Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Hyde Park

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band London Calling Live in Hyde Park.

Bruce Springsteen’s most current eyebrow removing live documentary is evidence that the aging process may be purely theoretical. “IS THERE ANYBODY ALIVE OUT THERE?” he shouts all of 12 minutes into the show, throwing down the gauntlet to the behemoth Hard Rock Calling Festival audience with a crazy eyed boxer’s glare that’s part statement of purpose and part fuck you to the AARP Magazine cover. London Calling: At live Hyde Park then explodes open with its ace in the hole: Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt tearing into the Clash like two scuzzy looking punks thirsting to prove themselves, which is, of course, profoundly insane. By the time London Calling was shot in June 2009, Springsteen and the E Street Band, most loitering around the parking lot of 60, were firing on all cylinders, inventing more cylinders and then firing on those too, laying waste to festivals and towns huge and small with three-hour sweat-fests highlighted by nightly Stump The Band requests delivered via creative poster boards (the DVD’s: the Young Rascals’ fest-ready “Good Lovin’”).
The Hyde Park set is basically a live greatest hits comp from the years long tour that sandwiched the releases of Magic and Working on a Dream, heavy on touchstones like “Badlands,” “She’s The One” and “The Promised Land” but with a solid enough smattering of semi-rarities to satisfy the Internet message-board people. There’s a pounding version of Bruce’s cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped,” a seething revival of the mid-‘80s boss-man face-smack “Seeds” ("Well I swear if I could spare the spit I’d lay one on your shiny chrome, and send you on your way back home") and upgrades of the Nebraska track “Johnny 99” (rockabilly) and The Ghost of Tom Joad standout “Youngstown” (massive and looming).
Nobody onstage has the remotest business looking as profoundly invested as they do (only the near 70 Clarence Clemons is allowed part time seating arrangements): Springsteen screech-drags his guitar across the mic stand, sweats through everything he owns, reanimates a Stephen Foster song for the recession (“Hard Times Come Again No More”), finds a 10-year-old to sing the chorus of “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day,” dons a black cowboy hat while indulging his terrible eight-minute spaghetti Western “Outlaw Pete”) and brings out the visibly mind-blown Brian Fallon of the Gaslight Anthem for “No Surrender.” As my 6-year-old proclaimed in an especially lively crowd shot: “Whoa.”
“London” sports 28 songs but closes with two bonus tracks: A performance of “The River” from Glastonbury noteworthy for its memorable image of steam literally rising off of Bruce Springsteen, and “Wrecking Ball,” written to commemorate the band’s stint closing down Giants Stadium in New Jersey. It’s a B-side but a fierce one, all spit and defiance in the face of the mean march of time (“Take your best shot/ Let me see what you got/ Bring on your wrecking ball”) and it could serve both as a fierce, fitting coda to the old stadium, or, if you’re the sort of person who might read into such things, the band itself. Until then, though, this is as alive as it gets.
Watch the trailer for London Calling: Live in Hyde Park:

World Ticket Shop: Paul McCartney's Hard Rock Calling VIP Guest List

At a current show Sir Paul McCartney had a guest list of 500 people.
Event held in London's Hyde Park the former Beatles legend performed at the Hard Rock Calling last weekend, and was keen for all his friends and family to come and support
him. Paul organized for his children Stella, Mary and James to be given particular access at the event, but also included a host of big names on his guest list. Among those mentioned were Coldplay singer Chris Martin and his wife Gwyneth Paltrow, David Walliams and his spouse Lara Stone, rockers Kings of Leon and pop band the Jonas Brothers. “When huge acts play big outdoor shows you can expect some big guest lists. But Paul's was by far the biggest list anyone had seen,” a source told British newspaper The Sun. “He's a thoughtful kind of guy and had managed to accommodate an incredible number of people on the night.”
The 68-year-old delighted the audience by playing a mixture of his solo work and tracks from his bands, with Beatles classics Let It be, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, Get Back and Yesterday all getting an outing.
It’s not the first time Paul has been swamped with requests to one of his shows. He played at London’s O2 Arena in December, and ended up with around 600 names on the guest list.

