Sam Fender cancels shows to look after his mental health

Posted on September 12, 2022 by Admin

Singer-songwriter apologises to fans in announcement on Instagram after becoming ‘burnt out’ from touring

Sam Fender has cancelled a number of forthcoming shows and announced he is “taking some time off the road” to look after his mental health, after admitting that he was “burnt out” from touring.

The 28-year-old singer-songwriter from Newcastle posted the announcement on Instagram, saying it would be “completely hypocritical” of him to advocate for discussion of the topic without looking after his own mental wellbeing.

Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar to headline resurgent Glastonbury

Posted on March 4, 2022 by Admin

As the festival returns from Covid-enforced hiatus, over half of the acts announced so far feature women

Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar and Olivia Rodrigo have been announced as among the stars performing at this summer’s Glastonbury festival.

Out of the 89 names announced so far, 48 are women or acts that include female artists, meeting festival co-organiser Emily Eavis’s previously stated intention for Glastonbury to achieve gender parity on its bill. “Our future has to be 50/50,” she told the BBC in 2020.

Worthy winners aside, the Brits is struggling to keep pace with modern pop

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Admin

TikTok voting and gaming stars haven’t altered the music awards’ predictable roster of chart-toppers

• News: Adele sweeps gender-neutral Brit awards
• Liveblog: Brit awards 2022 – as it happened

The actual Brit awards ceremony has changed its complexion over the years: from the old-guard backslapping of the 80s to the boozy chaos of the 90s and early 00s. Today’s offering is slickly professional – hipper than it once was, less tone-deaf when it comes to representation, but not a hair out of place to the point of seeming faintly uneventful, unless you count the sight of Anne-Marie falling over, or the sound of Ed Sheeran gamely attempting to turn Bad Habits into a metal anthem with the aid of Bring Me the Horizon: even the person in charge of the mute button for swearing had an easy night. There was a lot of talk from host Mo Gilligan about hedonistic behaviour, but not many actual signs of it. Nor did anyone attempt to say anything controversy-stirring or political.

This year, the onus appeared to have shifted slightly again. In what was clearly an attempt to attract a younger audience – an audience that don’t watch music shows on television – there were categories voted for by fans via TikTok; elsewhere, there were “afterparties” starring tweenage favourite PinkPantheress on gaming platform Roblox and the unmissable opportunity to buy Brits-related NFTs.

On my radar: Sam Fender’s cultural highlights

Posted on October 2, 2021 by Admin

The Tyneside rocker on his favourite bath time podcast, a second world war memoir and where to get the best breakfast kippers

Sam Fender was born in 1994 and raised in North Shields. He began writing songs aged 14, building on an affinity with Bruce Springsteen, and started acting a few years later, appearing in the ITV series Vera. After releasing his first single, Play God, independently in 2017, Fender featured in the BBC’s Sound of 2018 poll. He won the critics’ choice award at the 2019 Brits and his debut album, Hypersonic Missiles, entered the UK charts at No 1. His second album, Seventeen Going Under, is out this week on Polydor.