Music
Quiz – What Year Was This Song Released? #2
See how many you can guess – without Googling for the answers!
[QUIZZIN 3]
99 Luft Ballons
Who thought a song sung in German would be so popular? The group Nena, with their sexy lead singer of the same name released this protest song in 1983.
Luftballon is German for air balloon, and an English version of the song (called 99 Red Balloons) was released in 1984. The English version, however, is not a direct translation of the original. In fact the lyrics are quite different.
Both the German and English versions tell about two children who buy 99 balloons at a toy shop and release them into the air, and faulty radar equipment is unable to identify the balloons. The government immediately put their troops on red alert, and sends fighter jets to intercept which ends up triggering a nuclear war between East and West.
Nena was born Gabriele Susanne Kerner on March 24 1960 in West Germany. She started dating actor Benedict Freitag soon after the band separated in 1987. The couple had 3 children together, with the first was born disabled due to alleged medical mistakes during the birth, which caused Nena to go into cardiac arrest. The son, sadly died at the age of 11 months.
Enjoy the two versions of this classic song:
Pseudo Echo at Upstairs Beresford pics 27/10/11
One word – Awesome! I’ve been wanting to see Pseudo Echo for so many years and for various reason have missed them, but luckily not this time. They played at the Upstairs Beresford, which I must say is a really good venue and was the right size for the crowd last night.
Coming on at around 10pm, they played out a mix of songs from Autumnal Park and Love An Adventure. The ones that the crowd enjoyed in particular I think were were Destination Unknown, Listening, Living In A Dream, Lies Are Nothing and Love An Adventure.
My favourite was the encore. They did a cover of Real Life’s hit Send Me An Angel which was brilliant! Also played Funkytown which (not surprisingly) brought the house down. This led onto some snippets of other songs like Just Can’t get Enough (Depeche Mode) and Girl U Want (Devo) which were totally done adlib and well appreciated by the crowd. The concert finished just after 11.30pm.
Below are some pics taken from my iPhone (damn, should of taken my real camera).
Can’t wait until they play again up here in Sydney again. Do yourself a favour and see them if you get the chance. Their music is awesome, but live is so much better.
80s rewind festival heading to Australia
The UK-based 80s Rewind Festival is heading to Australia later this year, with the 2 day event being hosted near Wollongong (just south of Sydney) on Oct 28-30.
The line-up is amazing for all you Retro fans, including artists such as The Human League, Kool and the Gang, Sister Sledge, Bananarama, ABC, Midge Ure of Ultravox, Ross Wilson, Mental As Anything, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, Nik Kershaw, Go West, John Paul Young and Pseudo Echo.
80’s rewind is a relatively new concept(?), having started only in 2009, but it has become a hit with fans in it’s short life.
Ticket and pricing info is as follows:
BLUESCOPE FIELD, KEMBLA GRANGE
OCTOBER 28-30, 2011
Artists appearing:
Headline Act – The Human League
Support Acts – Kool and the Gang, Sister Sledge, Bananarama, ABC, Midge Ure (of Ultravox), Ross Wilson, Mental As Anything, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, Nik Kershaw, Go West, John Paul Young and Pseudo Echo.
Tickets go on sale 9.00am Monday, July 25, 2011 from Moshtix
Ticket Prices (check website for full pricing options):
(Note: prices are AUD and do not include booking fees)
Saturday or Sunday adult – $108.90
Saturday or Sunday child (12 and under) – $60.50
Weekend adult – $209
Weekend child – $110
Weekending camping adult – $60.50
Weekend camping child – $27.50