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Telegraph
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The 1975, Glastonbury Festival, review: If you find it hard to like Matty Healy, watch this
The 1975 confused rather than commanded Glastonbury Festival, although that might well have been their intention. They are a post-modern pop group, so aware of the ironies, showbiz tropes and rock star hypocrisies of the celebrity business that they want you to know they don't take any of it too seriously… apart, that is, from their seriously impressive songcraft. Frontman, main songwriter and conceptualiser Matty Healy knows he is a divisive character: a mouthy, hyperactive, oversensitive contrarian constantly on the verge of being cancelled, and he chooses to lean into that persona. 'I have this thing where it's difficult to tell when I'm being sincere,' he announced early on in their spectacular, artfully designed set, before he then made a series of ludicrously pompous statements about being the greatest songwriter of his generation. 'These words I bleed for you,' he proclaimed, smoking a cigarette and swigging a Guinness. I'm pretty sure there would have been people watching the BBC broadcast at home ready to throw things at the screen, as the super slick band launched into early hit Chocolate with nonsense soundalike lyrics emblazoned on the big screens. The 1975's own fans grasp the joke, and sang along unperturbed by their complicated hero's displays of comedy ego. The first half of the show found Healy playing a kind of caricature of his controversial persona, dressed like a classic rock rebel in skinny jeans and a leather jacket. A short interlude commenced with a screen emblazoned with the legend 'MATTY IS CHANGING HIS TROUSERS'. He returned in a slick suit and tie, banging out big hits as if he genuinely wanted the crowd with him rather than against him. But even his sincerity is not to be trusted. He made a speech hoping that people wouldn't be disappointed by the lack of politics in their set, perhaps referring to several other Glastonbury performers leading Free Palestine chants. 'There's enough politics in the world, we want our legacy to be one of love and friendship,' he said. I think he means it, too. But I suspect the BBC won't have been too pleased with flashing images of riots, 9/11, dead children, flayed dogs and Kanye West during their fierce rock protest anthem Love It If We Made It. The 1975 formed at school in Manchester in 2002. The quartet have been together a long time and play like it, locking into slick grooves expanded with colour and scope by additional keyboards, horns and percussion. It's a very lush, hyperactive, mobile, richly melodious form of modern pop: big and daring songs full of challenging ideas but peppered with hooks. That the challenge extends to their artful presentation is to be applauded, albeit it can make them hard for the casual onlooker to love. It was a Glastonbury set that wobbled precariously between triumph and disaster, which I suspect might be exactly where Matty Healy and his loyal crew feel most comfortable.
Times
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The 1975 at Glastonbury 2025 review: hard to take seriously
The 1975Pyramid Stage The first headliner of the weekend was a strange choice. The 1975 certainly made a big splash about ten years ago, combining rock, pop and everything in between as a reflection of the new genre-free era of music, but more recently they have been working on an album yet to be released and singer Matty Healy has become known for being immortalised by his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift in her song The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. Still, they were determined to make an impact, from the blinding lights of the multi screen setup to Healy arriving on stage with a pint of Guinness (a real glass one — where did he get that from? Did he bring it with him?) and a cigarette before leaping about in imagined rock star fashion. It was all very flash, but with their uptight white funk sound, and Healy coming across like a drunken George Michael, it was frankly hard to take seriously. • Glastonbury 2025 live: the 1975, Lewis Capaldi and Lorde kick off festival 'Love me if that's what you wanna do,' sang Healy on Love Me, strutting from one side of the stage to the other, and you did feel that he really would like you to love him. Sometimes that desire reaped dividends. She's American was a nice bit of 80s pop funk, Paris was a sweet love song featuring the line 'I think my boyfriend's a narcissist', and there was a certain charm to Healy and his mix of arrogance and insecurity. But then he had to ruin it all. Looking like he was about to cry, he announced, 'This moment has made me realise … that I probably am the best songwriter of my generation.' There followed a nonsense novelty pop song after which he announced, 'Only joking. I'm an idiot.' It was also hard to equate Healy's dissolute rocker image, complete with ever-present cigarette and tendency to wobble about like he was really out of it, with the word-perfect delivery, the way he knew exactly where the cameras were at all times, and the precise, clean, rather soppy pop coming out of the band. There were some good songs here, especially the state of the world address Love It If We Made It, although showing horrific current affairs scenes to accompany it was gratuitous. But this Glastonbury headline set was unconvincing, like Healy would love nothing more than to be cast in a film about a troubled rock star and this was his audition. It was all an act, in other words: not a bad act, and certainly a high budget one, but ultimately rather empty. ★★☆☆☆
