No we haven’t been sucked into a great big black hole, it’s just been a busy few weeks and June was extremely hectic what with 3 concerts (Bon Jovi, Green Day and Glastonbury), and all the football from the World Cup in South Africa.

Glastonbury was fun although it started off with a mini disaster. I mistakenly placed my non waterproof camera into my pocket and then placed a tin of beer in the top pocket only for it to tip over and of course my camera was below it! No more camera and no photos of Glastonbury. Well I got a few from my mobile phone (Nokia N95), which appear to be OK.

Camping was awesome with James, Glenn & Ronelle and Shane oh! and Pammie (blow up doll). Talk about having confidence in the weather, we even brought along our very own swimming pool and placed it in the middle of our tents. It was the talking point for most people wallking past us. The weather was boiling hot for the entire 5 days that we were there – not many people that have been to Glastonbury in the past can say that!

There was so much going on

and tons of stuff to to see, some weird and some amazing.

So many places to eat and drink. You got to go if you’ve never been before. It is such an experience.

Sadly the choice of crowd singing bands were CRAP to say the least. (my opinion).

So some of us decided to do some crazy pole climbing.

I only wanted to see U2 and they pulled out a month before the show because Bono hurt his back (poor rock star). However the Edge did show up right at the end of Muse’s gig and played  “The streets with no name”.  The crowd went mental and were singing along. It was an amazing few minutes.

There were a few semi decent bands on the various stages namely Dizzee Rascal, Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Muse, Scissor Sisters, Jackson Browne, Lightning Seeds, Stevie Wonder, Faithless, Jack Johnson, Ray Davies, Slash, Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, Florence and the Machine, La Roux, The Stranglers, Magic Numbers, to name but a few.

There are not many bands these days that can belt out 25 songs with such pace as Bon Jovi did on Friday night. Throw in the fact that they have been around for over 26 years, have released 11 official albums, two compilation albums and 1 live album, and have sold over 120 million records, then you start to see what an incredible feat they have achieved?

This was the second Bon Jovi concert we’ve been too in the past 5 years, the other one being in Hyde Park a few years ago.

The opening act was very disappointing to say the least (The last republic), apparently hand picked by Kerrang! Radio. We don’t listen to Kerrang! Radio because they are crap and their choice of band was proof of that!  At the Hyde Park concert ‘LIVE’ were the opening act, and they were absolutely awesome, playing loads of classic songs that they have become famous for. We have all their albums so that was very special.

We went to the Bon Jovi concert on Friday night with Mike and Kerry of  Wrightaboutnow.com who are also massive Bon Jovi fans. We had seats in row Q of block 106, which were directly in line with the stage but raised over the crowd. The position and location was perfect for seeing all the action and worth the 16500 pennies in my opinion. The O2 is a truly amazing venue for concerts.

The opening scene showed the band walking in a tunnel, similar to the cover of their latest album The Circle. The build up was immense before they lifted the electronic screens and Jon was standing there with his arms in the air singing “Happy Now”.

The two opening songs came from their latest album “The Circle”, before they launched into “You give love a bad name” and “Born to be my baby” from the Slippery when wet & New Jersey album. There was a really good mix  of music from their various albums. It must be quite tricky being Jon and deciding which song they will sing considering they have hundreds to choose from.

There were quite a few songs from the New Jersey album as this was one of their most popular albums with so many classic sing a long anthems, “Bad medicine” was awesome and part way through the tempo eased and Jon and one of the guitarist broke into a rendition of “Pretty Woman”.  Afterwards Richie Sambora sang “Lay your hands on me” by himself and then him and Jon sang the classic “I’ll be there for you”, which had the crowd going nuts and singing the chorus over and over again.

Then Jon called David and Tico onto the mini platform and they sang a few songs from “These Days” and “100 000 000 fans can’t be wrong” with only acoustic guitars, and an accordion. Tico has some sort of a box he was hitting and also had what looked like a rattler. They showed they can sing without the heavy equipment, but any die hard fan would have known that already.

I am not sure if the fancy electronic screens were theirs or part the O2 Arena, but they were cleverly used throughout the concert. There were platforms that moved up and down and the screens could be broken up into different segments and moved independently of each other adding to the atmosphere.

Below is the song list they managed to get through with ease.

