Good evening and a warm welcome to this week’s edition of the MIS.

Along with the usual mix of gig reviews, tour date listings and purchase recommendations, this week’s issue features one competition the beer drinkers amongst you will be very interested in. All you have to do is name an elephant. Yes, really!

Elsewhere we welcome back subscriber Darren West, who once again has been busy in front of his keyboard, documenting more Madness gigs, and if that wasn’t enough we have links to two fantastic interviews – the first with Woody, and the second with Bedders.

There’s a lot for you to get through, so get yourself comfortable and enjoy the read!

Jon Young, Liz Hazelby, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts

SHOWTIMES

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.

Madness

August 10th Fete Du Bruit, Landerneau, France
August 11th Brussels Summer Fest, Belgium

September  14th. Madness play Free at Applepop Holland.  21.25pm at The hoofdapodium – http://www.appelpop.nl/

September 15th Rockhal, Belval, Luxembourg
September 16th L’Olympia, Paris, France
September 22nd Northants CCC, UK
September 28th Alexandra Palace, London, UK

October 12th Esprit Arena, Duesseldorf, Germany

November 22nd-25th House Of Fun Weekender, Minehead, UK

For tickets see links via: www.madness.co.uk

Suggs Live

Suggs My Life Story, the West End of London December Run.

http://www.nimaxtheatres.com/garrick-theatre/suggs_my_life_story_in_words_and_music

December 1st     – Garrick Theatre, London’s West End.
December 8th     – Garrick Theatre, London’s West End.
December 15th  – Garrick Theatre, London’s West End.
December 22nd  – Garrick Theatre, London’s West End.

The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra

August 11th  United Colours Festival, Sheffield
August 16th Belgium (Brussels Summer Fest)
August 25th Craig Charles Weekend, Bristol

September 7th, Meatopia, Wapping (www.meatopia.co.uk)

October 2nd Brighton, Concorde 2
October 3rd Cardiff, Globe
October 4th St Albans, Arena
October 5th Norwich, Waterfront
October 18th Ipswich, Corn Exchange
October 25th Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
October 31st (Halloween)  Jazz Cafe, Camden Town.

November 1st – Komedia, Bath
November 8th, headlining the Friday of Specialized, The Big One 2, Parkdean, Sandford, Dorset

See ticket links via: www.ltso.mis-online.net

Deaf School

August 23rd  – Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
August 24th –  St Helens – The Citadel
August 25th – Aspatria, Cumbria – Solfest
August 26th – Liverpool, Sefton Park – Intl Music Festival

Thursday 24 October. Jazz Cafe, Camden Town.  Book launch gig

More info at: http://deafschoolmusic.com

BUY IT NOW

If money’s currently burning a hole in your pocket then perhaps we can help with your dilemma.

***New – Pre-Order*** THE MAGIC LINE – THE MAGIC BROTHERS.

Confirming the line up of songs, he mp3 version of The Magic Line is available to pre-order, and will be out on September 30th. We’re sure that a CD version will soon follow.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Magic-Line/dp/B00DUKCPIC/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374885408&sr=301-1

The tracklisting will be as follows. Note that previews of the tracks are available via Amazon:

1. Always Be With You
2. Down Town
3. You Don’t Have to Hide Your Love Away
4.  The River
5.  Sunshine
6.  Tysea Hill
7.  Welcome to the World
8.  They Tell You
9.    Magic Brothers Part Two
10.  Smile
11.   Frank
12.  The Magic Line

The Benevolence Of Sister Mary Ignatius (Audio CD) – £15.99

If you’ve yet to add the Ska Orchestra’s album to your collection, what are you waiting for? Featuring covers of 12 classic ska tracks, this is the album that many Madness fans are describing as the soundtrack for the summer.

For more information, and to order, point your web browser here:

http://amzn.to/13WMNgF

New Madness T-Shirts

A conga line “One Step Beyond” T-shirt, a blue nutty train, and hearts “It Must be Love” design are new to the Mad shop.

http://madness.mamstore.co.uk/

LIVE AND INTENSIFIED

With the number of Madness gigs now ramping-up we’ve decided to begin an irregular section entitled “Live and Intensified”.

