oN THE TELLY BoX:

GONZO ON TOUR 08 WEEKEND
Tonight from 7pm and all weekend!
Dear viewers, the wait is finally over. For weeks now, the MTV TWO team have toiled to the ends of the earth and back (OK, Aberdeen - but close enough) to shoot the finest bands in the country who joined us on the mammoth, era-defining (too much? Nah…) GONZO ON TOUR ’08.

Tonight and across the weekend, bolt the door, put your phone on silent and settle down to feast your eyes on Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Glasvegas, Foals, Mystery Jets, The Automatic, Late Of The Pier, Friendly Fires, Esser, Magistrates, Iglu and Hartly, Noah and the Whale and, of course, your host Zane Lowe. We’ve got breath-taking live performances. We’ve got insightful interviews. We’ve got funny stuff. What more could you possibly want?

TONIGHT’S LINE-UP:
19:00 GONZO ON TOUR 2008 PART 1
20:00 GONZO ON TOUR 2008 PART 2
21:00 BEST OF GONZO ON TOUR
21:30 KAISER CHIEFS: GONZO TOUR LIVE
22:00 GONZO ON TOUR 2008: THE LIVE STUFF
23:00 BLOC PARTY: GONZO TOUR LIVE

You can also see coverage from 11am – 4pm and 9pm – 1am on Saturday and Sunday. So absolutely NO EXCUSES!!

Elsewhere on MTV TWO this week:

KINGS OF LEON: GONZO SPECIAL
Sunday 16 November, 6pm (rpt. Monday at noon)
With the doors of Studio G firmly barred against the rabid, screaming fans (and that’s just the MTV TWO boys!), Zane settled down for a lengthy chat with possibly the hottest band in the world right now: Kings of Leon. They talk about bad YouTube renditions of their songs, having their record leaked by a guy called Pedro in Mexico, meeting strippers in Madame Jojo’s and being told to act sexy in their videos. It’s a frank, funny and revealing interview with Caleb and Nathan – the dudes that guys wanna be and girls wanna be with.

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE vs FALL OUT BOY
GREEN DAY vs LINKIN PARK
KINGS OF LEON vs MUSE
ARCTICS vs KAISERS
KILLERS vs WHITE STRIPES
Monday 17 – Friday 21, 4pm
It’s Superstars Week on MTV and in amongst the celebration of the biggest, bestest names in music we’re pitting some of your favourites against each other, head to head in a battle to the death. Or to prove whose riffs are best. Who gets your vote?

NIRVANA: MTV UNPLUGGED
Tuesday 18 November, 11pm
Relive Nirvana’s legendary MTV Unplugged performance from 1993, including influential classics like Come As You Are and All Apologies.

oN THE INTERWEB:
WATCH EXCLUSIVE GONZO ON TOUR FOOTAGE!
Live tracks from Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Glasvegas, Foals, Mystery Jets, The Automatic, Late of the Pier, Esser and Iglu & Hartly as captured on October’s awesome Gonzo Tour
www.mtv.co.uk/gonzo

WATCH EVEN MORE GONZO ON TOUR FOOTAGE!!
Not content with the above? Watch Bloc Party’s a-MAY-zing performance of Mercury plus Magistrates and Friendly Fires on the MTV TWO Myspace
www.myspace.com/mtvtwo

GIG REVIEWS: ENTER SHIKARI
Read Sophie Keys’ review of the band’s end-of-tour gig at The Astoria on 3 November
http://www.mtv.co.uk/channel/mtv2/457280-gonzo-on-tour-2008-reviews

IN THE NEWS:

BLUR TO REFORM?
http://www.mtv.co.uk/channel/mtvuk/news/460380-blur-to-reform

YEAH YEAH YEAHS ANNOUNCE ALBUM
http://www.mtv.co.uk/channel/mtvuk/news/459960-yeah-yeah-yeahs-announce-...

TEAM TWO xx

Today is the day of days. Well, that's what they'd have you believe anyway. Will anything actually change??? Who knows, but it'll be fun waiting to find out.

Thank god that there are still artists willing to put their nuts on the line and make ANY kind of statement about ting and ting, even if it is in an ever-so-slightly odd way...

"The Story" is the first track taken from The Matthew Herbert Big Band "There's Me And There's You" album – a highly politically charged album, released on Matthews's own Accidental Records on 10th November.

For "The Story" Herbert sampled 70 copies of the Sun newspaper. 70 celebrity gossip magazines. one copy of the nme. one madonna album. one copy of wallpaper magazine. one copy of the sun (aye, like, the real sun).

You can download an edit of the track from here. You can hear him wax political too, and he kinda knows his beans.

