With no current gig news to report on this issue sees us take a trip back to Brockwell Park on the 7th May 1983. Here, Madness headlined the Brockwell Park CND Free Music Festival, and it didn’t go quite according to plan.
Check out this issue’s MIS Feature for a lookback at the gig, plus links to video clips and full audio of the band’s performance on that day for you to stream or download and add to your collection.
Also, a reminder that the Benny Bullfrog signed lyrics canvas auction finishes at 11:59pm this evening (Sunday 27th September). If you want to place a bid but have yet to do so then please send an email with your name and your maximum bid to benny@madness-mis.com. The bid must be in £ UKP.
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.
This is a new half-speed master exclusively for RSD and part of the Two Tone Records 40th Anniversary celebrations. This is a soundtrack to the live movie of the same name featuring exclusive live recordings by The Specials, Madness, The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners and The Bodysnatchers. This is also first vinyl repress since its original release in 1981.
Tracklisting:
Concrete Jungle
Mirror in the Bathroom
Lip up Fatty
Razor Blade Alley
Three Minute Hero
Easy Life
Big Shot
One Step Beyond
Ranking Fullstop
Man at C&A
Missing Words
Inner London Violence
Night Boat to Cairo
Too Much Pressure
Nite Klub
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 855 – Sunday 27th September to Saturday 3rd October 2015
Starting off on the 29th May in Lincoln, the Grandslam Tour spanned a mammoth four months, and took in a whopping 21 dates covering the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
The band performed at race courses, cricket and rugby grounds during a tour that lasted almost a third of a year, and one that received glowing reviews.
Now, all that it was all over, and with September coming to an end the band were due to take a well deserved break until November, when they were booked to perform for two consecutive nights at the forthcoming Madness Weekender in Butlins, Minehead.
We may not have had a Christmas tour this year, but there was still plenty for us fans to look forward to.
Over in Live and Intensified we had reviews of the recent Staffordshire and Newbury Racecourse gigs. While the Staffordshire concert received a glowing review from the Stoke Sentinel, the Trip Advisor review of the Newbury gig was less favourable, and instead complained about long queues at the bars, terrible food, awful sound and the place being “filled with tattooed idiots all staggering around drunk”.
Moving on to Sign of the Times, and here we included a report from ITV.com where they revealed that the Newbury Park Racecourse gig was the largest the venue had supported since 2012; a total of 20,995.
Also in this section we had a transcript of an interview Suggs gave to David Roddigan. Suggs was asked to choose his favourite reggae tracks.
We rounded off Sign of the Times with a great interview from Phil Smith of the Newcastle Chronicle. Three passionate Madness fans and some gig date information were provided to help tell the story of North east Madness gigs, as well as the newspaper also choosing and taking quotes from Vintage Rock Blog and a Selecter archive interview. Fans interviewed were Peter Smith, John Dunn and Lynn Lawlor.
Next, it was on to our MIS Feature where we reported on a selection of old photographs of Madness that were about to go up for auction. These included shots of the band with The Pretenders when they were supporting them in July 1979. The photographs were full negative originals with publication rights also being transferred to any serious bidders.
We brought this issue to a close with a reminder that the Rhoda Dakar competition where you could win 2 tickets to the Camden Town Show “Rhoda Dakar Sings the Bodysnatchers” was still running. You just had to answer one question;
Which Dangermen track did Rhoda tell us she enjoyed singing the most with the band at The House of Fun Weekender?
10 years ago…
Issue Number 595 – Sunday 26th September – Saturday 2nd October 2010
As we were now firmly into autumn, it meant the forthcoming Christmas tour was almost here. With such a busy schedule ahead of them you’d think Madness would have been happy to leave any further bookings until 2001.
You would have thought so, but it seemed that the band were keen to do their bit as it were, and this week it was announced that they’d be appearing at the Marion Rose Ball in support of Children with Leukaemia.
The Marion Rose Ball was being held in memory of Marion O’Gorman, the co-founder and Paul O’Gorman’s mother. Marion sadly passed away in July 2009.
In November 1987, the Paul O’Gorman Banquet & Ball, the first major fundraising event to be staged for the charity, was organised by Jean, Paul’s sister, who sadly died just days later.
The Paul O’Gorman Banquet & Ball was held at Grosvenor House Hotel every year until November 2007, when the 21st Anniversary Ball was held, and Paul’s favourite band, Madness, performed.
Throughout these years, the ball had raised significant funds – an average of £250,000 each year. The event remained a key part of their fundraising calendar, with many regular and loyal supporters attending each year.
Dury news next, and we reported that The New Wolsey Theatre had teamed up with TWTD to give you the chance to win tickets to the premiere performances of Reasons To Be Cheerful, a musical tribute to Ian Dury.
Set in 1979, a scorching live band and cast were due to pay tribute to Dury’s anarchic spirit and propel this riotous coming-of-age tale in a skiddling, diddling, bled-white dyed-black show for young punks and old rockers alike. It’s all your brain and body needs, so we were told.
To get your hands on three pairs of show tickets and a pre-show drink, all you had to do was email your reason to be cheerful in no more than 140 characters by 10th October 2010.
Elsewhere, and we featured our fourth extract of the forthcoming Madness biography, which was due to be published on the 31st October by Omnibus Press.
This latest excerpt featured Norton Folgate as its subject matter.
We brought this issue to a close with a request from subscriber Jacco van’t Riet. Jacco was trying to track down an interview with Carl;
“I saw a movie/web clip a while ago where Carl explained all sorts of Cockney phrases from ‘The Fish & Chips parade’, and he was also talking about LONF in general. But I can’t find it anymore…
Do you know where I can find that (filmed) interview?”