If it’s fan gig reviews you’re after, then this is the section you’ll want to read.

Those of you who get along to any future gigs please knock up a review and send it in as we’d love to print your thoughts.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 1, 2, 3!

Part 1 – On a sweltering hot day, we are taking a relatively short journey beyond south west London to Sandown Park. The surroundings are impressive – a huge grandstand, far more bookmakers than there has been at the previous racecourses I have seen before at these Madness race night gigs and there’s plenty of food and drink zones plus a picnic area. It is a very, very relaxed atmosphere – maybe it’s the weather!

Merchandise is on sale including – impressively – a decent number of Qui Qui deluxe CD/DVDs signed by all 6 of the band who performed on the said album. Whilst queuing for drinks I chat to to a fellow Madness fan who will also be attending the Folkestone Ska Festival next month; we duly exchanged pleasantries – Richard, I will be looking out for you! I’ve had 2 winners, I’m up £20 or so and it’s time for the main event.

This time the stage is set on the right hand side of the natural slope towards the racecourse, so we place ourselves on the higher end of the standing area just behind the expected mosh pit. I’ve never watched Madness from a sauna before but this has to be close!! It is almost unbearably hot. Security staff regularly pass cups of water to keep us fans cool in the searing heat.

Madness stay faithful to the set that has been used on this tour. All the band appear to be so happy on stage – Bedders grinning, Chas smiling; the band as a unit are interacting like I’ve rarely seen them before. It’s magnificent that these 7 not-so-ragged men genuinely appear to love each others company.

The older LP tracks – Bed & Breakfast Man and Take It Or Leave It are well received by the crowd. A sprinkling of 1 or 2 more please?! Leon has rightfully stayed in the set – Woody of course loving every second. Chrissy Boy’s back and so is Showtime; New York, New York gets another airing on this tour.

Disappointingly, no Death Of A Rude Boy and no replacement song so the encore comprises of 2 tracks: Madness and Night Boat To Cairo, where on stage Madness are joined by Pearly Kings, Queens and Princesses – amongst them representing the areas of St Pancras, Rotherhithe and Highgate. As ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ wafts across the still warm night air, I leave Sandown soaked to the skin, with a huge grin on my face knowing that my favourite band have again left me looking very much on that same ‘bright side of life’.

Part 2 – It’s another hot day as we are now at Newmarket to see Madness. We are recovering from the previous night having seen Missing Andy at The Horn venue in St Albans. They’re a decent band who played at Minehead at the 1st House Of Fun Weekender.

Onto today though and I have 3 short-odds winners and get to the stage later than usual owing to a combination of the limited access to the area where the stage is, crowd size and stage position itself. So we are just in time to hear the Shakespeare dialogue ‘to be or not or not to be’ that has introduced Madness on occasions at the races.

The crowd seem a bit muted as gentle applause meets most of the first part of the set. During those opening songs though, Baggy Trousers sounds superb as does Bed & Breakfast Man and Take It Or Leave It. The stage itself is set between 2 grandstands and the band are higher up than usual – perhaps 15 feet from ground level making it relatively tricky to get a good vantage point. We eventually get much nearer as the gig progresses and being nearer the atmosphere, sound and view naturally are all better. Our view is slightly impeded though by a stage pylon which means we can see the drumkit, an occasional drum stick but not Woody himself. The acoustics are suprisingly good.

Showtime is again New York, New York with Chrissy Boy ad-libbing ‘It’s up to you, Newmarket, Newmarket’. Not as witty as ‘Newark, Newark’, Chrissy – a good effort none the less! However Showtime appears to have acted as a peptalk for the rest of the band as they return on stage. Instantly Suggs + Chas toy with the crowd; “We weren’t gonna come out tonight”, “We were gonna have a night in”. Quickly followed by “Mike’s doing the cooking, weren’t you Mike?” “He does a mean beans on toast”.