May be big hair, but are Bon Jovi really the biggest rock band?

Bon Jovi claim to be the biggest rock band on the planet, but where does that leave Springsteen or U2? And what comes into the equation when the sums are being done, asks BRIAN BOYD
THE PROMOTIONAL material for Bon Jovi’s recent two week residency at London’s O2 Arena describes the New Jersey rockers as “the biggest rock band on the planet”.
In most rock critics given the emotions Bon Jovi arouse (ranging from cynical detachment to outright hatred), the grandiosity of the claim and the nerdy, fact checking nature of the more dedicated rock music fan, such an inflammatory claim has sparked a heated debate on music forums. Driven in the first place by a very intelligent discussion on the website of the esteemed music magazine, Word (wordmagazine.co.uk), the bald statement “biggest rock band on the planet” is now the subject of a forensic like examination.
What are the criteria? How much weighting is given to album sales as opposed to tour sales? Does recent chart profile count? Should it? What about Springsteen, U2, The Stones? Reviews and critical acclaim? How dare a bunch of unfashionable big hair rockers make this claim, etc.
At the more reasonable end of the argument a consensus is emerging that rock music needs a type of Duckworth Lewis method to accurately answer this question. The Duckworth Lewis method is a mathematical formula used in cricket to predict the outcome of a match which can’t be completed for whatever reason.
Even before getting close to coming up with a formula, there needs to be “talks about talks”. Given that we’re talking rock band here, we can rule out the likes of Lady GaGa and Madonna. But is the term “rock” flexible enough to take in everyone who should be under consideration.
For some people, “rock” means a certain genre (Metallica, etc), which would exclude “rock’n’roll” music, as exemplified by The Rolling Stones. But best just to use a working definition of “rock” that doubles as “popular music”. So Take That make the cut.
Then you get into the notion of contemporary relevance. Surely, our “biggest rock band on the planet” must still be a going concern, capable of throwing their new releases to the higher end of the charts and not just a bunch of megamillion selling dinosaurs of yesteryear on a never ending “nostalgia” tour? That would appear to rule out The Rolling Stones who more or less gave up on good new music decades ago. But they are still releasing albums today, so best to keep them in.
Then how to weigh up the importance of album sales vs live tour sales? Should both carry equal clout? In that case AC/DC would leapfrog right over The Stones in that the former can go to number one in album charts all around the world with their new release and also attract a huge live audience. The Stones can get more people through the turnstiles but shift nowhere near as many new release albums as AC/DC.
What about quality? Bruce Springsteen’s latest Working On A Dream may have been critically acclaimed but Taylor Swift sold far more copies of her album, Fearless which was released in the same time period. But a far higher percentage of people who bought Working On A Dream are going to see the live show than in Taylor Swift’s case. And where does all of this leave U2? Their current album is a slow-seller (by their standards) but more people than ever before are going to see them play live.
When it comes to touring, should you be looking at gross or net box office sales? Should sponsorship money be taken out of the equation (which would instantly elevate Springsteen’s takings)? Can you factor in the price of the ticket? Number of continents visited? Size of the stadia? Press reviews of the shows? Twitter feeds generated?
Then you get into the nitty gritty. Should bands be awarded more points if all original members are still present and correct? What if, like The Eagles, they have been dormant for decades before resurrecting themselves? Do Arcade Fire fare better because they are “cool and fashionable”? Does a band’s pan-generational pulling appeal matter? What if they play live for over three hours instead of lip-synching and having loads of back-up vocalists and dancers to distract you from their musical limitations but still put on a superbly entertaining show (Take That, for instance)?
At some stage you have to call halt and come up with an authoritative working formula. Over at Word magazine they think they’ve cracked it: take the gross for the last tour, divide by the number of dates, and then factor in sales of the last album and headlining gigs at recent major events and festivals.
If you feed all that into your computer, though, your hard drive starts to melt. Ultimately though, an answer is grudgingly thrown up and it appears to be, through the haze, Bruce Springsteen. But there’s an instant appeal in from the U2 camp, who point out that their 360 tour has double the gross with only half the number of shows and furthermore that No Line On The Horizon has outsold Working On A Dream.
But what if you use four straightforward but all -encompassing criteria: sell out tours, number one albums, critical acclaim, artistic integrity. Bon Jovi can only tick the first box here so that’s them out; The Stones can only manage (at best) two out of the four, so that’s them out. Which leaves just Springsteen and U2 who both have a claim (no matter how hotly disputed) to all four. That’s if you ignore the claims of Coldplay and AC/DC. And what if Pink Floyd and/or Led Zeppelin reformed . . .
The five best-selling . . .
. . . ALBUMS OF ALL TIME
1 Thriller Michael Jackson
About 105 million
2 Back in Black AC/DC
About 50 million
3 Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd About 45 million
4 Whitney Houston
The Bodyguard soundtrack
About 44 million
5 Meat Loaf
Bat out of Hell
About 42 million
. . . TOURS OF THE NOUGHTIES
1 A Bigger Bang
Rolling Stones $550 Million
2 Vertigo
U2 $389 million
3 360 Degree
U2 $311 million
4 Sticky Sweet
Madonna $280 million
5 The Farewell
Cher $192 million