The Sun
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Rock icon, 73, looks worlds away from 70s superstardom as he grabs coffee in LA
A ROCK icon looked worlds away from his 1970s heyday as he stepped out in Los Angeles. The popular performer left fans stunned as he went for a coffee in a rare public outing. 5 5 5 Aged 73, the rocker was part of a hugely popular band that had a string of popular albums among rock music fans - but do you recognise him? Paul Stanley co-founded the band Kiss with Gene Simmons in the 70s with the group becoming known for their raucous and outlandish antics on the stage. The performer kept it casual for his low-key outing as he was spotted without his trademark Kiss make-up that the band became well known for. He opted for a simple patterned shirt and a pair of light blue denim jeans as he made his way to Starbucks for his regular coffee order. Paul flashed a smile as he made his way back to his car carrying his drinks. You'd be forgiven for not recognising Paul thanks to the star usually sporting heavy theatrical make-up for Kiss. The star and his bandmates previously explained how in the early 70s New York, the glam rock trend was prevalent with many male rock stars choosing to wear make-up to mirror their female counterparts. However, Kiss decided to create their own unique looks after confessing it was "unconvincing" that they could don regular make-up. Speaking of their unique look, Paul's bandmate Gene Simmons recalled: "At the same time that we were forming in New York, there was a very big glitter scene, where boys were basically acting like girls and putting on makeup. "Well, we were more like football players — all of us were over 6 feet tall — and it just wasn't convincing!" DWTS guest judge Gene Simmons slammed for 'creepy' and 'uncomfortable' behavior toward women on live TV Paul is a father-of-four and shares three children with his wife Erin Sutton. Paul and Erin wed in 2005 and shared children Sarah, 15, Colin, 18, and Emily, 13, with her. He also has a son, 30-year-old Evan Stanley, from his failed marriage to first wife, actress Pamela Bowen. Pamela divorced him in 2001 after nine years of marriage. Paul Stanley's career AS well as his time in KISS, Paul has enjoyed some ventures away from the band. Over the course of his career, he has released two solo albums. His first was a self-titled record in 1978 whilst still a member of the rock band and marketed under the look he became famous for in the group. It wasn't until 2006 that he went on to release a second solo record. In 1999, he became a stage performer for the first time when he began appearing in a production of The Phantom of the Opera throughout 1999 in which he closed the show's ten-year run in Toronto, Canada. In 2012, he and bandmate Gene headed into business when, along with the help of three investors, they launched the restaurant chain, Rock & Brews. Paul published his autobiography, Face the Music: A Life exposed, in 2014. 5 5
Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Lord Mount Charles obituary: aristocrat who turned castle into rock venue
'Lord Henry', as the 8th Marquess Conyngham liked to be known in his native Ireland, was a figure of riotous incongruity. Aristocrat and entrepreneur, bohemian and businessman, a sometime poet, journalist, publisher, parliamentary candidate, publican and peer of the realm; he was primarily known as the man who transformed his family's estate at Slane, Co Meath, into one of the most glamorous rock venues in Europe. Though born into the purple of the Anglo-Irish nobility, he realised from an early age that it was a birthright which might, had he embraced it more fully than he did, have excluded him from his claim to his Irish identity. Accent, class and an English public school education were usually enough to cause people like Mount Charles to be frequently asked in their own country the derogatory question: 'How are you enjoying your holiday here?' However, Mount Charles ignored the naysayers. He went on to forge an exceptional career whose apogee is sometimes described as the moment he introduced U2 at one of their first main public appearances at Slane Castle in 1981. Had it stopped there, this would have been sufficient to grant him a place in the pantheon of music promoters. A veritable cornucopia of headline acts followed at Slane, including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, David Bowie, Oasis and Neil Young. The pastoral setting, provided by a natural amphitheatre that sloped down to the River Boyne, wasn't always tranquil. Shortly before Dylan took to the stage, a wave of drunken fans rioted in Slane village, smashing windows and attempting to burn the police barracks. Security was tightened for later events at the 80,000-capacity venue, and Slane Castle achieved something akin to Glastonbury in the international concert calendar. Henry Vivien Pierpoint Conyngham, 8th Marquess Conyngham, Earl of Mount Charles, Viscount Slane and Baron Minister of Minster Abbey in the County of Kent was born in 1951. His mother, Eileen (née Wren Newsome), was of Anglo-Irish stock and a legendary huntswoman. She showed the doughty spirit inherited by her firstborn, Henry, when Slane Castle was invaded by protesters objecting to the Mount Charles ownership of fishing rights over the