requested at the artists end and not by the owners/organisers of the Rex.
For months fans had been trying to find out who would be supporting the band during their Christmas tour. Well, this week we wondered no more, as it was announced that the one and only Phil Jupitus would be providing a comedy slot. 2 Ska DJ’s would also take to the stage prior to Phil’s performance.
News in from John Lawrenced reported that in the early hours of Wednesday 8th December, Woody and Suggs appeared on Anglia TV’s `Planet Rock Profiles` where they were interviewed for a full 30 minutes with only 1 short ad break in between. Naturally we were keen to get hold of this and get it distributed to the MIS readership, so asked that if anyone had made a copy to get in touch.
Onto this issue now, and we had a review of the recent Madness charity night at Walthamstow Dogs for the Cancer Bacup charity. Here were revealed just what you would have got for your 50 pound tickets. Who really cared, though. It was for charity, after all.
Elsewhere, we had details of the Birmingham and Newcastle Madmeets which were planned to coincide with the Christmas tour. If you were planning to go to these shows we recommended you got along to one of the meets!
Not only did we have details of the Cancer Bacup charity, but some Madness related gossip surrounding The Children’s Promise Charity which was asking if you’d be kind enough to donate your last hours pay of 1999 to the worthy cause.
Peter Gardner was here with some BBC Online information, while for the collectors, we had a review of the excellent `Nutty Sounds 2` from Vincent Carden.
Rob Hazelby
MIS Feature
1979 / Nuts at Christmas Time
News from the Bed and Breakfast Men…
You may be interested to learn that we’re mastering a limited 100 CD run of our brand new single “1979”, (with B side “Nuts at Christmas Time”) for those of you who like a physical release. As, always it looks like a record!
Again, every penny (including the postage!) will be donated to the Make a Wish Foundation.
We have dedicated it to Madness fan and an early supporter of The B&B Men Dave Livings who sadly passed away this year.
It’s been fun and a challenge making two videos but it was great to work with All & Peggy Conlon at The Dublin Castle and for Kye Thompson to make his acting Debut…as well as, Chezzer Ryan West, Keiron Murphy, Kevin Filsell and a host of Camden punters!
It’s our fourth single and stars the fourth doctor too, probably the only person who can actually make it back to 1979. For the rest of us we can just celebrate 40 Years of Madness and a great venue in a creative part of London; good old Camden Town.
