Coldplay Hit Number One

Coldplay have reached the top of the charts this week, not only in the US, but also in the UK and Australia. Even before hard copy albums are on sale in the US and UK, they were still the most downloaded artist, giving them top berth. Tickets can be found at www.concert-ticketdeals.com

The British rockers are preparing for a world wide tour over the summer, and you can catch them in Chicago on 22nd and 23rd July 2008.

Neil Diamond plays New York: tickets still available

Neil Diamond has added an additional show to his New York section of his tour this summer. It will be another Hot August Night, here in New York City, as one of our favourite sons returns to perform his magic. His tour across North America begins on July 19th in St. Paul, MN and takes him to 37-cities. In New York City, his shows are playing at the Madison Square Gardens, Tuesday 12 August, Thursday 14 August, Friday 15 and Saturday 16 August. Great tickets are still available from www.concert-ticketdeals.com but they are selling fast.

Neil Diamond Tickets New York, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 7:00 PM – View tickets here!

Neil Diamond Tickets New York, Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 at 7:00 PM – View tickets here!

Neil Diamond Tickets New York, Friday, August 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM – View tickets here!

Neil Diamond Tickets New York, Saturday August 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM - View tickets here!

Neil Diamond Tickets Albany, New York, Wed, August 20, 8:00PM - View tickets here!

Neil is certainly one of the most popular songwriters and performers of the modern era. With hits from the 1960s to the 1980s, and still recording albums, he has a loyal army of Diamond fans that reminisce with him.

He opened his European leg of the tour on 25 May 2008. His Rotterdam set list included:

One More Bite Of The Apple/Holly Holy (from Home Before Dark, 2008/
Touching Me, Touching You, 1969)
Street Life (from Beautiful Noise, 1976)
Beautiful Noise (from Beautiful Noise, 1976)
Lady Oh (from Beautiful Noise, 1976)
If You Know What I Mean (from Beautiful Noise, 1976)
Cherry Cherry (from The Feel Of Neil Diamond, 1966)
Thank The Lord For The Nighttime (from Just For You, 1967)
Hello Again (from The Jazz Singer, 1980)
Love On The Rocks (from The Jazz Singer, 1980)
Home Before Dark (from Home Before Dark, 2008
Don't Go There (from Home Before Dark, 2008)
Pretty Amazing Grace (from Home Before Dark, 2008)
Crunchy Granola Suite (from Stones, 1971)
Done Too Soon (from Tap Root Manuscript, 1970)
Forever in Blue Jeans (from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, 1978)
Brooklyn Roads (from Velvet Gloves and Spit, 1968)
I Am I Said (from Stones, 1971)
Solitary Man (from The Feel Of Neil Diamond, 1966)
I'm A Believer (from Just For You, 1967)
You Don't Bring Me Flowers (from You Don't Bring Me Flowers, 1978)
Song Sung Blue (from Moods, 1972)
Man Of God (from 12 Songs, 2005)
Hell Yeah (from 12 Songs, 2005)
Sweet Caroline (from Brother Loves Traveling Salvation Show, 1969)
Cracklin' Rosie (from Tap Root Manuscript, 1970)
America (from The Jazz Singer, 1980)
Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show (from Brother Loves Traveling Salvation Show, 1969)

A New Star is Born In the Heights

It was a blockbuster-free zone when the Tony awards arrived this year with all the usual red-carpet excitement and promise. The winner of the Best Musical was “In the Heights”, a joyous celebration about chasing the American Dream and lottery winnings in Upper Manhattan Latino families. With its salsa-inspired rap numbers, and dynamic dancers and music, the show has been a hit amongst theater goers and critics alike.

Written and conceived by 28 year old Lin-Manuel Miranda while he was in college, the show features Miranda taking center stage, bounding around dynamically and punching out the rap-dialogue in a style many musical goers may be unaccustomed. And when taking the stage to accept his award he continued the style telling the audience “I used to dream about this moment, now I’m in it,” “Tell the conductor to hold the baton a minute.” And with a nod to Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim, Miranda raps: “Look, Mr. Sondheim, I made a hat where there never was a hat and it’s a Latin hat at that.”

Miranda’s show is a window into modern Latino culture, perhaps with a positive spin, but a window nonetheless. His first Broadway show, Miranda wrote the score and all of the songs, as well as playing the lead role. He simply lights up the stage with a dazzling display and draws the viewer in. The show played off-Broadway for a season. The music is bright and vibrant and very modern. “In the Heights” also won awards for the score, orchestrations and choreography.

With no major blockbuster show taking all the awards this year, the prizes were shared around. Winners in the recent past such as Jersey Boys and Wicked are still playing to packed houses around Broadway. The revival musical “South Pacific” picked up seven wins including best revival and best actor — for the lead, Paulo Szot — in addition to four design awards and an award for best director, Bartlett Sher.

Other winners were:

Best play: August: Osage County
Best revival of a musical: South Pacific
Best performance by a leading actor in a musical: Paulo Szot, South Pacific
Best performance by a leading actress in a musical: Patti LuPone, Gypsy

The 62nd annual Tony Awards was hosted by com0edian and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg. Around 790 people from the theater industry -- from actors, to directors to journalists -- vote for the Tony Awards. The Tony Awards were established in 1947 and are named after Atoinette Perry, whose nickname was Toni. Perry, who died in 1946, was an actress, stage director and philanthropist.

Spamalot tickets available in New York

Delivering in the spirit of the much loved “cult” movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Monty Python’s Spamalot has been delighting the crowds on Broadway since its first show in March 2005. The story takes a lot of licence on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the spoof musical parodies all and sunder in its quest to bring the crowds to their knees in laughter. It pokes fun and laughs at the Arthurian legend and quaint old English mannerisms, and has a go at that great tradition that we love dearly: the Broadway musical!