The band then go steaming in to a fantastic set of songs all sounding magnificent. Suggs refers to Chrissy Boy as “our very own Frank Sinatra” and later Tommo as “Sammy Davis Jr.”.

The encore again has two songs – firstly Madness; the first minute or so a jazz-tinged, almost like a meandering jam session which I’d not heard as a version before which sounded really quite good, before finishing with a stonking Night Boat To Cairo. Fantastic!

I’m back home after midnight knowing I’ve got an early start next morning…

Part 3 – We set off at 11am en route to Manchester for an overnight stay for Madness at Haydock Park. My companion is a racing afficianado who has attended around twenty of the UKs race tracks and has a sound knowledge of the Sport of Kings, aswell as co-ownership of a race horse. Back in 1980, he attended the infamous Madness gig at Hatfield Poly in the days when the band were attracting some undesirables in the crowd. That night was no different as there was mass fighting at the venue. Luckily we live in times when people just want to enjoy the best band ever.

So onto tonight – again we have lovely hot weather, real ale and a magnificent setting. This is the best race course I’ve been at; there are plenty of vantage points as we can stand on the terracing or sit in the upper tier with the added option of being very close to the finish line.

I ask at the merchandise stall regarding Newbury date that is featured on the tour t-shirt. Apparently, Newbury had double booked events for that Saturday 21st September date so Madness had intended playing there after all. There have been so many fez’s sold tonight that it could almost be a Tommy Cooper convention!

We’ve a had a good few winners each and this time we decide to watch from the terraced stand, perhaps 200 yards or so away from the stage. We have a fantastic view. The stage is to the left on the flat ground and a sea of people are here to see Madness; I’m sure this venue has a 26,000 capacity and if that’s the case, there must be 20,000 or so here as those standing go back way beyond the finish line covering the entire concourse. Even Suggs seems delightfully surprised “Look at all these people. Beautiful!”.

The gig starts and being further away the sound quality is still decent and the accompanying big screens enhance our view. Between songs most of the crowd around us are chatting amongst themselves so we decide about 7 or 8 songs in to get nearer on the flat where we eventually find a fantastic spot. The sound and view make for a better show. It’s the same set as Sandown and Newmarket so once more, no Death Of A Rude Boy.

Again Baggy Trousers is a real highlight; Shut Up gets the crowd involved. The band really enjoy playing Leon which goes down a treat. Chrissy Boy again sings New York, New York for Showtime which has the crowd swaying.

I have now seen Madness over 50 times in total and for the 1st time, I’ve seen them as many as 3 times in 4 days. It’s been an absolute pleasure and privilege to see my favourite group play around the UK 7 times over the last two months and there’s still more to come later in the year!

Sandown, Newmarket and Haydock Park Set lists in rough running order

One Step Beyond
Embarrassment
The Prince
My Girl
My Girl 2
NW5
Never Knew Your Name
The Sun & The Rain
Take It Or Leave It
How Can I Tell You
Bed & Breakfast Man
Baggy Trousers
Grey Day
Misery
Shut Up
House Of Fun
Wings Of A Dove
Leon
Our House
It Must Be Love

Encore:

Madness
Night Boat To Cairo

Addendum – I had previously stated at Newcastle there was no Showtime. I was reminded by a fellow attendee at the Sandown gig that the ‘ Ho’way the Lads’ song was played, so to officially tie up this loose end:-

Newcastle

Showtime – Blaydon Races

Daren West

MIS FEATURE

Win Free Gladness Beer – Name The Elephant Competition

Yes, this week we launched possibly the most exciting give-away since we once sent a lucky reader an enhanced Norton Folgate Box Set.  It’s Bottles we have to send this time Bottles of the Free Gladness Madness Beer, thanks to Growler Brewery working with us, who brew the beer, that’s now available in Nicholson Pubs, and Bottles are shipping out to stores now too. MIS appeared on The Koast Train radio show on Koast Radio this week with Mr Scurf, to announce the beginning of the competition. Free Beer!!