The album's theme is power and its abusers in the 21st Century. The lyrics tackle issues such as the Iraq war, torture, Guantanamo, Palestine, AIDS, climate change, the monarchy, and religion. Beats Kerry Katona's boobs any day.

Last Monday, MTV TWO reviewer Emmet Mannion braved the unseasonable weather to see The Walkmen at London's ULU.

**********

75% of the ULU crowd tonight will have seen American band The Walkmen before and followed their path intently since influential album ‘Bows + Arrows’. The other 25% will have either tapped into their wall of sound via the route of the O.C’s sickening dross, or discovered The Walkmen through indie anthem, ‘The Rat’.

This may go some way towards explaining why the tightly packed crowd are so tight-lipped and docile. After all, it’s like Moscow outside so let’s embrace each other for the body heat at least, if not the music.

The reflective and dour start to the gig is perfect. ‘New Country’ from their new album ‘You and Me’ starts off like a funeral procession and eases you into the gig like an opening hymn would at church - the congregation are now fully engaged. ‘On The Water’ is dictated by a jazz tempo, picking up pace and aggression en route, steered beautifully by the control of Hamilton Leithauser’s voice.

Palpable tension incited by albums past is replaced with a reflective directive. Sandwiched between the new stuff is ‘All Hands + The Cook’, like a truffle filling flanked by two thin slices of economy bread. They get the ratio of old and new just right, but there’s a remnant of embarrassment attached to harking back to past glories.

The opening chords of ‘The Rat’ whip up anger and rage for this savage four-minute attack. The crowd are still in ironing board mode and it’s increasingly looking like a core stability class with the resident physio. It could be the result of paying Leithauser’s voice absolute reverence though. Its sheer power and gusto has everyone nailed to the floor. The width of open mouths has replaced fist-pumping and raucous stomping as the barometer for measuring excitement.

With an encore bereft of ‘Little House Of Savages’ it’s clear to see The Walkmen have moved on. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Emmet Mannion

We despatched Emmet Mannion, one of MTV TWO's team of intrepid gig reviewers, to Hammersmith Apollo on Monday to review them there Last Shadow Puppets on the last date of their UK tour. Herewith his ponderings...

Last Shadow Puppets
Hammersmith Apollo
26/10/08

The Last Shadow Puppets fanfare rolled into London for their one and only date with the ‘Big Smoke’ on their first and possibly last tour. Yeah right. In the grand setting of Hammersmith Apollo, The Last Shadow Puppets are here to entertain their Sunday evening guests. This is the musical equivalent of Sunday at The Palladium, this is auld entertainment folks. Sharp suits, wise cracks and Bruce Forsyth-style tap dancing? Almost.

Alex Turner and Miles Kane are welcomed onto the stage by their 16-piece orchestra to the score from ‘Calm Like You’. A “Good evening” and a nonchalant wave to the crowd with their royal hands, they kick off with ‘In My Room’, the signature tune from the album and the perfect opener.

The cinematic, orchestral accompaniment instantly encapsulates and captivates. It’s threatening and purposeful. The white light show from the stage set against the royally red Last Shadow Puppets backdrop completes the theatrics. To say that they put attention into detail would be an understatement. This segues into hit single ‘The Age Of The Understatement’. It receives the reception of a raucous stomper. The galloping drums by James Ford incite beer throwing bedlam fit for an Arctic Monkeys gig. The bedlam is suitably diffused by the crooning lyrics of Alex Turner on ‘Calm Like You’.

The halfway point of the gig is preserved for some exquisite and perfectly executed covers. With tongue placed firmly in cheek they play ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ by The Beatles. Kane tackles the demanding vocal like a tenacious central midfielder, battling and hustling for every note., while Turner delivers his vocal with sickening ease, like a midfielder who has time on the ball to look up and play a precision pass.

This is followed by ‘Paris Summer’ and David Bowie’s ‘In The Heat Of The Morning’, harking back to the 60s theme again. The Bowie cover is dominated by Turner. It surpasses Bowie’s version and it’s the Bowies and The Beatles that he has his sights firmly on when the legacies are rounded up at the end of a career.

The last part of the set is filled with the weaker songs from the album as the stronger moments have been spent. Banter and biscuits keep the show ticking over. Biscuits eh? Instead of the mandatory undergarment of a bra and knickers to adorn a stage floor, Turner and Kane have nicely wrapped biscuits flying onto the stage as gifts. And no, they were not ‘plane’ biscuits.

The band exit stage left for a much needed reprieve and an encore ensues. A cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Memories’ and ‘Standing Next To Me’ make up the encore. ‘Standing Next To Me’ has curiously become a fans favourite. It gives Turner a break from lead vocals and a chance to saunter around with a tambourine.