River Boyne. She let in 50 rescuing police officers by throwing the castle key in a jar of face cream out of her bedroom window. Lady Mount Charles's divorce from her husband, Frederick Conyngham, the 7th Marquess, known as Mount, divided Anglo-Irish Society. From the dashing couple who hosted hunt balls and glamorous dinners, they became estranged when Mount married a lover. Henry's mother never married again. The marquess moved to the Isle of Man as a tax exile when Ireland introduced a wealth tax. Lady Mount Charles lived on in Ireland until the age of 92, claiming, jokingly, that her longevity was solely aimed at annoying her children. Mount Charles was educated at Harrow and Harvard. His father was disappointed that he did not take the more traditional Oxbridge route, dismissing Harvard as 'not the sort of place where a descendant of Sir Christopher Wren will find solace'. At Harrow, he was known for his wit and dramatic flair rather than for any scholastic achievements. Prowess on the sporting field also evaded him. He only ever won a running event, memorably wearing odd socks, a habit he then adopted as being talismanic for the rest of his life. The young Viscount Slane, as he then was, adapted quickly to the American way of life. He described his time at Harvard as 'both a cultural awakening and a moral education, which shaped my confidence to speak out on a whole range of topics that might have escaped me had I become one of the oafs at the Bullingdon'. One of the topics was the Vietnam War. In his journalism, he often referenced his Harvard-era student debating background, especially noting the parallels between Nixon's Watergate and later American political turbulence. Mount Charles married Juliet (née Kitson). They had a daughter and two sons, the eldest of whom, Alexander, succeeds his father in the peerage as the 9th Marquess Conyngham. He divorced his first wife in 1985 and married Lady Iona Grimston, daughter of the 6th Earl of Verulam, who was a Conservative MP and later sat as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. They had one daughter. He is survived by his wife, children and two brothers. In the mid-1970s, when Lord Mount Charles, as he had then become, took over Slane Castle from his father, Ireland was navigating a challenging economic malaise during which the large estates of the Anglo-Irish struggled to survive. Mount Charles had been working as an editor at Faber & Faber and enjoying a London life when he was obliged to return home to take over a chipped and faded mansion and a substantial tract of land. On inheriting, he said that he was 'ill-equipped' to run a large estate because the only thing he had learnt from his father was 'how to drink good claret at an early age and how to stand still while wearing heavy tweeds'. On moving into Slane Castle, he immediately set up a restaurant and a nightclub in the castle, which attracted patrons such as the controversial politician Charles Haughey, who had recently been embroiled in a law trial in which he was charged with the importation of arms into Ireland for use by the IRA in Northern Ireland. The Troubles cast a long shadow over Ireland at the time, and the houses of people like the Conynghams were sometimes viewed with suspicion by republicans. In his autobiography Public Space — Private Life: A Decade at Slane Castle (1989), he wrote: 'I was an Anglo-Irish anachronism … returning to an Ireland I loved but still a country bedevilled by division and much hypocrisy.'' In the television documentary A Lord in Slane (2024), he commented on the difficulties of navigating sectarian suspicion and the threats aimed at him by republicans when he hosted the U2 concert in 1981. Politically, he was aligned with the Fine Gael party, led until 1987 by Garret FitzGerald. Traditionally, it was seen as the Irish party more sympathetic to the Anglo-Irish ascendancy class as it embraced a policy of pluralism and inclusivity. In the 1992 Dail elections, Mount Charles stood as a Fine Gael candidate, polling a respectable 4,161 votes but failing to win a seat. He was also approached by the party to run for the European parliament, but eventually became disillusioned with what he called 'the stagnation of the party's constitutional agenda'. Mount Charles leaves behind a unique cultural legacy that paved the way for other enterprising landowners in Ireland to save their crumbling houses and breathe new life into an often-stagnating heritage. A gifted raconteur with a flair for publicity, he became a flamboyant media personality unafraid to express his controversial views on politics in a changing Ireland. He became the master promoter of the idea that the old Irish aristocracy could embrace change without surrendering its identity. Mount Charles was not beyond sending up his ancient background. He particularly enjoyed telling stories of his great-great-great-grandmother's affair with King George IV and pointing out items at Slane Castle which he would describe as 'got through the King's mistress'. Lord Mount Charles, 8th Marquess Conyngham, rock promoter, was born on May 23, 1951. He died of cancer on June 18, 2025, aged 74
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
LIVE FOREVER by John Robb: How a hammer to the head and Like a Virgin kicked off Liam Gallagher's career
