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Previews: Tori Amos, Destiny's Child, Royal Ballet and G4
2/ 6/2005
DESTINY'S Child members
Beyoncé, Kelly and
Michelle are the undisputed queens of R&B.
The girls are currently on a five-month worldwide tour, taking in
75 cities in 16 countries with music that produces more than its
fair share of spontaneous booty wiggling.
On Monday they will be at the MEN Arena performing tracks from
their new album Destiny Fulfilled, as well as classics like Soldier
and Survivor.
An expected combination of soaring harmonies and rhythmic beats,
with gospel and hip-hop influences, Destiny Fulfilled is their
sixth album to date and the first since a three-year break to
pursue solo careers.
The Texan group has sold more than 40 million records and another
10 million as solo artists, amassing a phenomenal 31 gold, platinum
and multi-platinum records along the way. The driving force is the
disgracefully talented and beautiful Beyoncé Knowles, who arranged
the vocals and produced all of the tracks on the new album.
Her debut solo album Dangerously in Love went multi-platinum and
earned her a record-equalling five Grammy Awards in one year.
Both Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams also enjoyed success as
solo artists and their time apart has produced more maturity in
their music together.
Beyoncé and LaTavia Roberson formed Destiny's Child in Houston when
they were just nine years old. Beyoncé's cousin Kelly Rowland
joined in 1992, followed by LeToya Luckett in 1993.
But as the group became successful in 1999 with Say My Name,
Roberson and Luckett grew resentful of the influence exerted by
Beyoncé's dad Matthew Knowles, and attempted a split.
They were as surprised as many of the fans when the video for Say
My Name premiered and they found two new members, Michelle Williams
and Farrah Franklin (who later went solo), had replaced them.
Meow.
Arena, Monday
SOME alliances are so unholy, so just plain wrong, they should
never have been allowed.
Christian rock is a prime example and there are plenty to choose
from. Take Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood at the Brits - but, for me,
topping of the list of inadvisable couplings must be pop and opera,
or Popera.
OK, so there's Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. But that's more
rock/opera and, as a one-off, it works. Popera is a different beast
and must be banned.
Reality TV rejects
G4 are coming to the Carling
Apollo in Manchester and will be using their operatic voices to
perform covers of some of the greatest songs in history.
Radiohead's Creep, REM's Everybody Hurts, David Bowie's Life on
Mars will all be treated to an unneeded, unwanted and unnatural
Popera makeover.
The group, four graduates of the Guildhall School of Music and
Drama shot to fame on last year's X Factor show, finishing as
runners up.
Their debut album, G4, then went straight to the top of the album
charts in its first week. In a stroke of marketing magic it was
released just before Mothering Sunday. It sold more than 200,000
copies and became the quickest selling debut album since Hearsay in
April 2001.
But that doesn't make it right.
Apollo,
Saturday
Visitors to
Exchange Square can enjoy a live
screening of Stars of the Royal Ballet.
The triple bill will bring The Dream (with Alina Cojocaru and Johan
Kobburg), New Christopher Bruce Ballet (with Zenaida Yanowsky,
Tamarao Rojo and Deidre Chapman) and Symphony in C (with Ivan
Poutrov and Slava Samodurov among others), to the masses gathering
in the city centre.
And at the same time it will be screened to Liverpool, Hull,
Aberdeen and Birmingham creating a nationwide ballet event.
The series will continue on Tuesday, June 21, with Rigoletto and La
boheme on Thursday, June 30.
A
TORI Amos gig is unlikely to provide anyone
with a cheerful night out.
The 42-year-old's experiences of a religious upbringing, sexual
abuse and miscarriage have a large place in her music, which can
make for harrowing listening.
But 25 years since the release of her first single, the
singer/songwriter who was thrown out of music school for playing
too much popular music is still proving a hit with the crowds, with
her live appearances and albums regularly well-received by a
surprisingly large fan base of ordinary, cheerful people.
Though she is best known to millions for THAT Armand Van Helden
remix of Professional Widow, Amos is also responsible for
sophisticated anthems such as Cornflake Girl and Crucify, which
showed off her vocal and musical skills to haunting perfection and
proved popular with the general public despite being rather
miserable.
In recent years, she has moved through an album of covers of songs
written by men about women and a so-called sonic novel to this
year's release, the Beekeeper, released at the same time as an
autobiography which charts her obsessions with mysticism.
Her music deals with very adult angst, and some of the proceeds are
used to deal with adult issues - she fronts a fundraising appeal
for a sexual abuse helpline run by the Rape, Abuse and Incest
National Network, which she co-founded in 1994. But who said sad
songs were just for teenagers?
Apollo, Sunday
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