An Antique Tea Set, Elton John Gives Lady Gaga

Elton John currently sent a gift to pop diva Lady Gaga, giving her an antique tea set which served as a gesture of gratitude after she performed at his charity ball. The 24 year old singer was presented with the gift after she sang at the White Tie and Tiara Ball in Windsor this week."Gaga had a tour of his home and was awestruck by his collection. She kept complimenting him on it. He was tickled by her fascination that he presented her with a vintage set. She was over the moon after receiving the present," a source close to Elton told U.K. newspaper The Sun.Some of the other guests at the event included comedian David Walliams and wife Lara Stone, actress Myleene Klass, singers Kerry Katona, Peter Andre and model Alex Curran.The amount of money raised was $8.4 million for Elton's AIDS Foundation. Mainly the program's purpose is to educate young Africans about the risk of HIV through the use of soccer.

Radiohead: Voted best Glastonbury headliner

Radiohead have been voted the greatest ever Glastonbury headliners. The Kid A band won the accolade for their 1997 performance on the Pyramid Stage. Sir Paul McCartney's 2004 set came second, while Blur came third for their show at last year's festival. Jay-Z and David Bowie completed the top five.Graeme Slattery, of Muzu.tv, which conducted the poll, said: "Glastonbury is famous for its legendary headliners and Radiohead's 1997 performance secured their place in festival history."With a typically eclectic mix of acts confirmed for this year's festival, ranging from Snoop Dogg to Stevie Wonder, festival fans are in for a treat."Radiohead guitarist Ed O' Brien currently revealed that the band were close to completing their eighth studio album.

