Vertically Challenged Rockstars!

I like these lists of rockstars with a common trait, and I’ve just found a list of rockstars that are under 5′ 8”. There are a few more that I know of so I’ll add my own to it as well.

So here’s a list of rockstars that have all been “vertically challenged” (short), some may surprise you!

Prince (5′ 2”) To those familiar with Prince, it will come as no surprise that he is one of the smallest rockstars in the world: Prince

Bono (5′ 7 1/2”) It’s pretty much common knowledge that Bono is the pint-size hero of rock n roll, although he only just falls short of 5′ 8” (which isn’t really THAT short anyway.) As the only person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, A Grammy and The Nobel Peace Prize, he may be undersized but by no means an underachiever: Bono gets Beef!

Thom Yorke (5′ 5”) The lead singer of radiohead is perhaps not as noted for being short as he has a rather more immediately noticeable physical trait, as I’m sure every radiohead fan is aware, his left eyelid droops as a result of it being closed shut at birth and the 5 subsequent operations he underwent (before he was even 6 years old!) to have it opened. Thom Yorke: “The Clock”

Angus Young (5′ 2”) The guitarist from AC/DC – now 54 years old – has always seemed to embrace his small stature by dressing like a school boy on stage. I suppose it’s a good way to make people ignore you’re child like height: dressing like a child! AC/DC Live Album

Ronnie James Dio (5′ 4”) “Dio has rocked….for a long long time.” Standing at 5′ 4” and hunched over like he is most of the time, he looks rather strikingly like a goblin in my opinion, but then, that kind of fits in with his ultra satanic power rock style of music so rock on little elf man! Ronnie James Dio recently threatened to take the band dios to court for the name similarity!

Bob Marley (5′ 7”) The Rastafarian spreader of peace was surprisingly only 5ft 7inches, although this isn’t exactly tiny, it’s still a lot smaller than you would imagine him to stand given the size of his aura and the power of his message. No Woman No Cry

Bruce Dickinson (5′ 6”) The awesome front man of Iron Maiden’s short stature is barely noticeable when he’s on stage. With the amount of theatrics and pure genuis showmanship that go into Maiden’s concerts, the lack of a few inches is no match for the power of Dickinson’s voice and stage presence. Here is an awesome collection of Iron Maiden photos

Jon Bon Jovi (5′ 5”) In my humble opinion, next to Bruce Dickinson in one of the best singing voices of all time. Again, the legendary front man’s showmanship skills overshadow his height (or lack of as the case may be!) Here’s a fairly rare Bon Jovi song that you may not have heard before.

Eddie Van Halen (5′ 4”) I think I speak for everyone when I say that whenever you watch this guy perform, eye’s rarely stray from his fingers on the fretboard, height makes no difference when you can make a guitar sound like he can. Eddie Van Halen is apparently recovering from his recent hand surgery.

So there’s the list, with a few extras added on to the end, hope you found it interesting.

Music Weekend, Kicking Kays, [inrem] (continued)

So yesterday I posted about the first live music event I attended this weekend where I went along to support my mates and their band. And then the next day I had a gig of my own, which turned out to be the most fun I’ve had playing a show in a long time, possibly ever.

So we arrived without any real hiccups, set up and sound-checked while Roger Federer and Andy Roddick were battling out in the Wimbledon final on TV which we ended up missing the end of because we went to subway. Never mind, subway was good. But anyway there’s not really a great deal to say about anything that happened before or after we played, but the other bands were alright. I’m not entirely sure what the first band was called, possibly Seethe, but I’m not sure, and they were distinctly alright I think. They were pretty much generic metal with some cool guitar bits in there but they could easily have been any other local heavy metal band on the scene, with heavy, pounding and shredding guitars and a massive guy at the front roaring down the mic, as I’ve said, they were alright, the lead singer would make a good front man on a bigger stage I reckon, but on the whole they were pretty much the same as most of the bands that we play with, relentlessly heavy tracks which you can’t really distinguish between because they’re all kind of the same.

Although they did stick in my mind more than either of the other bands, neither of whom do I know the names of but if I remember correctly they were both again, alright. When it came time for us to play I wasn’t expecting it to be anything special. Just another gig in a pub like we’ve done hundreds of before. But while we were setting up Dan (vocalist) turned round to all of us and said, “Right, I wouldn’t worry too much about being super-tight tonight, lets just give it energy up the ass crack” so when we started playing we all immediately began jumping around as usual trying to look energetic and impulsive without looking like I’m trying to look energetic and impulsive. I don’t feel like I ever look completely natural onstage, I feel like I’m just kind of moving around because everyone else is, but on Sunday night while playing that gig, in a small pub in front of about 15 people I suddenly just got lost in the music and full on went for it. I don’t think I’ve ever exuded that much energy before during a live show, but I felt like I was completely at ease and knew what I was doing.

