August 2010 Archives

The sun is shining, Love Me Do is ringing around the rooftops of Tithebarn Street, and all is right with the world - until it all gets a bit lairy later that is.
Mathew Street appears to be being blessed by good weather this year and the crowds are out in force.

I see for the first time, this year the John Moores Contemporary Arts Prize will be announced live on the Internet.
The online event will take place on Thursday September 16
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/johnmooreslive, with the announcement taking place at 6.30pm.
But don't forget, the Echo will also be revealing the winner online at 6.30pm on its website www.liverpoolecho.co.uk as we will have had the results (embargoed of course) from lunchtime the same day!

I see the RLPO has garnered five star reviews for its performance of Wagner's mighty opera Parsifal in Santiago di Compostela last night. Bravo!
Apparently the audience included a number of well-known Spanish figures including the 'conselleiro of culture', Roberto Varela; the c'onselleira of economy', Marta Fernández Currás and the mayor of Santiago José Antonio Sánchez Bugallo.

I missed last week's press night for Hairspray (and Herbert's party afterwards at the Liner Hotel) but was keen to see the show.
So I popped in on Monday and had a great night out which, for once, I wasn't actually working at......I've forgotten what it's like to watch something without scribbling in a notepad.

You wait ages for one set of Beatles images and then two come along together on the same day. Typical!
I haven't seen the shots down at the Beatles Story on the Pier Head yet, I plan to pop down for a look later today.
But yesterday I spent time with the delightful Astrid Kirchherr who took me around her Retrospective show at the Victoria Gallery & Museum in Brownlow Hill.

I hope you have been able to have a look at the handful of images from Astrid Kirchherr in today's Echo.
They are just a small selection of hundreds which are either going on show at Liverpool University's Victoria Gallery & Museum from Wednesday, or can be seen in the glossy catalogue which is bound to fly off the shelves.

The rain in Spain? Seems to be mainly in Liverpool frankly - there was an audible groan on our flight from Madrid last night when the pilot announced it was 16C and raining.
A handful of us returned from San Sebastian (via the Spanish capital) yesterday, while the rest of the orchestra travelled by bus to Santander for another concert last night.

Well, the first night of the RLPO's two concerts in San Sebastian seemed to go pretty well...in fact some members of the audience broke into spontaneous applause after the opening movement of Shostakovich's Fifth.
I suspect that's not the Spanish way though as they got almost hissed at by the rest of the crowd which was a strange sound to hear!

Apologies to all you apparently waterlogged in Liverpool but it is scorchio here in San Sebastian where I arrived last night with the RLPO.
The first concert of the tour is two hours away and I'm taking the chance for a brief catch-up of my blog.

I hope a few of you may have read my 50th anniversary of the Beatles in Hamburg piece in today's Echo.
One thing I omitted, for space reasons really although we are of course a family paper too, was the flaming prophylactics incident which got Paul McCartney and Pete Best deported from Germany the first time they visited.