World Ticket Shop Metallica Sonisphere Cinecast Seen By 100,000

The Sonisphere cinecast from the Sofia, Bulgaria leg of the touring rock festival was seen by more than 100,000 fans, according to promoter Stuart Galbraith. The global June 22 cinecast featured the 'Big Four' of metal - Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax - and was beamed via satellite in HD to cinemas. It was distributed globally into hundreds of cinemas by New York-based BY Experience.In the U.K. it was screened in 79 cinemas. "At the Odeon in Leicester Square in London there was a mosh pit, and at the end of the show they had a stage invasion, which is just phenomenal to even think about," says Galbraith. "Not only are we hitting the territories that we're playing with this tour, (with the cinecast) we've taken the Big Four and Sonisphere into countries we haven't been able to get to this year."A DVD of the cinema presentation is set to be released later this year. TV deals have also been struck for sets from Sonisphere and in Britain ITV2 will screen highlights from the U.K. festival. VH1 will show Sonisphere in the U.S.While the Big Four did impressive numbers in cinemas globally, the Sonisphere festival launched this year with close to 100,000 tickets sold for just one event at Bemowow Airport in Warsaw, Poland on June 16. It was the first time the four metal bands had shared a concert bill."That was quite incredible, the first time into the market," says Galbraith. "To have those four bands all on the same bill for the first time ever was a very special moment."Sonisphere has also called at Jonschwil in Switzerland, Prague, Sofia and Athens. It is now in Bucharest and Istanbul (both June 25-27) and then travels to Madrid (July 9-10), Stockholm (Aug. 7) and Pori in Finland (Aug. 7-8). It wraps up with two nights at the 50,000-capacity Knebworth (July 30-Aug. 1). Rammstein and Iron Maiden headline with Anthrax, Pendulum, Alice In Chains, Alice Cooper, Motley Crue and Slayer also on the bill.Iron Maiden will be playing three Sonisphere dates in August on the eve of the Aug. 15 release of their new album, "The Final Frontier" (EMI)."It's a great launch for them for their album, in the U.K., Sweden and Finland," says Galbraith. It will be Maiden's only shows in those territories in 2010.At Knebworth, Rammstein play their first ever outdoor show in the U.K. Metallica played all dates last year but it will not be appearing at Knebworth or Madrid in 2010.Overall, almost 600,000 tickets have been sold for 19 days of Sonisphere at 11 sites in 2010, compared to 290,000 for seven days at six locations last year. Tickets in eastern and southern Europe tend to sell nearer the date than in western counties.The World Cup has not proved a distraction either. While some other festivals showed games on big screens, Sonisphere has taken a defiant stand. "We've ignored it," says Galbraith. "Most self respecting rock fans aren't into football."Galbraith is already talking to potential headliners and sponsors for 2011, and expects to return to the U.K., Sweden and Finland, among others. He hopes for 12 to 14 Sonisphere festivals in 2011.Sonisphere was launched in 2009 by Galbraith, series producer and director and CEO of Kilimanjaro Live, and John Jackson, festival creator and director and Metallica's booking agent at K2 since 1985. AEG, which backs Kilimanjaro, is also supporting the festival

World Ticket Shop: METALLICA, SLAYER, MEGADETH, ANTHRAX Video Footage Of 'Big Four' Photo Call

METALLICA, SLAYER, MEGADETH and ANTHRAX — the so-called "Big Four" of 1980s thrash metal played together for the first time in history this past (16 June) Wednesday night in front of 81,000 fans at the Sonisphere festival at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland. ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian has posted video footage of the photo call that took place before the Warsaw concert. Watch the clip below. Several more "Big Four" shows will take place across Europe, in Bulgaria with a June 22 concert to be beamed to more than 450 movie theatres in more than 140 markets in the U.S., along with cities in Europe, Canada and Latin America. The concert will be broadcast to theatres in high definition. Delayed screenings are planned for Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Scott Ian previously stated about the "Big Four" tour: "This is a metal fan's dream. "Looking at this, not only as one of the bands playing on the show, which is fucking awesome, but from the point of view of a fan of SLAYER and MEGADETH and METALLICA, I just think it's the best show. "The guys in the bands have all been talking about the possibility of this tour happening for likely 20 years. "The rest of the world is clamoring for shows. "Whether we do the U.S. is out of hands. That's a METALLICA question. For this (European run of dates), we kept hearing the rumors and I kept calling Kirk (Hammett, METALLICA guitarist) and he kept denying it and then one time he finally said, 'Yes, it's going to happen, but don't say anything.' I think it's going to be the same with other territories. We're already hearing rumors about other places in the world. And I think eventually it will be a worldwide adventure."

Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie and More, Montreal's 2010 Jazz Fest

