What's The Guru Listening To? --- November Edition

Welcome to the November Edition of What’s the Guru Listening To? I get asked this question a lot. What am I currently enjoying and what would I recommend? And since time is severely limited these days, it gets harder and harder to post a full review of the outstanding music that I am discovering (or re-discovering). Therefore, every month I will fill you in on the latest song, album, and/or band that I am obsessed with.

Here's what The Guru is listening to this month:

Brian Fallon – Forget Me Not

Brian Fallon, former lead singer for the band that is on indefinite hiatus, The Gaslight Anthem, is gearing up to release his second solo record Sleepwalkers. That record will be released in February of next year, but Fallon has gifted us with the first single, “Forget Me Not.” It is an amazing, hand clapping, foot stomping, bar rocking song that I can’t get enough of. The song is magnificent and I recommend that anyone reading this give the song a listen right now. You will not be disappointed and you may have just discovered your new favorite song. I cannot wait for the entire album to come out this February.

Pop Evil – Waking Lions

Like Brian Fallon, Pop Evil will also be releasing a brand-new record in February. Their fifth release is going to be a self-titled record and the lead single, “Waking Lions” is available now. I’m sure that I say this every time Pop Evil puts out something new, but “Waking Lions” could be their best song yet. It’s a heavy, hard rocking anthem that I absolutely love. Pop Evil has never let me down and each time I learn that they are coming out with new music I get extremely excited. Waking Lions is another masterpiece that is bound to climb to the top of the hard rock charts and be another gem for Pop Evil. 

Count On Me – Default

I was listening to Tune In Radio one evening (I don’t remember which station, but I know it was one from Canada) when this song came on. I had pretty much forgotten about Default after their debut album, so it was nice to realize that they released a few more records after that. “Count On Me” is a spectacular song that left me wondering why I hadn’t paid more attention to this band since their initial CD. I’m sure that will change now. I’ve listened to “Count On Me” quite a bit this month and I anticipate that I will be listening to all of Defaults’ releases over the next few weeks. They are a great band that I let slip away, but now I am ready to embrace them once again.

Iron Maiden – Book Of Souls: Live Chapter

Iron Maiden was kind enough to bless us with an early holiday treat this month, The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter. As has been the case with most of their previous albums since the return of Bruce Dickinson, Maiden released a live album from the tour of the previous studio album. In this case, it was the Book Of Souls Tour. The songs captured on the live album are taken from several stops on their world tour including Europe, North America, and South America. Sadly, there are no cuts from the USA stops, but that’s all right. It’s still live Maiden which means it’s good enough to add to the collection. This round of live material includes six songs from The Book Of Souls, an exceptional live version of “Children Of The Damned,” and an incredible “Fear Of The Dark,” which was recorded in Brazil. Those of you that prefer to see your Iron Maiden instead of hearing your Iron Maiden need not fear: there is also a Blu Ray release available. And either would make an awesome holiday gift for the metal lover in your life.

Classic Holiday Music

I will be the first to admit that it is a little early to break out the Christmas music, but I couldn’t seem to help myself! I love this time of the season when the year is coming to a close, the holidays are upon us, the Thanksgiving Feast is ready to be served and the joy of the Christmas season is all around. Normally I wait until the Monday after Thanksgiving to play the Christmas tunes, but I got bit early this year by the holiday song bug. And the classic holiday tracks also seem to relax me and fill me with joy. This month I’ve listened to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and “Good King Wenceslas,” “Must Be Santa” by Mitch Miller, “Home For The Holidays” by Perry Como, and “Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” and “Silver Bells” by Andy Williams. I know that next month I will listen to Holiday songs almost exclusively, but they sound pretty grand in November too! 

Comments are open. Feel free to post some. 

Summer Concert Season Is Heating Up This Winter

It may be winter according to the calendar and the weather, but judging by all the ticket sales announcements, it is definitely time for summer! The major festivals have announced their lineups, the major acts have announced their tours, and the tickets have gone on sale. So what tours are the best ones to check out this summer? Let’s take a walk through some of the upcoming summer tours and find out.  

Billy Joel

Technically it’s not a tour. Billy Joel will continue his residency at Madison Square Garden giving his monthly performance that constantly sells out. When he started this residency, Joel stated that he would perform a monthly show as long as the tickets sell. Well, sell they have. All of his performances at the Garden have sold out, although there are a smattering of seats left for the May and June shows as of this writing. He is bound to add July and August dates, so if you plan to visit NYC this summer, this is a show worth checking out.