LIVE FOREVER: THE RISE, FALL AND RESURRECTION OF OASIS by John Robb (HarperNorth £22, 432pp) For most of us, getting hit over the head with a hammer would be an utterly negative experience. For Liam Gallagher, it was the making of him. As a young teenager he had no interest in music, dismissing it as 'for weirdos'. Then he was involved in a fight outside school and one of his assailants attacked him with a hammer. 'I wake up in hospital; I've got a load of stitches in my head. But after that, I believe, I started hearing music, man,' he told an interviewer in 2017. 'Then in the weeks after, I think it was Madonna 's Like A Virgin. I heard it and thought, 'That's a f***ing tune that, man'. It's like when people wake up from comas and speak Japanese.' The Oasis frontman and his older brother Noel, the band's lead guitarist and writer of most of their best songs, have never been less than entertaining – so music journalist John Robb has plenty of material to work with in his book about them, rushed out in time for the reunited rockers' tour which begins in Cardiff on July 4. The Gallaghers grew up on a council estate in Manchester. Their mother, Peggy, had left their father, an abusive heavy drinker, and taken her three boys – Liam, Noel and their older brother Paul – with her. Liam and Noel shared a bedroom. They weren't bad lads but they were no angels either. There were drugs and fights. They weren't keen on school but they were clever and quick-witted. Noel, who had long been interested in music and had taught himself to play guitar, drifted into a job for the Oldham band the Inspiral Carpets. He was a roadie but also worked in their office and sat in on meetings. It gave him an insight into how the music business worked. When Liam decided shortly after the hammer incident that he wanted to be a rock 'n' roll singer, he insinuated himself into a local outfit called the Rain and got his brother on board. They changed the band's name and started gigging around Manchester and beyond. Both Noel and Liam had an unshakeable belief that Oasis, as they were now called, was destined for greatness. The brothers occasionally worked for a valeting company that cleaned the cars of Manchester United players. The firm's owner recalls Liam telling David Beckham that the music he had in his car was rubbish and that Oasis were going to be the biggest band in the world. They got their break in 1993 when they played at a Glasgow venue and record label boss Alan McGee just happened to be there. He loved what he heard, signed them and they were off and running. Yet the story of what happened when they had their first gig outside of the UK typifies the early years. They were supporting The Verve in Amsterdam. Most of the band got drunk on the ferry, fights broke out, and on arrival in Holland, they were all deported apart from Noel who had spent the night in his cabin. Noel rang McGee with what he thought was bad news, but the publicity-savvy music mogul was delighted. 'F*****g brilliant,' he exclaimed. 'Normally we have to make up stories like that every day.' McGee observed of his signings that: 'Not only did they write great songs but they wrote great headlines. There was no filter with the way they spoke and the way they behaved.' Trouble seemed to follow them and they embraced it. They were cocky and aggressive but they had the tunes to back it up. Noel was a brilliant songwriter and couldn't stop churning out earworms. In just a few years, anthems such as Live Forever, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger and Champagne Supernova made Oasis a stadium-shaking supergroup whose music defined a cultural era. They would eventually become one of the most successful rock bands ever and have eight No.1 albums. But the brothers – and although there were three other members, the Gallaghers were Oasis – had a love-hate relationship that was forever erupting and threatening to tear the band apart. Before what was their last tour, Noel gave an interview in which he said: 'I don't like Liam, he's rude, arrogant, intimidating and lazy. He's the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup.' When the guitarist finally quit in August 2009, after one backstage brawl too many, no one was terribly shocked. Robb, who had an exclusive interview with Noel for this book, is good on the band's beginnings, and he covers all the topics you'd expect –the rivalry with Blur, Noel's visit to meet then prime minister Tony Blair in Downing Street, the drugs and so on. He also gives chapter and verse on what every song sounds like (the expression 'wall of sound' appears 23 times). However, psychological insight is not his forte. I finished the book with little real sense of what makes the brothers tick or why their relationship is as it is. And the book is far less detailed on the later years and has nothing to say about the Gallaghers' recent reconciliation. Because after years of sniping at each other in interviews and on social media, the pair have buried the hatchet and reformed Oasis to play some shows in the UK and Ireland before heading off for Canada, the United States, South America and elsewhere. The news, which was announced last year, prompted an unusual outpouring of emotion. Oasis fans were genuinely delighted not just that they had the opportunity to see the band but that the brothers, who are now aged 52 and 58, had made up. What prompted the reconciliation? Was Liam hit on the head with a hammer again? To a fan who asked him on social media platform X (formerly Twitter)how it felt to be back with Noel and singing the songs that millions love, he said: 'You know what, it's spiritual, but I can't help think about all those wasted years what a waste of PRECIOUS time.'
