Bobby Long plays at Hyde Park Bobby Long had a show at Hyde Park in London, England this week at the Wireless Festival.
According to manager Phil Taylor, "Bobby played a few days after Neil Young and Springsteen and a few days before Blur and Basement Jaxx at the Wireless Festival. All these events were put on at the same site using the same infrastructure of stages and back stage areas."
There is only one show left for Long in the U.K. before he embarks on his Dangerous Summer Tour through the United States. That show will be at the Garage, and then Long will kick off his tour of the U.S. in New York City at the end of this month (current schedule featured below and more information available here).
Says Taylor,
In the mean time we are both gearing up for the London show at The Garage on the 17th. There are only 17 tickets left as I write this, so we are excited to get there and see lots more old and new friends. On the 18th Bobby plays a private party for a large group of German people who are flying to London for a private audience. There is a very strong rumor that Bobby will be doing a small farewell show with friends at the Albany at some point over next week end as well. Check the MySpace on Saturday night after the Garage show to find out more.
Also, if you are interested in merchandise from Bobby Long, there are two official sites for such. The first is through the United States here, and the second is the U.K. site here.
taylor at a dodger game monday from radaronline and how he's becoming a hunk from the examiner:
How Twilight's Taylor Lautner became a teen sex symbol for both girls and women
The new "Team Jacob" book cover for the New Moon trade paperback coming out September 15th was recently released, and with it came a flurry of gasps. The cover features Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan being embraced by Taylor Lautner, who plays the young werewolf Jacob Black. Lautner is shirtless, and his work in the gym is obvious. Across the internet, teens are expressing their undying love for the actor, which is not unusual. What is unusual is the way many adult women are swooning over young Lautner. At only 17, Lautner has become a sort of one-of-a-kind teen sex symbol for female Twilight fans of all ages.
It is not difficult to list teen starlets who are considered sexy by men of all ages. Think underwear-clad Britney Spears on the cover of Rolling Stones, dripping wet Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair, or Hayden Panettiere in her cheerleader outfit on Heroes. All over the internet, "countdown clocks" tick away until underaged actresses turn 18. 14 year old models are presented as fantasies for men three times their age. Girls are sexualized at younger and younger ages, and no one seems to bat an eye. It is just considered normal for teen girls to look like sexy adults.
The same is not true for teen boys. Perhaps because boys don't mature physically as soon as girls, it is harder to turn teen boys into pseudo-adults. On television, teen boys are usually played by men in their twenties, rather than the other way around. There are plenty of young stars, like the Jonas Brothers, who are followed by legions of teen fangirls, but part of their appeal is that they do NOT look like grown men. They are desirable precisely because they do not seem adult, making them safe for young girls just growing into their sexuality. While teen girls are routinely turned into fantasies for adult men on purpose, the opposite is just not true of teen boys.
But Twilight is different. The fanbase for Twilight was created long before the movies were even imagined, and those fans span generations of girls and women. Devotion to characters like Jacob Black and Edward Cullen formed with no ideas about who would play them in the movies. The actors in the movie had a rabid fan base in the beginning simply because of the characters they play. While most moms only care about the Jonas Brothers in order to get concert tickets for their daughters, adult women enjoy the Twilight books for themselves, and many women already felt a strong connection with Jacob Black; Taylor Lautner was the beneficiary of that devotion. When Lautner bulked up physically for his more significant role in New Moon, the second movie, that fan devotion turned into a kind of lust, one that left many women disconcerted. On discussion boards for adults like TwilightMoms.com and AdultTwilightFans.com, women expressed their mixed feelings about the newly sexy Lautner. Said commenter DancingQueen on AdultTwilightFans.com, "Lord have mercy for I have SINNED! That is one hot kid right there!" 4ever17 agreed: "I Am SO going to hell He's younger than my baby boy for cryin' out loud!!" Their feelings are echoed in forums across the web.
Lautner's co-star, Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen, has a far more rabid fan base, but Pattinson is in his early twenties, and few women feel bad lusting after him. The only other comparable phenomenon that had both teen and adult fans lusting after the lead is the movie Titanic in 1997, but star Leonardo DiCaprio was also in his early twenties at the time. This leaves Lautner in the unique position as a teen sex symbol for women of all ages. Go Team Jacob (I think...)! read more...
heres a video of bobby long in berlin and a message from phil taylor (manager) regarding the trip (from land of dreamers):
Im having a day off today working from a friends guitar shop in Kings Rd, London. I work from there when Im having a day off so that I only get called on my mobile phone. Does this sound like a day off to you?