Ticket Prices: $66 - $129

Tour Dates: June, July, August (1 show per month, July and August have yet to be confirmed)

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

While The Dave Matthews Band announced a hiatus for this year, that apparently doesn’t apply to Dave Matthews himself. He and Tim Reynolds are heading out for a full blown Dave and Tim tour. The Dave and Tim tour is just that---Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds on stage each with an acoustic guitar playing a multitude of songs. A lot of songs from Dave’s solo album are played during these shows. Tim Reynolds also gets to perform a couple of instrumentals. And while I’ve seen the Dave Matthews Band live 20 times, I’ve never seen Dave and Tim. That’s going to change this summer.

Ticket Prices: $50 - $100

Tour Dates: May 3^rd – June 17^th

Def Leppard, Poison, Tesla

Most fans thought they would never see Poison live again after their last tour. There was a lot of band fighting, Bret Michaels went solo for a couple of years, and the band members didn’t speak to each other. It was pretty evident that the band was done and their performances would only live on in our memories and on the internet. Then Def Leppard announced they were touring again and bringing Poison out on the road with them. Since they are the middle act (Tesla opens the night) I imagine they will have a limited set, but they should perform for almost an hour. And then Def Leppard comes out to close out the night. Tesla, Poison, and Def Leppard. It’s an 80s metal head dream line up!

Ticket Prices: $28 - $138

Tour Dates: April 8^th – June 25^th

Iron Maiden

Up the irons! Iron Maiden is returning to the United States this summer in continued support of their latest masterpiece, The Book Of Souls. If you have never seen the band in concert, I urge you to do so. Iron Maiden is one of the best live bands I’ve ever witnessed and their 2008 concert at the IZOD center (LINK) will most likely be in my top 10 concerts of all time (if I ever get around to writing that post). Their showmanship, dedication to their craft, and overall awesomeness of their music practically makes them a must see.

Ticket Prices: $40 - $125

Tour Dates: June 3^rd – July 21^st

Queen with Adam Lambert

Queen has toured with Adam Lambert before and from what I’ve heard the shows were spectacular. Not many performers can hit the range of Freddy Mercury, but Lambert can and does from what I’ve heard. This summer they will be back on tour again playing arenas all over the U.S. And while John Deacon will not be on tour with the band (due to his retirement), Brian May and Roger Taylor will be. This is the first time the three have toured together since 2014. On their last tour they played nothing but the mega-hits of Queen and there is no reason to expect anything different this time around.

Ticket Prices: $50 - $175

Tour Dates: June 23^rd – August 5^th

Train with O.A.R.

Train has a new album out and it’s pretty good. (LINK) This summer they will be on tour supporting their latest record and they are bringing two well-known acts with them to get the night started. Natasha Bedingfeld and O.A.R. will be the opening acts for Train. The tour consists of mostly amphitheaters and tickets are reasonably priced for an actual seat. Lawn seats are dirt cheap, but you know, you’d have to be on the lawn. I’ve never seen Train live, but I know how great O.A.R. is in concert. This could definitely be a show worth checking out this summer.

Ticket Prices: $33 - $80

Tour Dates: May 12^th – July 15^th

U2

U2 will be embarking on a stadium tour this summer, but they aren’t going out on just any old tour. This summer the band will be performing their signature album The Joshua Tree in its entirety. It will be their first tour in two years, and their first stadium tour in six years. And while I do enjoy seeing the band in an arena setting, they can also perform stadiums with the best of them. Tickets for most shows have already sold out, but depending on where you live, there are tickets available for the second night on the 2 night stands.

Ticket Prices: $35 - $280

Tour Dates: May 12^th – Aug 1^st

What concerts are you looking forward to this summer?

Iron Maiden Returns To North America This Summer

Tickets go on sale this Friday. Get some!

ACS And Ed Force One Complete Their Part In Iron Maiden's World Tour

Over the last four months legendary rock band, Iron Maiden, has been flying around the world on their The Book of Souls tour on what is probably the coolest ‘tour bus’ ever – a customised Jumbo Jet, captained by their lead singer, Bruce Dickinson. The B747 completed its final leg after landing in Gothenburg on June 16^th.

Towards the end of last year Air Charter Service received the interesting charter request: the client required a customised B747-400 for four months, to fly 48 sectors, covering six continents and carrying 22 tonnes of cargo on each leg and with Iron Maiden’s singer flying it. The request was the first step towards creating the latest incarnation of Iron Maiden’s Ed Force One – nicknamed after the band’s mascot ‘Eddie’, whose manic image proudly adorns the tail.

