What a weekend! It all started off on Friday with a performance at 'This Feeling' a club night in London that has previously hosted acoustic performances from The Enemy and Kasabian and DJ slots from Oasis and Noel Fielding (Mighty Boosh).
They have been running the night since late 2007 and Friday night was the biggest crowd so far for the acoustic performance (support came from Jersey Budd, Eamonn McNamee and Strawhouses all of whom have MySpace sites worth checking out, see below).
Then on Saturday it was off to the top of the BT tower to judge a battle of the bands competition. The first prize was a coveted place on the bill at the Isle Of Wight festival. After much deliberating me and the rest of the judging panel decided first prize should go to the Scottish band 'We See Lights'. The runners up were 'The Velcros' and 'The Tempus'. Be sure to check out their MySpace sites below too.
Then on Sunday I was invited to perform and do a Q&A at the Oxford Union. It was a great honour to be invited to join the illustrious list of people who have been invited to speak. The list of previous speakers is extremely diverse from the political activist Malcolm X to strange haired comedian/lothario Russell Brand. The person before me was the US secretary of homeland security!
It was a beautiful venue for a gig (the main debating chamber, see below) and it was great to perform at a place so steeped in history. As someone who left college with no A-levels it was the closest I was ever going to get to going to Oxford. It's just a pity they couldn't have given me an honorary degree!
Thanks for your patience, we hope to have some brand new music for you very soon. In the mean time I hope you like the MySpace covers.
The board was well represented and made use of the free bar!
Hello All,
Another exhausting week in Starsailor world! We were very pleased to be asked to support The Police in Zurich and were even more impressed when the first person we saw as we left the stage was the mighty Sting! He told us he loved the show and was pleased to have us on the tour.
We hardly had time to draw breath and we were at a race track in Le Mans watching the cars go round and round. We all really enjoyed playing a set at the Le Mans 24 Hour Race and we seemed to go down well with the crowd. I'm not the biggest motor racing fan but I was still impressed with some of the vehicles on show.
Then it was overnight to the Isle Of Wight. What can I say? It was fantastic. We played some brilliant gigs when 'Love Is Here' came out but there was something even more satisfying about the Isle Of Wight. 8 years on and we are still here playing to audiences like that. Thanks a lot for coming down if you were there, you really played your part in making it one of the best days we have had in years.
I really enjoyed watching James, The Kooks and of course The Police who played after us. I was also impressed that (according to rumours circulating around the site) the 'Starsailor Sours' were the best selling cocktails in the Hard Rock bar at the festival!
After a short break it was up to Manchester to support The Police at the MEN Arena. Both gigs were brilliant but Wednesday night was a particular highlight for me. I ended up singing along to 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic' with Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher and family.
We stayed in Manchester on Thursday night for our gig at The Hard Rock Cafe. Thanks a lot to Arno Carstens for providing the support on the evening.
The message board was well represented and I think they made use of the free bar! Thanks for coming down everyone. There were a couple of famous faces dotted about the place including Corrie's Steven Arnold (Ashley), Michelle Keegan (David Platt's girlfriend) and the Lancashire County Cricket Team. Everyone had a good time and I am really suffering today (that last g and t seems like such a good idea at the time!)
Here I am again with another update on what we have been up to recently. Last Friday me and Les were up in Blackburn for an event in a marquee that Blackburn College had organised. It was basically a 'champagne breakfast' and awards ceremony to celebrate the end of term and the college's recent success.
Stuart Maconie was the compere (his book 'Cider For Roadies' is brilliant and his show with Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2 is worth a listen) and I was the musical 'turn'. Despite the unusual circumstances (onstage at 11.30am in a tent in a park in Blackburn after the croissants had been handed out!) I had a lovely time.
I was pleased with the warm reception I received so I am looking forward to doing a 'proper' gig in Blackburn one day. I remember seeing The Bluetones at St Georges Hall many moons ago.
The following day it was off to Belgium for a festival near Brugges called 'Cactus Festival'. We were extremely honoured to have been asked to headline the festival. Earlier on in the day the crowd were treated to sets by the brilliant Tinarewen (I think that's how you spell it!) and the LOUD Dinosaur JNR. After all these afternoon/early evening festival appearances it was great to take to the stage in the hours of darkness.
We played the longest set we have played in a long time (clocking in at about 1 hour and 25 mins!) and the crowd were great. After the show we could not leave without sampling the local cherry beers. Thanks to everyone at the festival for your hospitality.