1. Happy Now (The Circle)
2. We Weren’t Born to Follow (The Circle)
3. You give love a bad name (Slippery when wet)
4. Born to be my Baby (New Jersey)
5. Radio Saved My Life Tonight (100 000 000 fans can’t be wrong)
6. Lost Highway (Lost Highway)
7. When We Were Beautiful (The Circle)
8. Raise Your Hands (Slippery when wet)
9. We’ve Got it Goin On (Lost Highway)
10. Sleep When I’m Dead (Keep the faith)
11. Bad Medicine /Pretty Woman (Slippery when wet) / (Roy Orbison).
12. Lay Your Hands On Me (Richie Vocals) (New Jersey)
13. Open All Night (Bounce)
14. Diamond Ring (These days)
15. I’ll Be There For You (New Jersey)
16. Something For The Pain (These days)
17. Someday I’ll be Saturday Night (100 000 000 fans can’t be wrong)
18. Let it Rock  (Slippery when wet)
19. It’s My Life (Crush)
20. Working for the Working Man (The Circle)
21. Who Says You Can’t Go Home (Bounce)
22. Keep The Faith (Keep the faith)
23. Have A Nice Day (Have a nice day)
24. Wanted Dead or Alive (Slippery when wet)
25. Living On A Prayer (Slippery when wet)

One particular moment I will remember well was at the beginning of the song “Wanted dead or alive”. Jon started talking about watching the football world cup and then he asked the crowd if there were any cowboys in the house? Richie and Jon then started playing the intro of the song and the crowd sang the entire intro of the song. It was a goose bump moment hearing everyone sing in unison and seeing a beautiful sun rise sillhouetting the band from behind the stage.

It was an awesome night. I’ve uploaded a few photographs into our gallery. Videos and photographs taken with our Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7. Videos shot in High Definition AVCHD lite format. Videos owned by Lookatbowen.com

The tickets arrived today – I am guessing GETMEIN read yesterday’s blog!!! Let the countdown commence!

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Four races into the 2010 F1 calendar and Michael Schumacher has started to make progress by finishing in a comfortable 4th place at the Spanish Grand Prix. He made up two places and successfully fended off Jenson Button for most of the race. After passing Jenson coming out of the pits. Jenson was fast asleep approaching the 1st corner and Michael was quick and decisive. This is what Jenson had to say after the race about Schumacher;

I didn’t really know where Michael was on the outside of me. He turned in and if I didn’t back out of it we would have crashed. So he didn’t really give me a lot of room there. There you go, you’d think with his experience he would know. It wasn’t really the right move.

Poor old Jenson Button. He was looking for a scarlet red Ferrari, that is why he didn’t see Schumacher. Jenson, if you can’t take the heat or the experience of a seven times world champion passing you, best you get use to it quickly.

Jenson didn’t have the guts to pass him back and made silly attempts throughout the race. He needs to face reality, just like the rest of them, that Michael is there to race and pass people, not be soft and polite on the race track.

Old Eddie Jordan has also started to change his tune on Michael Schumacher. Remember what he said when he heard Schumacher was coming back to F1;

Schumacher ‘out of his mind’ and has ‘no hope’ of F1 title.

In fact even Jonathan Legard is sounding a bit like the previous biased ITV commentators, with his Michael Schumacher comments. He kept asking Martin Brundle if Schumacher is taking control of the team, of course Brundle is too wise to talk against a driver that is clearly as good as the best at present.

I smell fear starting to creep into the F1 paddock. No one, including Schumacher said he would come back and in his first few races be competitive and winning, and I am not saying that either, but this was the 4th race of the year and he has clearly turned a leaf by out qualifying his young team mate (who has won nothing in F1) and beating him with ease in the race today. It won’t be long before Schummie is back on the podium. Once Mercedes and Brawn get that car up to speed, they will be challenging Alonso, Hamilton, Webber and Vettel. Don’t ever rule Schumacher out.

Schumacher ‘out of his mind’ and ‘no hope’ of F1 title

Those words coming from Eddie Jordan on a recent interview when asked what he thought about Michael Schumacher return to F1?

Let’s leave it at that and comment again when Schumacher wins a race or beats the 100 race win mark or god forbid, wins another world championship.

I bet you Eddie “idiot” Jordan will backtrack soon or later.

I was quite saddened to read that author Dick Francis has passed away aged 89. He was famous for his horse racing-based crime novels. We have read a lot of his books and even have a signed copy of “Shattered”.

Recently I have been listening to “Wild horses” and “Decider” in audio. He was a good writer and a brilliant story teller. His style and knowledge of the horse racing world was second to none!

Fortunately he wrote almost 40 novels so we’ll be reading / listening for many years to come.

Rest in peace Dick Francis!

If Hollywood can make Morgan Freeman look young, he could be the next Tiger Woods movie. There must be enough content on Tiger now for a good film.

If the many rumours, news articles and image coverage are true, then we are definitely ending 2009 on a high and will start 2010 with a 41 year old, seven times world champion! Yay!!!!

I don’t want to jinx it, but there is a lot of news today on Michael Schumacher and his return to F1 next year driving in the same car that brought good fortune and luck to Jenson Button. Even Jenson Button is getting in on the action by saying “Schumacher will be putting his reputation on line“. Totally nonsense of course for Button to think that. He is just scared like the rest of the drivers.