Bobby and I got back last night from a weekend in Berlin and then a little festival yesterday in the UK. Bobby Long has been asleep since he got back to London and Im trying to give him a proper day off, but I wanted to let every one know what we have been up to.
We flew in to Berlin, which is by far the hippest city in Europe right now, on Friday 5th June. We left Bobby's London apartment at 6am to get to the airport. We went to bed at 4am the night before! So, a little bleary eyed, we turned up at Heathrow and got on the plane to Berlin.
rest of the blog and 2 non-related videos of bobby playing live after the break! Spent the day with press and trying to get some sleep before getting to the Knaack Klub for the first gig. As we walked along the street to get there, I spotted some posters for the show. The first Bobby Long posters we have ever seen up on a wall. They were not very big and they were not printed in colour, but we were both over the moon excited by them!
The Knaack Klub is a great venue with a great stage and a nice area out side for meeting people after the show. About 120 people turned up to see Bobby play, which was amazing bearing in mind that the show was only booked 8 days before he played it, so again we were excited to be there and Bobby was dying to get on stage and make friends with his audience. People had driven 800 miles to be there! Bobby likes to play every night of his life and gets a bit jittery if he has not had a gig for a while. The set was good and I think that Bobby really enjoyed the chance to play to new people. He used the opportunity to try out several new songs, which I had not heard before. They are probably up on you tube by now.
After the gig bobby and I went to a club that I feel may well become what Bobby and I call our "GCHQ", we have one in all the cities he plays. A "GCHQ" is a place where he and I can hang out after gigs and chat to old friends. Its nice as its important for us to feel at home somewhere when we are on the road. We have $50 hidden behind the bar at our GCHQ in NYC so that we can go there even when we are broke! We left there at 5am. So quite a long day.
Next day (the 6th June, 65th anniversary of D Day) Bobby and I went for a walk in a park before setting off to do an interview. Luckily we managed to get the juornalist to show us the way to the venue for that nights film event gig. So we were taken on the metro trains with out getting lost!
We arrived to screaming fans at an old power station which was the venue for the Twilight DVD release where Bobby was booked to play that night. Right from the start we knew we were going to have a great time and a great show. While Bobby did his customary two minute sound check ("Can you hear the guitar Phil?" "Yes Bobby." "OK great, thanks sound man, thats it." !), Ben Kirby who is the Subways manager and one of my best friends came and found us to say hello and give us both a hug.
Ben had got to know Bobby at a party we had in Sweden a week or so ago and Bobby was happy to finally meet The Subways of whom he is a big fan. Ben took us down stares to say hello to Billy, Charlotte and Josh from The Subways and we all chatted while we got ready for what we learned is called a "Red Carpet Event". We went out and got into an SUV and were driven from the back of the building to the front of the building (not very green is it?) and then we walked down a red carpet with Bobby signing autographs, talking to fans and being photographed and filmed. It was great fun.
The show that night was a good one. Bobby played to about 2500 people who all went mental, waving and shouting at him to come off stage and sign autographs. His image was projected up behind him so every one could see and I thought he looked natural and great.
Bobby and I watched The Subways with open mouthed amazement as Billy stired up the audience by getting them to sing along with hit after hit. He is the best front man on the scene right now by a very long way. www.myspace.com/thesubways
After their show Bobby, The Subways and I hung out with various actresses and actors before heading back to GCHQ and another crazily late night. We left the club and headed for the airport ("Dont worry Bobby, sleep on the plane!") and our 6.45am flight back to good old Blighty. Hayley, Bobbys European press coordinator picked us up at the airport and drove us to Sellinge festival in Kent where Bobby again played new songs.
After that we went home and I fell asleep after ten minutes!
Thank you to all the people who came out to see Bobby play in Berlin. Bobby loved meeting you all very much. We will be back in Berlin during the first week of October 2009 after playing several dates in Spain and France in late September. In October Bobby and I will be back in the USA playing a 40 date touur until Christmas, these dates will be announced soon.
Sorry for rambling on and on, but I wanted to show you the bits you may not get to see.
Phil Taylor New Kings Rd Vintage Guitar Emporium, Kings Rd, London.
