GiggySound

BITE THE BULLET

They are perhaps this generation’s greatest exponents of metal. They are Bullet For My Valentine! With at least three albums destined to be classics in the genre, the band’s latest and greatest effort, The Fever, has infected the globe, hitting the #1 spot on The US Rock and Alternative charts, and top 5 across Europe, Japan and here in Australia. Now, the legendary noise mongers come to Perth to play Challenge Stadium on Sunday, September 5.
And if there was any proof required of the band’s confidence in their craft you need look no further than Bullet’s choice of touring mates. Lesser bands than Bullet would not dare take the stage after the wounded primal beast that is Bring Me The Horizon. BMTH have backed up being the single most talked about band of The Warped Tour last year by producing an album of breathtaking riffs and complexity in Suicide Season. Also bringing their rhythmic ferocity to this already amazing bill are Canada’s Cancer Bats. Tickets for this hard rock feast go on-sale from 9am today, Thursday, May 27, from ticketmaster.com.au.

BELL A MUSE

Fresh from rattling our foundations at The Big Day Out in January, Muse will return to bring 2010 to a close with the biggest shows they’ve ever played in Australia – pulling out all the stops to bring their entire, world-class arena production to Perth. Five albums in, the rock galaxy occupied by English trio Matt Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme is ever expanding – beginning with a spark on 1999’s Showbiz, sending shockwaves across the solar system with Origin Of Symmetry, Absolution and Black Holes And Revelations, and most recently erupting with the big bang of worldwide #1 album The Resistance. How could it possibly get bigger? Muse always finds a way. With a brand new radio single in Neutron Star Collision Love Is Forever Muse descend on Bassendean Oval on Sunday, December 19. Tickets go on-sale from Monday, June 7, through ticketek.com.au.

FOR BOD’S CAKE

Capitol became the music capital last week as WA’s best of the best gathered to accept cake and be merry, for the 2010 WAMi Awards. And it was WAMingtons galore as the following accepted the (creamy) fruits of their hard work. After waiting for a good three years for their second album, Karnivool fans showed their appreciation for Sound Awake and voted it as the Most Popular Album. After a solid year of touring in Australia and abroad, Karnivool were also voted Most Popular Live Act.  Birds Of Tokyo managed to score the Most Popular Act award for the second year in a row.

In the public voted categories, Fremantle favourites, The Joe Kings were voted as Favourite Newcomer. In the industry voted categories, The Emperors won Most Promising New Act, Yabu Band scored the WAMington for Indigenous Act Of The Year, WAMi Award night performers The Brown Horn Orchestra scored Best Funk Act, Best Commercial Pop Act went to Eskimo Joe and Best Urban/Hip Hop act was awarded to The Typhoons. And the Golden WAMi went to Mr Peter Barr (RTRFM’s Breakfast announcer), his third such gong. Congratulations all, and see you at the gym.

TOTALLY SPLENDID

A lot of WA music fans were pretty devastated to hear about all the incredible acts venturing to the eastern states for Splendour In The Grass. Luckily for us, organisers of this massive festival are bringing some of the best acts from the Splendour bill to WA for On The Bright Side. WA’s newest and beautist festival, On The Bright Side will take over the Perth Esplanade on Saturday, July 24, offering punters the chance to see acts like The Strokes, Mumford & Sons, Angus & Julia Stone, Band Of Horses, Ting Tings, Hot Chip and more! Tickets go on sale on Friday, May 28 through heatseeker.com.au, Star Surf in Perth and Mandurah, Mills Records, Planet Video, Blue 62 Busselton, Prince Of Wales hotel in Bunbury and Live clothing stores. Chances are this festival will sell out fast, so make sure you get your hands on tickets pronto.

X-Pressions

Ladies and gentlemen, the Messiah has risen… for the second time. Leonard Cohen – god bless his Canadian cotton socks – is returning to Perth for his second visit in as many years. Hallelujah to that! With many scribes – including yours truly – lamenting the end of his 2008/9 world tour as most likely his final bow (the great man turns 77 this year) Cohen has surprised all, including his ardent devotees, by keeping on keeping on.