Iron Maiden had experience and expertise with circumnavigation tours on the previous incarnations of Ed Force One, but these tours used a smaller B757 aircraft and were nowhere near the scale and reach of this latest project. Through Bruce Dickinson’s relationships within the aviation industry, Iron Maiden had already picked out the ideal aircraft, but the operator, Air Atlanta, decided they needed more capacity to deliver such a massively complex undertaking. So they invited Air Charter Service to join them to deal with mountain of logistics required.  

This tour presented particular challenges for all involved. After closely engaging with the band’s management team, the first thing ACS did was to assemble an experienced team to work with the aircraft’s operator, Air Atlanta, to make the thousands of necessary arrangements for the 48 legs in the 21 countries that the tour was visiting. ACS was responsible for arranging flight permissions outside of Europe and fuel as well as handling agents. Arranging such things on an ad-hoc basis is very different to a scheduled carrier who lands at the same airport at the same time every day. And at most airports, ACS had to deal with three separate companies – the cargo handlers for the 22 tonnes of stage equipment, VIP handling agents for the band and their ‘Killer Krew’, as well as regular check-in desks for anyone else that was on board. Group Commercial Director, Matt Purton, said: “We must have dealt with more than 100 different handling agents and 300 other suppliers over the course of the four months that we were involved in the tour.”

Whilst ACS was making the initial necessary arrangements, preparation of the aircraft was under way in Sharjah, UAE. Iron Maiden’s management had arranged for the aircraft to have its livery drastically modified with extra special decals along the length of the fuselage and the tail and the cabin seating was reconfigured to accommodate the band. The newly created Ed Force One then arrived at Cardiff Airport on February 17th. On arrival the aircraft interior was completely empty of supplies, so the next major job for ACS staff was a three day shopping expedition to stock the aircraft up with almost ten tonnes of day-to-day items to cover the needs of the passengers for the next four months.

Purton added: “No challenge was too big, or too small for our team – whether it was decanting liquids and unpacking sandwiches to get them through security , gaining emergency access to the aircraft to collect the band’s football kit or arranging the logistics of an Air to Air photoshoot over Table Mountain, one of our team was always on hand.”

The band’s aviation-mad frontman, Bruce Dickinson, took up flying in 1993 and so was keen to take the controls on most of the flight sectors. He was formerly captain of the (now defunct) UK charter airline Astraeus and launched Cardiff Aviation Ltd in 2012. Purton commented: “Bruce loves showing off the aircraft at every opportunity – including giving a guided tour to the crew of Air Force One when the two aircraft were both in Chicago at the same time. He also flew it to Boeing HQ at Paine Field to help them celebrate the manufacturer’s 100^th Anniversary and to take a lucky few on a tour. His interest shows no bounds, our departure in Perth, Australia, was delayed by half an hour as he was being shown around the largest aircraft in the world, the Antonov AN-225 and he’d often come straight off stage and the first thing he’d ask would be ‘what’s the fuel uplift tomorrow?’”

It was not all plane sailing though, as in Santiago di Chile, when the plane had been closed up and everyone had settled in to their hotels for the night, airport workers moving the aircraft were involved in an incident involving a loose steering pin and an airport tug, which saw damage occur to two engines and the undercarriage as well as injury to two workers present as the tug was crushed. Suddenly Ed Force One was grounded but of course the show must go on, one way or another. Within hours, Iron Maiden’s management, Air Atlanta, Rock-It Cargo and ACS all pulled together to make the necessary arrangements including alternative charters to take the band to the next show in Argentina, a charter and some scheduled seats were found for Iron Maiden’s ‘Killer Krew’ and the 20 plus tons of stage equipment and production was trucked successfully over a difficult pass through the Andes Mountains over the border into Cordoba. Alternative transport had to be rapidly arranged for the Argentine and Brazilian shows. Two massive new engines, engineers, parts, cowlings and tools were flown in from Europe, and within 10 days, Ed Force One was once again ready to take to the skies. And we were all very happy to hear that the two airport workers made a full recovery.

To take a band, road crew and production equipment in a B747 around the world and into territories not previously visited by the band was ground-breaking: nothing like this had ever been attempted by anybody before. ACS worked seamlessly with Iron Maiden's Tour Management throughout, in order to meet the exacting needs of the tour logistics, concert schedule and the band and crew requirements.

And so, after 50 shows on six continents, ACS’s involvement in the tour comes to an end and we bid a fond farewell to the latest incarnation of Ed Force One. Purton concluded: “This is one of the most complicated world tours ever, and it ran pretty smoothly – apart from the incident in Chile. We’d like to thank Iron Maiden, Air Atlanta and all our other partners involved in the tour and feel privileged to have been part of a great team making sure over a million fans got to see their idols play live.”

Bruce and the rest of Iron Maiden continue to tour Europe, finishing up in Germany on 4^th August.