Start with Canada's cultural capital. Add a celeb packed entertainment roster. Throw in noon-to-midnight concerts (550 of them, to be exact) over 12 days of fun — and voilà! It's Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, www.montrealjazzfest.com. Running from June 25 to July 6, the event is now in its 31st season.
But why Montreal and why jazz? Co founder André Ménard says the goal was to restore the city's 1930s and '40s reputation as a hotbed of jazz (the scene took a beating in the '50s when a moral crusade led to a clampdown). Jazz still dominates the program, but change musical genres have always featured. R&B great Ray Charles graced the original 1980 bill, which attracted 12,000. Three decades and an annual 2.5 million visitors later, it's ranked the jazz world's largest festival by Guinness World Records. "It's fresh, joyful, inclusive," says Ménard. (Look TIME's list of the 100 all-time greatest albums.)
The sheer variety on offer goes a long way toward explaining the event's popularity. Venues range from big symphony halls to little jazz clubs. This year's opening gala spotlights Cassandra Wilson and Lionel Richie. Phenom pianist and nonagenarian Dave Brubeck plays on July 5, while soul legend Smokey Robinson, pop queen Cyndi Lauper, Eric Burdon and Boz Scaggs are making appearances. Rap godfather Gil Scott Heron plays a club gig on opening night. Fans of more straightforward jazz can select from performances by David Sanborn, Sonny Rollins, George Benson and many others.
With 3,000 musicians and performances taking place in 12 concert halls and on nine outdoor stages, you'll need a spreadsheet to track it all. Or you could keep it simple by heading to the outdoor Place des Festivals and just wandering from stage to stage. Inaugurated last year with Stevie Wonder's opening night, this permanent downtown location is free to the public. In fact, all 370 outdoor concerts in the 2010 program are free. It doesn't get better than that.

World Ticket Shop: Peter Kay, Miley Cyrus and Mark Knopfler ticket scam warning

Sports fans, festival goers and music lovers should be wary of ticket scams this summer, trading standards officers have warned.
Durham County Council has started a new drive aimed at helping prevent people from being conned out of their cash.

Tick It campaign aims just to raise cognizance of fake websites, which offer cheap or hard to get tickets only to let users down when the passes fail to turn up.

Joanne Waller, Durham's head of environment, health and consumer protection, said: "The council's Fair Trading team has currently been contacted by a number of people who have been caught out by attractive looking websites. They claimed to be selling tickets for performances by artists like Mark Knopfler, Peter Kay and Miley Cyrus."Investigations have shown many of these websites are operated from overseas and not from the UK-based PO Box addresses they provide."Durham County Council is advising anyone buying tickets on the Internet to follow these guidelines:

* Check with the event arrangers to find out when tickets are being released for sale.

* Check you are able to contact the company. Make sure they provide a full postal address (not a PO Box) and a landline phone number.

* Make sure the site has a refund policy in case something goes wrong.For further advice call Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.

* Use a credit card to pay for your tickets as, under the Consumer Credit Act, a card issuer is jointly liable for failure to provide goods or services if the cash price of a single ticket is more than £100.

World Ticket Shop: New London Cabaret Intiatives Launch at Wilton's Music Hall and The Pheasantry

Live at Wilton's will bring cabaret back to where it arguably all began, Wilton's Music Hall in the East End near Tower Bridge, while Live at the Pheasantry will look the King's Road eaterie launching a regular cabaret season.

By Wilton's Music Hall the Live at Wilton's season is produced, under the direction of Frances Mayhew, with artistic direction by Nicky Gayner, and an advisory programming committee of producers comprising Neil Eckersley, Samuel Joseph, Neil Marcus and Hillary Williams.
Samuel Joseph is also behind a new season of cabaret performances that will launch at the Pheasantry, a celebrated restaurant on the King's Road in Chelsea, under the umbrella Live at the Pheasantry.
The opening season will begin with Jessie Buckley (finalist for the role of Nancy in the TV reality contest "I'd Do Anything" who has since appeared in the West End in A Little Night Music) June 26. It will continue with West End performers Cassidy Janson appearing July 4, Kelly Price July 18, Shona White July 25 and Australian performer Damion Scarclla performing his show The Bowlly Years Aug. 14.
Also on the schedule are Claire Martin and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett appearing July 1-3, following sell out performances over the past year at Kings Place, Pizza on the Park and New York's Oak Room at the Algonquin; London alternative cabaret icon Al Pillay July 16-17; and Simon Green bringing his show Travelling Light, seen in New York at Feinstein's at the Regency and 59E59 Theatre, to the Pheasantry July 22-24. Harry the Piano, previously house pianist on Channel 4's "Big Breakfast" and BBC1's "Johnny Vaughan Tonight," will appear Aug. 5-7; Gary Williams will appear Sept. 4 to debut his new show Gary Williams: That's Life; and further dates to include appearances by Fascinating Aida, Jason Robert Brown and Daniel Boys.
Originally a Georgian building and grounds designed to raise pheasants for the Royal Household to hunt, The Pheasantry saw its status among the fashion cognoscenti grow significantly in the 20th century as it constantly adapted to mirror an ever-changing London. In the 1930s it was home to both a dance school headed by famous Russian ballerina Serafima Alexandrovna Astafieva and a club where Dylan Thomas would drink, while the likes of Eleanor Thornton - the inspiration for the "Spirit of Ecstasy" Rolls-Royce model - and Eric Clapton have lived there; the rocker famously once had to escape out the back door to evade arrest by Sgt. Norman Pilcher, a notorious scourge of the music community in the sixties. "The Female Eunuch" was written within its walls, and it was where Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice discovered Yvonne Elliman, who would go on to star in Jesus Christ Superstar. In the 1970s, The Pheasantry became a nightclub, playing host to some of the earliest gigs by Lou Reed, Queen and Hawkwind, among others.