Michael Schumacher has spent the last 3 years watching Hamilton, Alonso, Massa, Vettel, Webber, Button, Barichello, Kimi race so he knows what they are about? He knows that Massa and Barichello are still number 2 drivers, he has seen that Alonso is still hungry for another championship in a Ferrari. He knows Vettel is a future champion and he knows Hamilton is a cheat and can be beaten.

It will be one hell of a year in 2010 if seven times world champion teams up with Brawn for the 3rd time and shows the youngsters once again who the real champ is?

Come on Mercedes / Brawn, Schumacher – tell us it’s true!!!!

Related News Headlines:

• Schumacher will be putting his reputation on line, warns Button
• Michael Schumacher set to return to F1 in 2010 – Yahoo
• Michael Schumacher ‘ready to sign’ for Mercedes for 2010 Formula One season – The Telegraph
• Schumacher to sign with Mercedes – The Associated Press
• Schumacher Close to Deal With Mercedes – New York Times
• Schumacher ‘not over the hill’ – Damon Hill
• £7million… and it’s all for Schu – The Sun
• Schumacher back in F1 – NZ Herald News

Jo and I went to see Snow Patrol last night at the Royal Albert Hall in London. We had a box seat on the 2nd tier, which had an awesome view of the stage. The sound in the hall was breath taking. It certainly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Normally concerts are very loud and the speakers almost pound you with sound, but that was not the case last night as the speakers in the hall are quite high up and one could hear every note clearly.

Snow Patrol as a band were amazing and belted out loads of classic songs (Open your eyes, Chasing cars, If There’s a Rocket Tie Me to It, Crack the shutters, Set fire to the third bar etc), which had the crowd clapping and singing along. They did a few cover songs as well and performed “Ray of Light” a song Madonna did in the mid nineties. I preferred their version. They also sang “One day like this”, which has been made famous by Elbow. The violinists in the photo above are from Elbow.

Gary Lightbody, the lead singer is an incredibly talented young man and funny as hell. He was talking in-between songs and often ran into the crowd to hug fans. In fact at one point he promised to hug everyone in the crowd. He came across as very sincere in his thanks to the crowd. He was clearly moved by the ocassion and kept telling the crowd what an amazing venue it was?

He said something that was quite fitting, “15 years ago I would have only dreamt of standing here in this fine hall, let alone be playing to a crowd of people“, and it’s so true (well not the playing to a crowd part). 15 years ago Jo and I would have been in South Africa only dreaming of visiting the Royal Albert Hall. It is a very special place and we would recommend it to anyone who has never been. We saw Counting Crows here a few years back and that too was very special.

Certainly one of the best concerts we’ve seen.

Here is a really cool catchy song by Per Håkan Gessle also known as SON OF A PLUMBER. He is also the same guy from the band Roxette & Gyllene Tider. A truly talented guy and one of Swedens most famous artist.

Monday
Jo-Anna spends an hour with her magazine
The day is kinda grey and so lazy
She goes ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…
And hey boy
Jo-Anna’s in the mirror in her dressing gown
Talking to a friend who lives uptown
She goes ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…

My love… and beyond
Oh, I wish she was
My love… and beyond

Jo-Anna says – I’m not the only one
Jo-Anna says – I’ll never be the one
But when she smiles there’s something in her eyes
That tells me I’m not like the other guys
Jo-Anna says – I have to give it time
Jo-Anna says – you just gotta make up my mind
Jo-Anna says – I have to wait in the line
And come back tomorrow

Monday
Sitting in a window in a cheap hotel
Lighting up the room with a candle, candle, candle
I go ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…
Hey boy
She says that I’m a mess any given day
But laughs as she leaves for a party
I go ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…

Jo-Anna says – I’m not the only one
Jo-Anna says – I’ll never be the one
But when she smiles there’s something in her eyes
That tells me I’m not like the other guys
Jo-Anna says – I have to give it time
Jo-Anna says – you just gotta make up my mind
Jo-Anna says – I have to stand in the line
And come back tomorrow yeah
Ummmmm na na na

Oh oh oh oh
Hey Jo-Anna
Oh oh oh oh…

My love… and beyond
Oh, I wish she was
My love… and beyond, beyond

Jo-Anna says – I’m not the only one
Jo-Anna says – I’ll never be the one
But when she smiles there’s something in her eyes
That tells me I’m not like the other guys
Jo-Anna says – I have to give it time
Jo-Anna says – you just gotta make up my mind
Jo-Anna says – I have to stand in the line
And come back tomorrow, yeah

I’m not the only one
I’ll never be the one
Hey hey Jo-Anna, uh uh uh uh…

Jo-Anna says – I have to give it time
Jo-Anna says – you just gotta make up my mind
Jo-Anna says – I have to stand in the line
And come back tomorrow oh oh oh oh

Jo-Anna says
Jo-Anna says
I never be the one
Jo-Anna says
Hey Jo-Anna
Hey Jo-Anna
Jo-Anna says
Yea yea yea yeaaaah
Jo-Anna says