Scene & heard: The latest entertainment news
shares the latest news from the entertainment world.
Tom Waits’ debut album, Closing Time, is the first of his seven albums from the 1970s to be released in 2018.
First put out on the Elektra Asylum label in 1973, a re-mastered version will be available on various formats from March 9, complete with a 180-gram vinyl version. Closing Time features such Waits’ favourites as ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You’, ‘Martha’ and ‘Ice Cream Man’.
There’s been little sign of 68-year-old Waits in the live arena since his Glitter and Doom tour took in Ireland in 2008, and another veteran act retiring from the stage are Slayer, who’ve announced they’re splitting after this year’s world tour. We’ve had no word yet on whether that final series of gigs by the trash metal pioneers will come to Ireland.
At least Slayer will live-on online, and they’ve even been joined by fellow guitar merchants Def Leppard, who’ve finally allowed their albums to be used by the major streaming services. Leppard frontman, Dublin resident Joe Elliott, told Rolling Stone that the long wait came because the deal had with the various services had to be right, not least after he heard about musicians who had “125,000,000 listens and a check for $120”.
Finally, RIP to Mark E Smith, 60, of Manchester band, The Fall.
The Townlands Carnival near Macroom, Co Cork, has beefed up its lineup for the 2018 event (July 20-22), with a decent dance-orientated lineup that includes a DJ set from Neil Barnes of Leftfield, and a number of artists playing under the Ghetto Funk banner.
Another Co Cork event, It Takes A Village at Trabolgan (April 13-15), has also announced more acts to join the likes of Young Fathers and Andrew Weatherall. Martin Hayes, above, and Lankum are among the latest batch, while Blindboy Boatclub will also do his hugely-popular podcast from the event.
Tickets go on sale tomorrow for Britney Spears’ appearance at the 3Arena on August 20, a version of the ‘Piece of Me’ show that ran for 250 performances in Las Vegas until December 2017, generating an estimated $140m.
Martin Scorsese showed what a violent lot those Irish are in Gangs Of New York, and is about to return to the ignoble Gael with Netflix mob series, The Irishman. Hopefully, it’ll mark a return to form for Scorsese following his dismal film, Silence, in 2016. Robert De Niro plays the main role of Frank Sheeran, the Irish-American mobster and union official who died in 2003. Other members of an incredible cast include Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, with rapper Action Bronson also confirming this week that he has a role. No release date has yet been set, but if anything should happen Bronson during filming, they’d easily replace him with his body-double Rag’n’Bone Man.
Tom Cruise tops the guestlist on Graham Norton’s show tonight.
The Late Late Show has Amy Huberman, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Peter Stringer and Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave.
Paul Schrader, the writer of such films as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, has been announced among the guests visiting the Audi Dublin International Film Festival. Famine-era drama Black 47 will open the event on February 24, while French film C’est la Vie — from the same duo who made the hugely-successful The Untouchables — closes the event on March 4.
General openings this week have included Downsizing, the quirky person-shrinking film starring Matt Damon; Early Man, from the makers of Wallace and Gromit; and Last Flag Flying, the story of a group of Vietnam veterans who get together to bury one of their sons, killed in Iraq. Cork Cine Club is up and running again at St John’s College, with next Thursday’s film, Felicite, telling the tale of a woman struggling through life in the Congo.