Amongst the prizes are also a T-Shirt, and a pump clip. (That’s the sign showing the Gladness beer picture that goes on the front of the beer pulling pump in pubs. One of those and we think it’s been signed by the band in some way too!) These lucky prizes. Yes! This includes Free Beer!  Are available to readers of the MIS (In the UK or neighbouring European countries only, sorry.)

The bottle design features an Elephant performing on the label.  We simple want you to tell us

What’s the Elephant’s name?

You decide. Send in the name (more than one go is allowed. It’ll help you a little but not massively to choose more than one.)

Email it to  Jonsmad@hotmail.com

From all the entries we receive we will choose a short list of the favourite 10 to 20 names we like the most. These names, and these names alone, we will send over to Mark Bedford in about 4 weeks from now.  Mark has kindly agreed to check the names for being fitting of an elephant on a Madness Beer Bottle.  His stamp of approval will christen the Elephant.  We then can process the winning beer and items on to you.

Keep your choices of Elephant names secret. Don’t tell anyone. Because in cases where people choose the same Elephant name, we will draw names out of a hat, in order to find a winner, so bare that in mind.

Good Luck and winners will be notified of their good fortune by return email, and announced in a future MIS newsmail, and also congratulated on The Koast Trian, in about a month’s time.

Jonathan Young

I REMEMBER WAY BACK WHEN

This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby, goes back 5 years to issue 482, and the week of Sunday 27th July to Saturday 2nd August 2008, and then back 10 years to issue 220 and the week of Sunday 27th July to Saturday 2nd August 2003.

5 years ago…

Issue 482 – Sunday 27th July to Saturday 2nd August 2008

Last week Jean-Pierre Boutellier reported on a new version of One Step Beyond doing the rounds, but unfortunately that was all he had to go on. This week, Australian subscriber Paul Parker got in touch to explain that the picture disc was being sold by chas.com, and that the catalogue number was SEEZ 17-P

Kicking off the articles was an interview with Woody, from Montreux. Interviewed by two French reporters, Woody commented on the early days with the band, his ability to speak fluent French, the Madness musical, the 1992 comeback gigs, and much more besides. Although die-hard fans wouldn’t have learned much from the session it still proved to be an enjoyable read.

Next, it was over to the track “We Are London”, and our investigations into a verse quoted by Carl but hadn’t appeared on the live version we’d recently heard.

Moving on, and we went back to Montreux, and this time it was the turn of Mike, Lee and Woody to get the interview treatment. Although not as long as Woody’s solo interview, the interviewees revealed that they’d been busy working on a number of new songs. The interview was brought to a swift close when Chris appeared, grabbed the microphone boom and started attacking it!

In MIS 478 we ran a competition to win a Hackney USB Wristband that we had purchased for one lucky reader, and then hacked into it and stuffed with some extra related files and goodies that go along with the Hackney show theme.

The wristband contained the entire amazing gig of the first night at the Hackney Empire in MP3 as originally sold on the night, and then we used the extra space to pack it full of photos, text files and more audio. It really was a one of a kind. The winner was one Stan, aka Monkey.

Elsewhere we had another Montreux interview, this time with Lee, who explained that the last time they were in this part of France was way back in 1985.

We brought this issue to a close with a sponsorship plea from subscriber Colin Galbraith, who was planning to abseil down the Forth Bridge in aid of the Edinburgh Zoo charity.

What a nutcase! Still, it ‘was’ for a good cause.

10 years ago…

Issue 220 – Sunday 27th July to Saturday 2nd August 2003.

With Rob now settled in to his new house things should have gone smoothly. Unfortunately, due to issues with his broadband supplier, and the fact that Jonathan was on holiday, the issue almost didn’t appear.

