Yesterday's news that the Stones have released an album of material drawn from their recent Hyde Park shows reminded me to dust down this interview I did last year with Mick Jagger, which ran in our December 2012 issue. I had 25 minutes with Mick - about as long an interview as he'll do these days - ostensibly to chat about Crossfire Hurricane and GRRR!, which were both about to be released. Along the way, we chatted about fighting in train carriages, writing with Keith and whether or not Mick is comfortable watching himself on television...
Wadjda is the first full-length feature film shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia, a conservative Islamic country where women are denied civic freedoms or any public role. It’s director is Haifaa Al-Mansour, a Saudi-born female filmmaker who now lives in Bahrain. While shooting on location in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, Al-Mansour had to hide in a production van, directing her actors via walkie-talkie, because she could not publicly mix with her male crew.
We find ourselves in the wrong bar by mistake. Arriving at Hyde Park for this second London show on the Stones' 50 & Counting tour, we're issued with numerous coloured plastic wristbands that are intended to identify where we can travel around the site. There is this bar, that tier, this restaurant, these toilets... one of the first questions we're asked as we enter the site is whether we have a dinner reservation.
Nick Ferraro started out as an Elvis tribute act around his native Philadelphia in 1986. On October 19, 2009, wearing his full Vegas Elvis costume, he went to see Bruce Springsteen at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Spotting Ferraro in the crowd, Springsteen launched into “All Shook Up” before pulling him on stage to join in. As the song finished, Ferraro – perhaps enjoying his moment of glory a little too much – started singing “Blue Suede Shoes” before Springsteen politely took the mic off him, ushering him off stage with the legend, “Elvis has left the building.”
In case we need reminding, the last time Bruce Springsteen played Hard Rock Calling – at Hyde Park, last July – a curfew was broken, the PA switched off, and Springsteen and a guesting Paul McCartney were silenced mid-song. It seems unlikely there would be a repeat of such shenanigans this year.
