HOT: Bunburied Alive
The first ever Bunbury Music Festival along Cincinnati’s Sawyer Point Park was a big success, with organizers estimating three-day attendance totals at around 50,000. One of the smoothest run festivals you’ll ever attend, Bunbury brought the masses to the Ohio River banks for sets by headliners like Weezer and Death Cab for Cutie, solid up-and-comers and a slew of the Cincy area’s best artists. The fest will return next year and I pray the big idea founder Bill Donabedian told me about comes to fruition — a “side stage” on a barge in the river. Visit citybeat.com for reviews, wrap-ups, photos and more from Bunbury.
WARM: Def Rewind
Def Leppard is banking on many of its fans being partially deaf, because, singer Joe Elliott told NPR, the band is re-recording its entire back catalog in hopes of passing it off as the originals. Because the band’s original contract was signed in 1979 (when the word “digital” at best referred to cutting edge wristwatches) and they’ve been unable to reach an agreement on digital royalties, the group is re-recording “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and about 180 other tunes to get people to buy their self-released self-covers online, resulting in big profits for Def Leppard (the band has been one of iTunes biggest hold-outs). Elliott said he wants it to be as if someone bought a $20 million Picasso and only found out years later it was a phony. Which, one would think, would infuriate the purchaser.
COLD: Pulling the Plug on Giants
It seems obvious, but apparently it needs to be reiterated — if your music festival is closing with Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen jamming Beatles tunes, don’t shut off the power to avoid breaking curfew. Pay the fine! When Sir Paul and The Boss were rolling through “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout” at London’s Hard Rock Calling, organizers pulled the plug on the legends mid-jam, citing a 10:30 p.m. noise curfew. In an email to The Wall Street Journal, the promoter’s European COO defended the decision, saying they let things run over a whole 10 minutes, but shut it down because it seemed they were “gearing up for an extended Beatles medley.” Besides, the COO wrote, “Being thrown off the stage added legend to the myth.” Dick.
