This Day in Music…February 28

U2 Live, BBC Rooftop, Regent Street, London

Snow Patrol earn little from Leona cover

He told the Daily Star that Leona’s record label Syco didn’t have to ask his permission to record their version and said: “I won’t be retiring from Leona’s sales.” He added: “Anybody can cover any song without anybody’s permission. It’s open season on people covering that song but they can’t put it on an advert or a TV show without asking.”

Imagine … Lennon’s classic played on church bells
Song to ring out from Liverpool Cathedral despite Beatle’s hostility to religion

John Lennon had an uneasy relationship with religion. When at the height of his fame he suggested that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus he provoked uproar and public displays of record-burning in the American Bible Belt. Even the Vatican denounced him before eventually accepting his tortured apology.

So it is difficult to know what the late Beatle would have made of the Church of England’s decision to ring out the tune of his most famous solo work, the anti-religion anthem “Imagine”, from the bells of Liverpool Cathedral this summer. Rehearsals on hand bells will begin in March.

The 1971 song, which contains the lyric “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, No hell below us, above us only sky”, will be performed from the world’s tallest bell tower, which is 100.89m (331ft) tall, as part of the Futuresonic Festival in May.

Lennon described it as “anti- religious, anti-nationalistic, anti- conventional, anti-capitalistic”.

A cathedral spokesman said he saw no contradiction in performing the piece, as much anti-capitalistic as it is anti-religious, from Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s celebrated church because Lennon’s passionate embrace of the peace movement chimed perfectly with Christian values.

U2 play rooftop concert
U2 played a rooftop concert in the centre of London, atop a balcony at BBC Broadcasting House.

While certain commentators have deplored the commercial imperatives of an enterprise dubbed the Bono Broadcasting Corporation, there were few complaints from the throng in the street and at the windows of surrounding buildings, treated to a free concert from the biggest band in the world.

The Beatles started it all with their rooftop gig at Apple in 1969, famously halted by over zealous London constabulary. These days the police are to be found putting up crash barriers and redirecting the traffic. Presumably if they objected to this use of their resources, Bono would just call the mayor. Or the prime minister.

If, indeed, Bono was there at all. A roar went up as a figure made regal wave from the balcony, although there was some debate about what this represented. “Which one’s which?” asked a woman next to me. It was, to be honest, hard to tell what was going on from seven stories down but when the guitar, drums and bass kicked up and a raw, high voice started wailing about “sexy boots” disbelief was suspended.

It was a clear, cloudless, warm night, with the crescent moon and a bright evening star arranged in a perfect interstellar facsimile of the Islamic religious icon. “Do you think they arranged that?” Someone speculated. I doubt their influence extends quite that far but they have a knack of claiming any space as their own.

Blake find a new tenor on Twitter
Blake, the classical “boy band” who won a £1million record contract with Universal after finding a manager and forming a group on Facebook, have made another musical first.

The band have now found their latest member through Twitter, the increasingly inescapable blogging website.

The new tenor is a last-minute replacement for Dominic Tighe, 25, who has left the quartet ahead of their scheduled British tour next month to pursue an acting career.

Within two weeks and after 55,000 people worldwide received their “twitterings” the band settled upon Humphrey Berney, 28, who goes by the name of Barney, a classically trained opera singer who has previously recorded with Hayley Westenra.

His future fellow band members were keen to check that he shares their clean-cut looks. “I’m not going to lie,” says Jules Knight, 27, one of the tenors. “How we look is an important part of our appeal. If he looked like Paul Potts it probably wouldn’t have happened.”

Drinking problems rife in the great orchestras

• Alcohol misuse among musicians is taboo subject
• Union recalls ‘regrettable incidents’ during concerts

It is a hidden, taboo subject, widely known about within the music world but barely discussed. Little research into the area has been done and the full extent of the problem is incompletely understood. But inappropriate use of alcohol in Britain’s great orchestras is, according to musicians, endemic – ranging from drinking a pint before a concert to steady the nerves, to full-blown inebriation on stage.