There are lots of familiar references to Python offerings from the seventies that make it to the stage including ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, with nods to “the Lumberjack Song” and “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch and the “Dead Parrot” sketch. Monty Python fans will love it and will relive some fond memories, and new audiences, unfamiliar with Monty Python, will gain a new appreciation of the peculiar British humour that is Monty Python.

Further lampooning targets in the show include a Lloyd Webber-esque power ballad “The Song Goes Like This” and a “Boy From Oz” style dance number “His Name is Lancelot”. Yentl and The Producers get an honourable dig the song “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway”.

Monty Python’s Spamalot received 14 Tony Award nominations, more than any other show in the 2004–2005 season. It won three awards:
• Best Musical
• Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Sara Ramirez)
• Best Direction of a Musical (Mike Nichols)

All ages will love this show and you are not going to want to miss the chance to see this musical! It has recently finished a successful season in Melbourne, Australia, and the final date is already scheduled in London’s West End for early 2009. Whether you are a Monty Python fan and will know all the jokes within this musical, or if you just love a good night of laughs and great music, then this is the show for you! Make sure you get your friends and family together - because you always need someone to rehash a joke with you!

Monty Python’s Spamalot is showing now at the Shubert Theatre, 225 W 44th Street ,New York, NY 10036

Madonna tickets in Los Angeles

Yes you can get Madonna tickets in Los Angeles

Madonna’s 2008 Sticky and Sweet tour is packing out stadiums across Europe, in readiness for her tour that will be unleashed here in October. Her shows have been selling well, and many shows are near sell-outs. In Los Angeles, her only show is scheduled for 6 November 2008 and will be held at Dodger Stadium, and if you act quickly you can snare some tickets at reasonable prices.

Her latest album, Hard Candy, debuted at number one across the globe, has been dominating the charts since it's release on April 25, 2008. The Queen of Pop’s album features vocal appearances by today's hottest pop artists such as Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. The producers of the album are the highly respected Timbaland and Pharrell Williams who receive both performance and production credits on the album.

And what are we to expect in LA? It will be the usual stunning array of music, stage antics, dancing and a song list that goes back to 1984!! During her Paris show, always the one to stir up a bit of controversy, Madonna tried a bit of push-it-to-the-edge sexual antics by kissing one of the female dancers, or one of the female audience members. Swigging champagne bottle she yelled at the crowd “Who do you love more, me or the Rolling Stones?”

The Material Girl always puts on an amazing concert, and this is one show not to be missed. Her current single with Justin Timberlake has hit the top of the charts all around the world. It seems the world can’t get enough of this amazing lady, half way through her third decade of constantly reinventing herself and of being a superstar. And her catalogue of songs is awesome including “Like a Prayer”, “Vogue”, “Get into the Groove” and “Holiday”.

M Paul is a mad Madonna fan and runs the ticket selling site www.concert-ticketdeals.com To get those hard-to-get tickets to see Madonna in Los Angeles, follow this link.

American Idol sets alight the digital download

America’s favorite show American Idol has finished and the outcome has been decided, and we knew David was going to win it – we just weren’t sure which one. In the end it was by a considerable margin, with 12 million votes, or 56 percent of the vote, and David Cook came out the clear winner of American Idol season 2008. The season finale was watched by 32 million viewers.

And to think that David Cook wasn’t even going to try out for Idol. It was his brother and an American Idol producer who talked him into going through with the audition. He grew up outside Kansas City, MO, and works as a barman, playing gigs around Tulsa, Okla. He has the experience of a small-show rock performer, and over the course of the series showed his versatility and style with a number of excellent renditions of well known rock/pop songs from artists as diverse as Michael Jackson (“Billie jean”), Collective Soul (“The World I Know”) and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”.

Already, David Cook’s marketability is on display and he is moving product. His first release-proper “The Night of My Life” debuted on the Billboard Top 100 at number 3 and number 1 on the digital download list. A couple of the songs he has sung throughout the show also show up in the Hot Digital Tracks chart, including his version of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Dream Big”. It is a truly great thing to see that even songs that have not even been officially recorded or released can show up on the national charts.

Downloads went mad after the finale. Undercover.com reports that 1.5 million digital sales were generated following the finale of American Idol. And that wasn’t just for the American Idol stable of performers. David Cook sold 942,000 downloads, with second place getter David Archuletta selling 323,000 downloads. Guests on the final show also benefited from the exposure, with George Michael selling 83,000 tracks last week. Carrie Underwood sold 64,000 units, while ZZ Top's 'Sharp Dressed Man' was downloaded 14,000 times. Collective Soul's 'The World I Know' had a 1000% increase, selling 23,000 sales. OneRepublic's 'Apologize' sold 40,000 units. It did 6000 the previous week.

And what of the vanquished? Coming runner up in American idol is hardly a sentence to anonymity and a quick resumption of one’s former life. Seventeen year-old piano balladeer David Archuleta had a number of excellent performances in the final few shows of the series. Many tipped him as the eventual winner. The judges certainly thought he had the goods. But the voting public preferred the more confident Cook. Archuleta will join his top 12 colleagues for the 54 date tour across the nation through the summer. A seasoned performer will emerge, and it is a sure thing that we haven’t heard the end of David Archuleta.

The American Idol Live concert tour kicks off on July 1 in Glendale, AZ. Tickets are available from www.concert-ticketdeals.com

Don’t miss the excitement of the 2008 American Idol series as it comes to a city near you. Tickets are still available to most shows. M. Paul is a music fan and runs the ticket selling service www.concert-ticketdeals.com