And finally. I attended an event in London last night where the great Peter Shilton was taking part in a penalty competition. You will be pleased to know I managed to get one past him!
Before I go, here is a picture from our recent show with The Police in Valencia.
See You Soon,
James
P.S. Me and Lisa would like to thank everyone for all your kind wishes following the birth of our son Cillian. https://www.starsailor.net/*
Re: STARSAILOR MESSAGES
A couple of pics taken recently
Hello All,
Here are a couple of pics taken recently.
I was fortunate enough to fulfil a childhood dream by playing for Liverpool in Belfast. I was an honorary legend alongside such greats as John Aldridge, Jan Molby, Ray Houghton and Jason McAteer.
You will be pleased to know we beat Glentoran in the first game 2-0 and Manchester United (including Gary Pallister, Clayton Blackmore and Sammy McIlroy) 4-1 to land the trophy. This is me with Phil Neal, Liverpool's most decorated player (4 European Cup winners medals!).
Below is our daughter Niamh holding her brand new baby brother Cillian. Doesn't she look proud!
Come out tonight, let's go dancing shoot out the lights, the hole distance and throw our souls from tall buildings on broken roads, just like kids Don't give up, just yet..
Re: STARSAILOR MESSAGES
sie hat schöne braune augen und kommt glaub mehr nach mama !! :)
Re: STARSAILOR MESSAGES
ja, ist ne ganz Hübsche außergewöhnliche Augen auch.. hat sie sicher von der Mami, die orientalische Ausstrahlung
Come out tonight, let's go dancing shoot out the lights, the hole distance and throw our souls from tall buildings on broken roads, just like kids Don't give up, just yet..
Re: STARSAILOR MESSAGES
Zitat: starsailor - blog
What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been!
Hello All,
What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been!
It all started with a charity acoustic performance for The Willow Foundation (who organize special days out for terminally ill young people) in Welwyn Garden City.
Then we flew over to Ireland for the Cois Fharraige Festival where we played before headliners Travis.
After the post-Ireland hangovers had subsided (which took a few days!) me and Les went up to Liverpool for a solo show at the Newz Bar. When it comes to having a good time, Liverpudlians are hard to beat and the gig was highly enjoyable. The set included a rare acoustic airing of 'This Time' and a raft of covers including 'Champagne Supernova' and 'Don't Let Me Down'.
I was also invited on to Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) LA radio show where I played a version of 'Good Souls' with Jonesy on Lead Guitar!
Which brings me to the two highlights of recent times. Firstly there was the show at The Boogaloo in Highgate for Trekstock (Teenage Cancer Trust) where the excellent Jason Manford was compere. Mixmaster Mat Horne dj'd and I had two wonderful backing singers accompanying me. (One of whom is Stevie Lange who has been in the business for many years and has worked with Robbie Williams and Chris Martin on numerous occasions as well as myself).
The venue was absolutely packed and I was glad that everyone had a good time and a lot of money was raised for a very good cause. It's been a little while since this show but I remember it being a cracker!
And on Friday night we realised a long held ambition when we played with a full symphony orchestra in Brussels. The gig was held under the banner 'Stars Of Europe' in aid of UNICEF. Other notable artists appearing were Robyn, Sharleen Spiteri, Air Traffic and legendary disco band Chic, led by Mr Nile Rogers.
In fact at the end of the night a party was held at the hotel to mark Nile's 54th birthday. Somehow Benny Byrne ended up with a face full of cake! A suitably bizarre end to a beautiful night.
Clips are available on YouTube, keywords; Stars Of Europe, Starsailor.
per mail.. (werdet ihr sicher auch alle im posteingang haben gell )
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Starsailor Are Back!
Apologies that this is the first contact via our mailing list for a few months. We have posted (or at least James has) regularly on the messageboard, but due to the much publicised takeover of our record company, accessing this database proved difficult.
Anyway, things have settled down now and we have a new record label (Virgin) and a whole new team of people working with us to promote our fourth record. This will be called 'All The Plans' and is likely to be released at the beginning of March 2009. It will be preceded by a single, 'Tell Me It's Not Over,' to be released towards the end of February 2009.
We're hoping this is the first of many regular mails. As a thanks for your patience, click here to see James performing 'Hurts Too Much' Its an acoustic version of one of the album tracks performed earlier this year at the Heavenly social. Enjoy and we'll speak soon.
(werdet ihr sicher auch alle im posteingang haben gell 
)