U2 accused of ‘robbing the world’s poor

‘An Irish aid group coalition has protested against U2′s ‘tax evasion’, claiming that the band are costing the impoverished world while trying to champion its cause

U2 are “robbing the world’s poor”, according to a coalition of Irish aid groups. At a demonstration this week, Debt and Development Coalition Ireland (DDCI) condemned U2′s “tax evasion” and its alleged tax shelter in the Netherlands. DDCI is a coalition of 70 organisations including Oxfam and Concern Worldwide.

“We wanted to raise our concern that while Bono has championed the cause of fighting poverty and injustice in the impoverished world, the fact is that his band has moved part of its business to a tax shelter,” DDCI’s Nessa Ni Chasaide told ITN. “Tax avoidance and tax evasion costs the impoverished world at least $160m (£142.5m) every year. This is money urgently required to bring people out of poverty.”

The DDCI drew attention to U2 Ltd, a company set up by the band to deal with royalty payments. When Ireland changed its tax laws in 2006, capping the artist income tax exemption at €250,000 (£223,000), U2 moved the company to a finance house in the Netherlands.

Let’s get quizzical

In a week where Eminem sued his record label, the Killers sued their former manager and MGMT sued Nicolas Sarkozy, find out who else is litigating with our topical music quiz

Will the real reunion band please stand up?

Multiple versions of the same re-formed act have become a problem for promoters, with different incarnations of the Beach Boys, War and Jefferson Airplane each claiming to be “authentic”

Dozens of rival reunion bands are competing for gigs this summer, with different incarnations of the Guess Who, Jefferson Airplane and the Beach Boys all claiming to be the “authentic” group.

Multiple versions of the same re-formed act have become a major problem for both promoters and fans, according to Rolling Stone. There already exists the problem of touring bands competing with their former lead singers – Dennis DeYoung v Styx, for example, or John Fogerty v Creedence Clearwater Revisited – but with others the distinction is even less clear.

Which is the “real” version of 1970s funk band War? The one with the same name, led by keyboardist Lonnie Jordan, or the one called the Lowrider Band, which boasts every other original surviving member? Similarly, should you go to see the Guess Who, who have toured since the 70s under the leadership of bassist Jim Kale – or an act called Bachman Cummings, with the pair who wrote and sang almost every Guess Who hit?

Behind the music: Does this offend you, yeah?

There is much confusion over what constitutes inappropriate language in a song. Warning: This blog contains the euphemisms ‘lollipop’ and ‘tower of power’ that some may find objectionable

I thought is was impossible to create controversy with offensive language in lyrics these days. Thirty years ago, the Sex Pistols got their wrists slapped for using the word “bollocks” in their album title. This year, Lily Allen has a song called Fuck You on hers. Frankie Goes to Hollywood didn’t even have to use an offensive word to get bumped off the playlists – all they needed to do was insinuate a sexual act – whereas Lil Wayne has no problem talking about what he wants his girl to do with his “lollipop”.

But it appears that there are no set rules. These days, the issue of what needs to be bleeped out seems as confusing as ever. The Parents Television Council in the US warned radio stations not to broadcast Britney Spears’s If U Seek Amy between the hours of 6am and 10pm, because when the title is said aloud it sounds like “f.u.c.k me”

Ticketmaster CEO: Secondary ticketing should be illegal

The head of America’s biggest tickets agency has told the US Senate that the resale market is a mess and should be banned

Secondary ticketing should be banned, the CEO of Ticketmaster, which itself owns resale company TicketsNow, said this week.

Irving Azoff was speaking before the US Senate judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee, regarding the proposed merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which is likely to have a huge impact on the gig-going public.

“I don’t believe there should be a secondary [tickets] market at all,” Azoff said. “I believe that scalping and resale should be illegal.”

Last year Ticketmaster bought TicketsNow, one of the largest ticket resellers in America, for $265m (£186m). Azoff was not CEO at the time.

“I never would have bought [TicketsNow],” Azoff insisted.

“Are you open to selling it?” Democratic senator Charles Schumer asked. “Listen, we’re a public company,” Azoff replied. “If you would like to make an offer, senator, we would love to hear it.”

Both Ticketmaster and TicketsNow recently came under fire when thousands of Bruce Springsteen fans were directed by Ticketmaster to buy tickets from the reseller, at inflated prices. While Ticketmaster collected just $7 in fees for every Springsteen ticket sold directly, they made $30 on every ticket sold via TicketsNow.

