Tag Archives: London 2012

2012 ➤ A stream of audio Gold on Absolute Radio’s Spandathon

Posted on 13 Aug 2012 | Leave a comment

David Tennant: gives Gold a Bardish lilt

❚ TUNE IN TODAY FROM 6am for Absolute Radio’s Spandathon: the Breakfast Show with Christian O’Connell will play Gold by Spandau Ballet 29 times, once for each gold medal won by Team GB at the London 2012 Olympic Games. That works out at an hour and half of Gold between 6 and 10am (BST), during which time we can expect to hear some unusual versions such as an operatic one by Joanne McGahon, a spoken reading by actor David Tennant in tribute to Andy Murray’s Olympic triumph, a karaoke version by athlete Kriss Akabusi and another version whistled. Medallists will be interviewed live between each play.

Vocalist Tony Hadley will be on the show singing the track live at 8am, and as a bonus songwriter Gary Kemp will be joining the team live on air from 9am. (Does this amount to a Spandau reunion?) Absolute Radio is also appealing for listeners to join in by recording and uploading their own versions online – details here.

➢ How to listen to the Absolute Spandathon across the globe on air, online and via satellite

➢ Catch up after Aug 13 with Absolute Radio’s podcast (though it may it an age to load!)

UPDATE: HEAR THREE BRILLIANT NEW VERSIONS OF GOLD

❏ Big Tone Hadley excels himself with his best-ever version, broadcast live today:

❏ Actor David Tennant renders Gold in Shakespearean mode during today’s live interview with Gary Kemp:

❏ Diva Joanne McGahon turns Gold into an operatic aria:

Joanne McGahon at Absolute Radio: giving a thrilling diva version of Gold this morning

➢ For anybody wanting to see a video of the Spandathon: Tony Hadley sings his first epic Olympian version of Gold on today’s Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show

SUNDAY NIGHT AT TEAM GB HOUSE, OUR MEDALLISTS SING ALONG WITH LAUGHING-BOY HADDERS

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➢ Gary Kemp “Chuffed to bits” about his unofficial anthem

➢ Come on, Tone! Only another 142 chart places until musical Gold!

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Posted in London, Media, Pop music

Tagged Absolute Radio, David Tennant, Gary Kemp, Gold, Interview, Joanne McGahon, Kriss Akabusi, London 2012, Olympics, Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley

2012 ➤ Come on, Tone! Only another 142 chart places until musical Gold!

Posted on 3 Aug 2012 | Leave a comment

Metro, newspaper, Spandau Ballet, Gold, Absolute Radio

Aug 3, 2012: Today’s Metro, the free city newspaper

❚ THIS MORNING’S METRO NEWSPAPER in the UK reports Spandau Ballet’s 1983 chart hit Gold moving up the UK iTunes Top 200 Chart from 165 to 143, also trending on Twitter, while, thanks to Team GB, two Gold slots were filled on the Absolute Radio “Tonyliser”. Somebody manning the signal beacon back at Spandau Towers still has a knack for PR!

➢ Check progress on the Tonyliser in the Team GB Spandathon – For every gold medal Team GB win, Absolute Radio will play Spandau Ballet’s Gold that many times on the Breakfast Show of Monday August 13.

➢ July 6 update: Gold has shot up to No 6 in the iTunes UK Rock Chart

➢ One Direction should have closed the Olympic opening ceremony, according to Tony Hadley: “They’re our biggest export at the moment, pure pop.” However, The Sun’s Gordon Smart disagrees, Aug 3: “Macca is one of Britain’s biggest living legends. Everything about the ceremony was spot on.”

➢ Latest official news from Spandau Towers

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Posted in London, Pop music

Tagged Gold, London 2012, Olympics, Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley

2012 ➤ Ding-dong! Martin Creed wants to hear the bells, the bells

Posted on 27 Jul 2012 | Leave a comment

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❚ “THIS WORK CONSISTS OF trying to ring all of the bells in the whole of Britain for three minutes, as loudly and as quickly as possible for three minutes, and that includes all types of bells that you can find. I don’t know which notes are the best ones, I think it’s best just to try and to ring them all at once… It totally relies on people to make it happen.”

Martin CREED, Work No 79,Sala Alcalá, Madrid ,exhibition

Martin Creed’s Work No 79 from 1993: Some Blu-Tack kneaded, rolled into a ball, and depressed against a wall

So says Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed, promoting his mass participation project, Work No 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes.

He has been specially commissioned as part of the London 2012 Festival to help mark the first day of the London 2012 Olympics today at 08:12. If you have a smartphone you can use the Shake & Play feature at All The Bells.

UPDATE: THIS WAS THE RESULT …

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❏ Here’s the world premiere of Martin Creed’s All The Bells on board HMS Belfast, moored on the Thames. For three minutes from 8.12 this morning, hundreds of thousands of people across the UK rang bells, while HMS Belfast fired its cannons and 300 children rang bells accompanied by Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary and Channel 4’s Jon Snow. The ships of the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary across the world also rang their bells. Quel ding-dong!

➢ Earlier this month Creed talked to Dazed Digital about his debut EP out on cult label Moshi Moshi

➢ All about Martin Creed

➢ In performance: Creed takes to the stage with his inimitable band at Tate Modern in 2006. “It is a talk about trying to talk,” he said

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Posted in Culture, London, Media

Tagged All The Bells, Art, Cultural Olympiad, London 2012, Martin Creed, music

➤ Spandau’s Gold enlisted to sell chocolate and boost the Olympic spirit

Posted on 25 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ ON NOV 28 SPANDAU BALLET’S 1983 chart hit Gold is re-released as an iTunes download newly remixed by superstar trance deejay Paul Oakenfold. But there’s a twist involving 20 fans who stepped up to the mike to record the chorus of the song that has echoed throughout sporting arenas the world over.

In 1981, Cadbury launched its Wispa chocolate bar with bubbles as a competitor to Rowntree’s Aero. Now that Cadbury is the Official Treat Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the bar is relaunched as Wispa Gold with caramel, retailing at 56 pence. The London 2012 Games offer a billion-pound retail opportunity that is unlike anything Britain has experienced before and a quarter of these sales are likely to be made in the final months of this year. When 25m Brits watched the recent Royal Wedding, total revenue hit £50m, so retailers are keen to capitalise on London 2012.

Cadbury is investing £8m in an advertising and sponsorship campaign plus another £1.5m on marketing, all aiming to support Team GB ahead of the 2012 Olympics with the slogan Keep Them Pumped.

Gold (pop song), Spandau Ballet, Paul Oakenfold, music video,remix,London 2012, Olympic Games,

Fan, commuter bike, shoelaces: all gilded ready for the video of the remixed Gold

Six of pop’s greatest power training anthems have been re-recorded as campaign soundtracks to encourage athletes preparing for the July Games. New music videos have been shot for The Final Countdown, Simply the Best, Danger Zone while an epic video for We Will Rock You [below] has enlisted more than 200 inhabitants of Merthyr Tydfil to cheer on their Olympic hockey player Sarah Thomas.

Spandau’s sleek and glitteringly golden video for the Oakenfold remix features Team GB athlete and BMX champion Shanaze Reade, plus the 120 fans selected in online auditions who then came into the studio to give full voice to the chorus. Below, we see one of them definitely getting into the Olympic spirit. “The song will be equally at home in the charts as it will in the clubs,” reckons the optimistic sax player Steve Norman. Oakenfold has one word for it: “floor-filler”.

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➢ Spandau’s own website is offering a new Gold 2012 range of hats, T-shirts and other merchandise