Finally, Jonathan Young reported that you could listen to Suggs talking to Mary Wilson from The Supremes on this week’s 2nd of 4 sit-ins for Huey on BBC6.
15 years ago…
Issue 334 – Sunday 25th September to Saturday 1st October 2005
2005 saw the world famous Penguin Books celebrate their 70th birthday. To commemorate this event the company released a number of box sets, as well as re-releases of certain titles from its back catalogue.
One of the books being re-issued by the veteran publisher was the world famous `War and Peace`, a book that we here at MIS Online kept saying we were going to read, but as yet hadn’t quite managed to make a start at ploughing through its 1,400-odd pages.
In a bid to rectify this, we were pleased to bring you in this very issue, Steve Bringe’s Madness version of `War and Peace`. Whilst it may not have covered the same subject matter as Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece, it did have a good go at approaching the same length as the aforementioned title.
How on earth Steve had found the time to put together something quite so in-depth and lengthy, we’re still at pains to know. That said, it was a fantastic read, and well worth 10 minutes of your time.
Steve’s wasn’t the only one who’d been spending hours at their keyboard over this past week, as this issue saw a welcome return of Paul Muscat, who brought us the results of the previous three Madcharts, as well as the `Bubbling Under` tracks from the all-singing, all-dancing 2005 lowdown.
This week we also reported on Mr G’s web site, The Magnificent 7, which, due to other commitments, Colin was unable to continue working on. However, since Mr G’s initial post to the MTR a number of people had stepped forward, keen to take on the site and keep it running.
20 years ago…
Issue number 72 Sunday 24th September to Saturday 30th September 2000
After months of waiting the long awaited BBC documentary, `Young Guns`, featuring Madness was finally aired last week. Since then, the online Madness fanbase seemed to have gone into overdrive with views, comments and general analysis of the show.
We’d been reading some excellent reviews of the programme from a great many people over the last few days, with the legendary Peter Gardner (amongst others) making some really interesting comments indeed. You could find Peter’s views elsewhere in this issue.
From the posts we’d been reading, it seemed that the majority of you enjoyed the show (one or two glaring errors aside!) but felt that it needed a bit more depth. 40 minutes just didn’t seem long enough to chart the progress of Madness from their birth, up to the present day.
Still, looking on the bright side, it wasn’t every day we had an entire programme dedicated to Camden’s finest was it?
One thing we were pleased to see was right at the top of the end credits, the BBC gave special thanks to Chris Carter-Pegg who we know loaned the majority of his collection to the production team to aid them in the making of the program, and was interviewed on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, the footage didn’t make it into the final cut.
Onto some news now, and the legendary Mr Smash reported that there was indeed some Madness activity going. Here’s what Carl had to say at the time;
“We have begun working on a Madness Musical and it will take some time to develop, but I know I can say that this is something we have wanted to do for ages, and I am sure that we are brimming full of ideas and enthusiasm for it. So that’s going to be one we can sink our collective teeth into”.
It sounded like things were in the very early stages at the moment, we promised to keep you posted on further developments if and when they surfaced.
On to this week’s collection of articles, and we started-off with a heads-up that following on from the BBC’s Young Guns TV programme, the station had kindly uploaded some extra content to their web site, which didn’t make it into the final film.
Many of us had bought and sold items with other members of the Madness fan community, and everything had gone smoothly. John Lawrence wondered if two lists should be compiled – the first, the ‘Dodgy Geeza’ list, and the second, a ‘Decent Dude’ list. The idea being that we’d all know who to avoid and who to use.
A great idea, but who would be willing to put in the time and effort to keep this list updated?
Rob Hazelby
MIS Feature
Brockwell Park CND Rally 1983 Lookback
We look back an infamous 80s Madness gig. When a festival for peace turned into a mud slinging party.
“I remember the Damned set ! We had underestimated the time it would take to march from the Embankment, and the CND march also left a little late, but we couldn’t change any of the timings for the day.
The Damned were second on stage and the main march only arrived on site when they were almost done. Needless to say, many of their fans were upset that they had missed them, and their frustration spilled over into the area in front of the stage. The Damned band members were brilliant, and came back on stage to try and explain to the fans why they couldn’t play more.
It didn’t really help and the next two or three acts had to suffer a shower of mud, cans and occasional empty bottle. The Style Council only had a short set anyway (they’d only recently got together), so they didn’t cut it short. Poor John Peel, who was compering, got hit by a lump of mud and left early, which was really sad as he was very supportive, and I was supposed to be looking after him on the day!
At one point, the Met Police moved in to try and move the fans back from the corrugated iron barrier, which they were beginning to pull down. That actually made it worse! CND managed to persuade them to withdraw and we brought in our team of stewards, which worked. Things calmed down by the time we got to Clint Eastwood and General Saint, who somehow managed to change the mood.
Madness closed the day with a masterpiece of a set. They sounded great and connected with the crowd (which numbered 20 – 30 000), encoring with “It Must Be Love”. They were the only band which was able to encore.
Chris Dalton (Organiser)
Broadcast on the CH4 show “Switch” The Damned and Madness interviewedat the CND Youth Rally, Brockwell park May 7th 1983.
We were reminded earlier today by the excellent Seven Ragged Men Facebook feed that on this day way back in 1980, Madness appeared on kids’ TV show Tiswas, where they were banned for spraying host Sally James with silly string and various other misdemeanours.