Hop Farm, Download and Hard Rock Calling, Festival tickets guide

As the summer festival season fast approaches, here at Tixdaq.com we have used our knowledge of the ticket market to provide you with details of some fantastic deals currently available. Music fans need not miss out if tickets have sold out from primary vendors, as ticket exchange websites are recently listing thousands of tickets at some very reasonable prices.
Hard Rock Calling tickets have been falling in price in current weeks, with tickets to see Paul McCartney on the final day of the festival, Sunday 27th June, now trading from £32. In fact, it is cheaper to buy Paul McCartney tickets for his Hard Rock Calling performance than to buy tickets for any of his scheduled stadium shows. With a general admission day ticket, fans will gain full entry to the festival and can also witness performances from the likes of Crowded House, Elvis Costello and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Hard Rock Calling takes place in Hyde Park from Friday 25th June to Sunday 27th June. Hard Rock Calling tickets for Pearl Jam’s headline performance on the Friday can also be picked up for £32. Saturday tickets for Stevie Wonder’s headline appearance start at £45.
Download Festival tickets are still available, despite the event getting under way tomorrow. Download weekend tickets are currently available on the secondary ticket market for less than £150. Music fans with download tickets will have the chance to witness headline performances from AC/DC, Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith. This year’s line up also includes Deftones, Motorhead, Slash, 30 Seconds to Mars, Bullet For My Valentine, The Blackout and A Day to Remember.
Hop Farm Festival tickets are also trading below face value. Hop Farm Festival may not be the most talked about festival of the summer, but it will this year play host to the likes of Bob Dylan, Pete Doherty, Van Morrison, Laura Marling and Seasick Steve. The festival takes place in Tonbridge this July and day tickets cost around £45 each, with camping tickets costing £25 on top of that.