Ticketmaster apologised to Springsteen and his fans this week, blaming a computer glitch and promising to create a “wall” between the two websites.

The fluffy face of graffiti

You’ve probably heard of guerrilla gardening, but what about guerrilla knitting? Perri Lewis joins one of the movement’s leaders for a spot of ‘yarn bombing’ in London

If you strolled down the Southbank in London on Friday, you may have noticed pieces of brightly coloured knitting tied to various objects, or perhaps your bike lock was covered with wool. Welcome to guerrilla knitting.

This is graffiti, but with yarn. It’s nothing new – people have been doing it for years, all over the world – but Friday’s session was special. It was the first time that Magda Sayeg, one of the craft world’s most revered guerrilla knitters, ‘tagged’ London.

American Idol: The second three finalists get chosen

At the end of this episode, six of the twelve final finalists were finalised, finally. But after a mixed sing-off to vote on, it was by no means certain who this week’s three would be. That’s why we’re here: to tell you who got through, and how it all went down. Live.

8.55pm: The third finalist from tonight’s show?

Why, it’s Adam Lambert: Musical Theatre Star, of course.

He sings I Can’t Get No Satisfaction (again) which would be entirely missable if it weren’t for the fact that the keyboardist seems to suddenly believe he’s working in a German Oompa band half way through the first verse.

Did it sound like that last night, too?

And that is it. Next week: the last twelve sing for the public vote …
And then there’s a wildcard show to decide the last three places – so don’t worry (I have a feeling you weren’t worrying much) you may not have seen the last of Nick/Norman yet.

Although you probably have.

A fine pickle
A film director once told Salman Rushdie that all movies made from novels are rubbish. With so many screenplays based on books triumphing at the Oscars this week and Slumdog Millionaire stealing the show, he asks is there such a thing as a good adaptation

Adaptation, the process by which one thing develops into another thing, by which one shape or form changes into a different form, is a commonplace artistic activity. Books are turned into plays and films all the time, plays are turned into movies and also sometimes into musicals, movies are turned into Broadway shows and even, by the ugly method known as “novelisation”, into books as well. We live in a world of such transformations and metamorphoses. Good movies – Lolita, The Pink Panther – are remade as bad movies; bad movies – The Incredible Hulk, Deep Throat – are remade as even worse movies; British TV comedy series are turned into American TV comedy series, so that The Office becomes a different The Office, and Ricky Gervais turns into Steve Carell, just as, long ago, the British working-class racist Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part turned into the American blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker in All In the Family. British reality programmes are adapted to suit American audiences as well; Pop Idol becomes American Idol when it crosses the Atlantic, Strictly Come Dancing becomes Dancing With the Stars – a programme which, it may interest you to know, invited me to appear on it last season, an invitation I declined.

Songs by great artists are covered by lesser artists; on inauguration day this year, Beyoncé performed her version of Etta James’s classic “At Last” to the considerable irritation of Etta James herself (but then, James seemed even more irritated by the election of Barack Obama, so perhaps she was just in a bad mood). All of these are examples of the myriad variations of adaptation, an insatiable process which can sometimes seem voracious, world-swallowing, as if we now live in a culture that endlessly cannibalises itself, so that, eventually, it will have eaten itself up completely. Anyone can make a list of the many catastrophic adaptations they have seen – my personal favourites being David Lean’s ridiculous film of A Passage to India, in which Alec Guinness as a Hindu wise man dangles his feet blasphemously in the waters of a sacred water tank; and the Merchant Ivory emasculation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, in which Ishiguro’s guilty-as-hell British Nazi aristocrat is portrayed as a lovable, misguided, deceived old bugger more deserving of our sympathy than our scorn.

Talking of wankers.

U2 singer Bono apologises after foul-mouthed insult of Coldplay’s Chris Martin

The band were less than two minutes into an interview with Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley when Bono called Coldplay star Chris Martin ‘a w*****’.
A shocked Miss Whiley immediately interrupted the star to demand an apology for the gaffe which was being broadcast at 11.45am.
But despite a series of frantic apologies from the DJ, the BBC uploaded the interview onto it’s iPlayer website without editing the offending material.

**sobs as she sits in front of a camera**

Have a puff and pull yourself together.