It was the first time I’ve ever played a gig in shorts as well, and I’m not a big believer in co-incidences so I reckon it was the shorts freeing my legs that allowed me to move around so freely and naturally. Now that I’ve done that, I cannot wait for our next gig because it’s a battle of the bands final which is being headlined by Exit Avenue, one of the biggest bands still gigging locally, and it’s in a professional theatre with a stage that’s bigger than the whole pub we played in on Sunday and so now I’ve properly got my groove on, I think that gig is gonna be insane, and it’ll be nice if we win but I’ve heard all the other bands are pretty good so we’ll have to pull something special out of the bag if we want to have a good chance.

So that’s pretty much it, I had an eventful weekend and found my form while playing live onstage, we have two more band practices, then I’m away for a week and Dan is away for two weeks, then when we get back, we’ve got the final, so let’s hope that sun, sea and general merriment doesn’t erase all of our performance skill and make us forget how to play our songs lol. Although given the amount I’m planning on drinking and the overall amount of the holiday that will probably be gone from my memory by the time I get back, I wouldn’t be surprised if some other stuff went with it!

Either way, I’ll keep you up to date about who, when, why, where and what shizz goes down. X

Music Weekend, Kicking Kays, [inrem]

So this weekend was pretty musically eventful for me. Two shows in total. I only played at one of them myself but a few of my good mates are in a band and they were playing a gig in a little village called Blunham. I’d never heard of it either but it’s just outside bedford. So yeah, having been at the cinema in Bedford watching Ice Age 3 (pretty good, nothing all that special though) I decided to go straight there, which turned out to be a bad idea because we got there before the band!

It was an all day “village fete” style affair with a lorry with a side-panel missing as the stage. Given that it was a day time sort of event we all sort of guessed that my friends band (Kicking Kays) would be on at some point during the day like, six or maybe sevenish, but no, they were told when we got there that they would be on at 9 – 9:30, and considering we got there at around half past four, we had a lot of time to kill.

So we began lying on the grass in the sun watching people fly their model aeroplanes in the field next to us, which appeared to be part of the whole event. One of the model planes flew right into the power-lines and the music cut out and the bouncy castle started deflating (full of children) – hilarious. The power was only out for a short time, around 20 seconds or so, but even so, we started to think it wasn’t coming back on and I don’t actually know who it was that flew the plane into the power lines, but I bet he/she was panicking.

The power did of course come back on, and that incident with the model plane was pretty much the last eventful thing that happened while we were there, after that, the six of us decided to go for a leisurely stroll round the village of Blunham. We started wandering down some back alleys behind houses, just generally trying to pass the time, and we came across a river. We’d been walking through some woodlandish area and then we saw a river with a weir stretching out in front of us. It was pretty wide as far as little back-water village rivers go, and pretty deep, and so of course the question was, who is going to get in?

We should have all known the answer to this question as if anyone was going to get in, it was only ever going to be one person and sure enough, with the offer of £12 on the table, Danny Barton, the lead singer and guitarist in Kicking Kays was in the water and swimming about. Sam, the bassist got down into his underwear and almost went fully in, but I think decided against it as Danny looked pretty damn cold when he got out!

So, Danny was of course dripping wet having been in the river (and not seen a penny from any of us I might add) and Sam was wandering around in nothing but his boxer shorts, it was fairly obvious to passers by that they’d been in the river, but what were they going to do? There wasn’t a “no swimming” sign anywhere. Or so we thought.

On wandering to the other side of the river (there was a bridge) we saw, clear as day, a big sign with the name of the river on it (I can’t remember what it was called) and “No Fishing” and “No Swimming” in big red writing. So, given that Danny was STILL wet and Sam (for some reason) was STILL in his boxers, we thought someone was probably going to say or do something less than friendly any minute as there was pretty much a steady stream of people walking past, so we decided to head back to the field.

Upon arriving back we were still only around halfway through the wait, but nothing more of note happened, so after a LONG wait, Kicking Kays were finally on the stage, and despite a slightly dodgy guitar sound on one of the guitars, they were absolutley brilliant. They kind of have their own brand of rock, I don’t really know what to call it other than Kay Rock, but it’s almost a cross between the Foo Fighters and Kings Of Leon, although when you imagine that match it doesn’t really sound like the Kays, I don’t know, you’ll have to listen to them (myspace.com/kickingkays) they really are very good. When onstage they combine their music with their natural ability to make people laugh and all in all I’d say Kicking Kays are one of my all time favourite bands to watch live, and they’re getting lazy with their gigging and general self promotion so anyone reading this blog needs to go to their myspace and comment the hell out of it saying that they should keep at it ‘cos they’re good.

So yeah, that’s one half of my music weekend, I’ve rambled a bit more than I intended to so I’ll post about the Sunday tomorrow.

Much Love x