News in from subscriber Graham Whitfield reported on an episode of Sky One’s “When Celebrities Attract”. This particular episode was about Zoe Ball and Norman Cook, and Suggs’ appearance at their wedding where he sang ‘it Must be Love’.

Were you, like many of us, unable to catch Madness at the recent Bonn gig? Well, we weren’t able to help you magically teleport back in time to see the show, but MTR subscriber, Birchy, was kind enough to dig out a link to a selection of photos on a German web site.

Back for his second article of the week was Graham Whitfield, who this time gave a brief review of a recently aired Channel Four programme, “The Madness of Prince Charming”.

“This [programme] was all about the sad demise of one of Madness’ closest eighties rivals, Adam Ant.

His musical demise, like more or less any other band, was inevitable, but the programme also focussed on his decline into manic depression.

Ironically, it was this illness which seemed to drive him to the top. But sadly, it took him from pop idol, to being an actor who could boast Heather Graham as his girlfriend, to attacking a pub with an alternator and a starting pistol.

I never cease to be amazed at how Madness only ever reached number one once, when Adam Ant achieved this 3 times at least. By rights, Our House and Baggy Trousers should both have topped the charts, as should It must be Love. I always put it down to bad luck. But one thing’s for sure. When you watch these 80’s nostalgia shows, it’s quite clear that the competition was far stronger back then than it is now.

Have just a brief glimpse through any pop chart from those days, and you will be able to pick out so many good songs. Try doing the same today”.

Next up was Bristol based Maddie, Andy Thomas, who wrote in with reviews of not one, but two Madness tribute acts.

The bands in question were First Step Below, and Los Palmas 6. Andy gave both bands glowing reviews, and commented:

“I can’t really say one is better than the other BUT as 1SB are still fairly new at the game full credit must go to them.

If you get chance to see either of these guys play – TAKE IT, don’t leave”.

Rob Hazelby

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Various articles that have caught our eye over the past week or so…

I saw my Schizophrenic Brother turn into a Living corpse

From The Sunday Express web site.
DAN WOODGATE has tasted international stardom and chart-topping success with the band Madness but his latest work is a labour of love that shines the spotlight on a special relationship.
http://www.sundayexpress.co.uk/news/health/417955/Madness-star-Dan-Woodgate-I-saw-my-schizophrenic-brother-turn-into-a-living-corpse

Fifteen Minutes With Mark Bedford

From Juliehamill.com (With thanks to Vince Foley for the heads-up)
Sitting chatting with me on a bench in Soho Square, Mark ‘Bedders’ Bedford from Madness comes across as quite a private man.  He’s not always keen to be in the spotlight, preferring to stay as grounded in normality as he can; your typical guy in a Fred Perry and desert boots, pally with everybody from the London cabbies to the Queen.  He just happens to have hidden depths of musical cleverness in bass playing for Britain’s best-loved band…
http://www.juliehamill.com/post/56159461950/fifteen-minutes-with-mark-bedford-bass-player-with

Suggs Makes a Scheduled Return to Festival

From the Henley Standard
MADNESS frontman Suggs returned to the Henley Festival this year — but
this time he didn’t need to be dragged off stage by security…
http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=1315961

Review: Madness

From the Henley Standard
http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=1316195

Review: Madness, Newmarket Racecourse, July 19

From the East Anglian Daily Times
http://www.eadt.co.uk/entertainment/music-and-festivals/review_madness_newmarket_racecourse_july_19_1_2290804

TIME…

That just about wraps it up for this week. If you’ve not yet done so we urge you to check out the Woody and Bedders interviews we linked to in this weeks’ Sign of The Times section. They really are well worth reading through.

Next week we hope to have a review of the latest edition of Ian Taylor’s Mad Not Mad fanzine. We were hoping to get it in this week, but a combination of work and family commitments have meant that it just wasn’t possible. Apologies for the delay, but all being well, it’ll appear then.

Until then have a good week,

Simon Roberts, Jon Young, Liz Hazelby, Rob Hazelby

(With thanks to Vince Foley and Daren West)