'Swamp Ghost' Returns To US, World War II Bomber

New Guinea swamp 17 bomber that lay for decades after being forced down during a World War II combat mission has been returned to the United States after years of salvage efforts.
The forward fuselage of the so called "Swamp Ghost" was displayed Friday at the Port of Long Beach in an emotional, patriotic ceremony attended by kin of some of the now deceased aircrew.
"I know this a glad day for Dick," said Linda Oliver, the 89 year old widow of bombardier Richard Oliver, the last living crewman who died in August. She regretted he did not look the warbird's comeback.
"He longed for this to happen, but this wasn't to be," said Oliver, of Tiburon, Calif.
The frail widow watched a flag presentation by an Air Force honor guard and a flyover by vintage World War II fighters before her three children helped her climb steps to peer inside the fuselage sitting atop a truck trailer in the parking lot of the harborside restaurant The Reef.
The four-engine B-17E Flying Fortress was built by Boeing in November 1941, flew from California to Hawaii days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and then island hopped to Australia.
It went down on Feb. 23, 1942, on its only combat mission after being damaged by enemy fire during a raid on Japanese forces at Rabaul in New Britain and losing fuel.
Army Air Corps Capt. Fred Eaton piloted the aircraft to a belly landing in what turned out to be a swamp and the nine crewmen survived a six-week ordeal escaping the swamp and making their way to safety.
"Often in my life the courage and the perseverance that Dad and his fellow crew members demonstrated gave me courage to face some of the challenges we've all met in life," said the bombardier's son, Mike Oliver of Richmond, Va., who was born while his father was missing in action.
An Australian air force crew came upon the B-17 in 1972. Sustaining little damage in the landing and virtually undisturbed for years, the intact craft became coveted by salvagers of historic warplanes.
John Tallichet, president and CEO of Specialty Restaurants Corp., recounted how his father, company founder and World War II B-17 pilot David Tallichet, started efforts to recover the plane in the 1980s but didn't live to see its return. "One of his purposes in life was to bring this plane to the United States," he said.
The B-17's remote location and difficulties in gaining governmental permission to remove it from New Guinea would leave it in its watery resting place for many more years, gaining the nickname "Swamp Ghost" along the way. Westerners trekking to the site removed many items as souvenirs during that time.
The effort to bring home the plane was carried on by Pennsylvania businessman Fred Hagen, a friend of David Tallichet who has located a series of aircraft lost during World War II, leading to repatriation of missing airmen's remains.
In 2006 Hagen organized a salvage operation in which the B-17 was cut into sections that were flown by helicopter to a port. However, a dispute over authority to remove the plane held it up in New Guinea, and then its status as a warplane delayed its shipment through New Zealand, Hagen said.
The B-17 finally arrived in Long Beach last month.
Hagen said the cost of recovering the bomber was approximately $1.5 million.
It may be restored to flying condition and housed in a museum, or perhaps reassembled at less expense for display in a setting recreating the jungle swamp where it landed 68 years ago, Hagen said.
In a poignant scene, Linda Oliver, stood in front of the plane with a photo of her late husband in uniform, assisted by daughters Kathy Oliver Cataldo of Richmond, Va., and Karen Braughton of Sebastopol, Calif.

Ntreev Invites Players to Celebrate: The 2010 Soccer World Championship with Pangya

The popular online golf game kicks off exciting in-game events including the 2010 World Championship Party and magical voice club sets.

a leading online game developer and publisher, announced today that it will launch the 2010 World Championship Party to celebrate the Soccer World Championship. Starting tomorrow through July 14, players can participate in fun-filled event to win fabulous in-game prizes. Additionally, Pangya will feature Magical Voice Club Sets for a limited time allowing players to turn up the volume and hear what the characters have to say! To learn more about the events and to download the game, players can visit http://Pangya.ntreev.net/ 2010 World Championship Party Players can celebrate the 2010 Soccer World Championship with Pangya starting tomorrow through July 14th. During the event, players will gather game tickets from any cup, and once they obtain the game ticket, will then be eligible to click on the World Championship button and play the ladder. Players have a shot at winning soccer shoes, consumable items, various titles and 2010 World Championship Comets. The in-game soccer shoes feature a special power to increase the Pangya Impact Zone during the event; however, this effect disappears after the event!

Roger Waters is to play Pink Floyd’s 1979 album ‘The Wall’ in full on a UK and European tour next year

Roger Waters Adds 12 Dates To The Wall Tour was a top story in May. Here is the recap: In response to the tremendous demand, Roger Waters’ has added 12 new shows to his monumental production for the 30th Anniversary of The Wall that features a full band and a newly-mounted state-of-the-art production.
As of now, Waters will take a few months off before launching his European leg on March 21st in Lisbon, PT. He’ll then tour across the UK and Europe before winding down on June 18th in Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable dates include a three-night stint at London’s O2 Arena and multiple stops throughout Germany.
In the UK, he’ll play three nights at the London O2 Arena on May 11, 12 and 17, followed by two nights at the Manchester Evening News Arena (20, 21). A further show will take place at Dublin’s O2 Arena on May 23.