For the time being at least it’s back to their respective bases for Alex Turner and Miles Kane, sure to return to the sultry mistress that is The Last Shadow Puppets for another wonderful journey.

Emmet Mannion

We’re looking for people to join our research panel and give us their views on the music videos we’re playing...

Find out how YOU can get involved here here

Just wanted make a song and a dance about ILLEGITIMATE SONS OF THE KING (I.S.K.)
They will be playing 333 on the 24th of October so if you like what you hear go check them out!

http://www.myspace.com/iskmusic

Hot off the press:

And we shot this in Austin, Texas, earlier this year:

LEGEND. Gotta love him.

As the last dregs of the MTV TWO team - and boy do we feel like dregs today! - trundle home from Glasgow with Iglu & Hartly's "In The City (Put A Donk On It Remix)" still ringing in their ears, we thought you might like to read wee review of the final night's show at http://www.rokbun.com There's some pretty awesome pictures of Kele Bloc Party's crowd-surfing excursion during the encore too.

Can't believe that's it for another year - although my liver is very grateful and I'm looking forward to sleep and vegetables.

You can see highlights of the onstage action, Zane's interviews with all of our magnificent line-up of bands and backstage malarkey in the Gonzo on Tour 08 Special on Friday 14 November on MTV TWO.

If you can't quite wait that long, check www.mtv.co.uk/gonzo for exclusive footage from Kaiser Chiefs' Gonzo show at ULU last Sunday - we're featuring a brand new track every day this week. Tasty.

What do you do when three unsung musical geniuses (genii??? Who knows...) decide to get together and take shit over?

Fall in love with them and give away a free remix MP3 of course.

The Invisible formed just over a year ago and are made up of Dave (Jade Fox, Matthew Herbert), Tom (Jade Fox, Polar Bear) and Leo (Gramme, Zongamin, Matthew Herbert). It's tunes but not as you know 'em. Have a dance, have a party, have a wee boogie... do whatever comes naturally and you won't go far wrong.

This remix is remixed by Kwes, a newcomer who has signed to XL for his debut single - never a bad sign...

DOWNLOAD The Invisible "Monsters Waltz" (Kwes Rework)

And cos we love you the most here's a live version of the original:

The Invisible - Monster's Waltz (LIVE)

www.myspace.com/theinvisiblethree

Welcome to the last day of the first weekend of the 2008 Gonzo Tour. Am currently wending my way back from Birmingham to London to join the rest of Team Two who are busy setting up for tonight's sold-out show at ULU with Kaiser Chiefs and Late of the Pier. This must be the smallest venue Kaisers have played in years and easily the hottest ticket in town tonight - the guestlist requests/demands/bribes have been flooding in all week!

Short of the total failure to find anywhere in Birmingham with full fat milk to make a decent coffee to relieve my hangover, it's been a fun few days. Friday saw The Automatic and current Top 10 stars Iglu and Hartly in Liverpool's Barfly. The latter whipped the audience up into a proper frenzy, especially the local ladies who were obviously smitten - i think it's frontman Jarvis Anderson's habit of performing stripped pretty much to the groin! Afterwards both bands hung around to watch Zane Lowe pack out the downstairs bar for a very sweaty aftershow and one member of Team Two made herself most unwell shooting Jagermeister on The Automatic's tour bus!

After an afternoon persuading Birmingham's shoppers to trade in various items of clothing for splendid new Gonzo on Tour t-shirts - a special mention has to go to the girl who gave up her denim skirt! - we headed out to the Barfly to receive some bad news: Noah and the Whale had cancelled due to singer Charlie being ill. This was not just a surprise to us but to to the band as well, the rest of whom were already in the venue and had done their MTV TWO interview and a DJ session in the local Topman that afternoon! Very soon, though, a plan was hatched and headliners Mystery Jets retired to their tour bus to learn Noah's hit 5 Years' Time.

When doors opened, there were a few disappointed faces in the queue, but no-one seemed to want a refund and Mystery Jets came out early to a packed room. Dressed in dazzling sequinned outfits (one wisecracking guy in the audience likened William Rees to Pat Butcher!) the band cracked through their hits, inspiring a mass singalong to Two Doors Down and then towards the end of a brilliant set, bringing the rest of Noah and the Whale on to a huge round of applause. You would never have guessed that the two bands' version of 5 Years' Time had been patched together barely two hours previously and i reckon it's going to make proper telly gold.

You can see the results on Friday 14 November on MTV TWO, but meanwhile keep your eyes on the MTV TWO blog and news for more updates from this year's Gonzo Tour... maybe even some pics!