Wrenched from retirement in 2008 after coming down from Mount Baldy Zen Centre to discover his bank balance significantly depleted at the hands of his now-former manager, the Ladies’ Man (or Silent One, depending on whose bed he was sleeping in at the time) dusted off his tailored suit and hit the road for a string of quietly-announced dates that quickly morphed into a full-blown world tour – a tour that can only be described as a genuine triumph of emotion and song. For are there any greater songs than those of Leonard Cohen? Bird On A Wire, Suzanne, Alexandra Leaving, In My Secret Life, So Long, Marianne, Famous Blue Raincoat… this man’s canon is one of the finest in modern song.

The great man returns to Perth to play ME Bank Stadium on Wednesday, November 24. Pre-sale tickets go on-sale at frontiertouring.com from noon AEST on Monday, May 31. General tickets go on-sale on Thursday, June 3, from ticketmaster.com.au.

In other news, X-Press would like to sincerely congratulate Madeline Bates, who leaves the Edinburgh International Film Festival to take up her new appointment at the Perth International Arts Festival as Program Manager, Film. Madeline has big boots to fill in the wake of the retirement of the dearly respected Sherry Hopkins, and we look forward to enjoying her good work at 2011’s PIAF season.

_JULIAN TOMPKIN

HOLIDAY TIME

Perth pop luminaries The Bank Holidays will finally release their second album, Sail Becomes A Kite, though the Lost & Lonesome label. The album was recorded with Martin Roth at ABC Studios here in Perth and Steve Bond (The Panics, Snowman) at Cazfair House. To celebrate the long-awaited release, The Bank Holidays will launch the album on Saturday, June 19, at Amplifier, with support from The Morning Night and Goodnight Tiger. For full and glorious details hit up through thebankholidays.com.

C’MON DAZZA

In news just in, Darren Hanlon has just announced he’ll be returning to Perth to play The Fly By Night in Freo on Saturday, August 21. The tour is in celebration of the release of Hanlon’s long-awaited fourth studio album, I Will Love You At All, which will hit shelves on July 16. I Will Love You At All is a charming Australian songbook of gentle longing and reminiscence. Featuring the first single All These Things, which is released via iTunes this Friday, May 28, the album is self described as Hanlon’s ’mature’ album. It is indeed further ripening of this uniquely rewarding storyteller. Tickets for his Freo show are on sale now from flybynight.org.

DON’T WALK ON BY

Boasting five Grammy Awards and more than one hundred million album sales, Dionne Warwick is a music pioneer who shot to fame in the late ’60s. Responsible for tracks such as Walk On By, Do You Know The Way To San Jose? and I Say A Little Prayer, Warwick has an incredible back catalogue that is sure to make for one seriously unforgettable concert. Fans of Warwick will have the opportunity to watch the diva perform live on Friday, July 16, when she takes to the stage of the Perth Convention And Exhibition Centre with support from Kate Ceberano. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketek.

BUTLER DOES IT

The John Butler Trio have been busy touring their new album, April Uprising, across the UK, Europe and the US to excellent response, taking time out to appear on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno earlier this week. There’s plenty more international touring action in store, but fans here at home will be pleased to know that the JBT have announced an Australia tour, which touches down here on Friday, August 27, at Fremantle Arts Centre, under the big top. This is a licensed event (under-18s must be accompanied by a legal guardian). Tickets are available Monday, May 31, from heatseeker.com.au or the venue (08 9432 9555), plus usual outlets.

LUCKY BAY

Breezy, folky, Byron Bay based band The Lucky Wonders are currently touring WA in their ‘wonder bus’, on a truly epic stretch of dates that sees them play right the way up the coast from Fremantle to Broome. Local audiences can catch them playing songs from their recently released debut Thirteen O’Clock at Clancy’s, Fremantle, on Saturday, May 29, and The Paddo on Sunday, May 30. The band will then play shows in Carnarvon, Monkey Mia, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Broome and Kununurra right throughout June (see myspace.com/theluckywonders for dates).

“Lots of people mention that they’ve heard us on triple j,” band member Jessie Vintila says of the band’s song Happy Pill reaching #1 on the triple j Unearthed chart. “Which is great because after the first couple of plays triple j stopped telling us when they played it, and we don’t get much of a chance to listen to it.”