As expected, Michael Jackson has extended his residency at the London O2 Arena, although the length of the commitment has taken me by surprise. Jacko initially announced a run of 10 shows but the number is now 37 and likely to grow even more.

The dates will be broken into two halves, the first happening between July 8 and September 29. The second will then take place between January 7 and February 18. Whether any more London dates will be added is not yet known.

Meanwhile, the setlist for the upcoming shows has supposedly been leaked although the British tabloids could be just making it up based on what are Jackson’s biggest hits. The proposed setlist is reportedly:-

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How big a Radiohead fan are you? Could you sit through a four hour video remix of just one of their songs? I hope so, as that is exactly what serial remixer James Rutledge is planning to release.

Radiohead have been one of the most innovative, creative and experimental British bands over the last few years.

From their very ordinary Indie beginnings, they have created unique album after unique album, and virtually created a genre in the process.

This experimental nature went a stage further last year with the almost free digital release of newest album In Rainbows. To accompany this, visual elements were also released via YouTube, and the music videos weren’t exactly traditional either.

Now, producer and budding music genius James Rutledge is carrying on the trend of innovation by releasing a four hour long remix of the song Videotape, with accompanying visuals.

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It was reported that Amy Winehouse’ husband Blake Fielder-Civil had got himself clean and drug free after entering prison, a fact which was used to try and persuade Winehouse herself to voluntarily enter rehab and sort herself out.

Unfortunately the fact that Fielder-Civil suffered an overdose and collapsed over the weekend after taking copious amounts of heroin would lead me to believe he either never gave up the habit, or is well and truly back on it now.

Blake, who is currently in prison awaiting trial on charges of GBH, and attempting to pervert the course of justice, was treated along with six other prisoners after having a violent reaction to the drug.

It’s a well known fact that drugs are rife in prison, and that a prisoner desperate enough to get them, and with the resources at hand, can get hold of whatever he wants to. So how did Fielder-Civil go about it?

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Ever since Led Zeppelin got back together for their “one off” reunion concert at the London 02 Arena, there has been intense speculation about a full tour, and the possibilities of a permanent reunion.

It would certainly be the only way to please, and appease the hundreds of thousands of fans who weren’t able to see their comeback in December.

Jimmy Page has now made comments to reporters in Tokyo which could (if you read between the lines) signal that a world tour is a definite possibility. He said:

“I can assure you the amount of work that we put into the O2, for ourselves rehearsing and the staging of it was probably what you put into a world tour.”

“Robert Plant has a parallel project running and he’s really busy with that project,” he explained. “Certainly until September, so I can’t give you any news.”

So, hardly a confirmation, but at least a signalling of intent that the business isn’t over and done with.

Knowing my luck, the Zep will indeed get properly back together and embark on a full tour, and I will again miss out on tickets. Maybe this time, I’d scour eBay for them, and pay way over the asking price… it’s got to be worth it surely?!

For the last few years there’s been a healthy market for music event tickets on online auction sites such as eBay.

People are now so confident of at least making their money back, if not a healthy profit, that they will buy tickets for gigs they have no interest in going to, purely to sell online.

The problem is if this was done on the street, outside of the gig itself, the sellers would be classed as ticket touts and arrested on the spot. Now a group of British MPs are calling for an end to the unfair practise, and an industry code of conduct for the resale of tickets on these sites.

A report will be published on Thursday January 10th, which amongst other things claims that these sites and the sellers who use them to make a fast buck are exploiting fans.

Festivals particularly are victims of this kind of reselling trend, with tickets bought at face value on the day of sale then changing hands for many times that amount the nearer the date approaches.

Tickets for football matches are already banned from being resold online, and now music industry figures and promoters are after the same level of security for their artists concerts.

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A man from Glasgow in Scotland, has snapped up a pair of tickets for the Led Zeppelin comeback concert next month for £83,000 in a BBC organised charity auction.

Radio 4 host Terry Wogan held the auction in aid of Children in Need, the BBC money raising initiative for kids around the world. Over the four days it was active, the auction raised £894,000, with the Led Zeppelin tickets contributing almost 10% to the total.

Kenneth Donell was the lucky man who bid the most for the tickets. I say lucky, not only because he’ll be the envy of millions by actually going to the concert, but also because he has got enough money in the first place to bid such a stupidly large amount of money.

The tickets were only £125 each originally, but to get them you had to enter an online draw. Over a million people put their name down, with only the randomly selected 20,000 securing tickets.

Tickets were being sold on eBay but most auctions were shut after the promoters of the concert complained to the auction site.

There are a host of disappointed Led Zeppelin fans who failed to secure one of the 20,000 tickets available for their reunion show at the London 02 Arena November 26th.

Some have been desperate enough to go searching on eBay for tickets which are going for many times more than the already steep face value price.

Whether they end up being allowed in to the gig is as yet unclear as the organisers of the concert have built a security check in to the plans to ensure only people with official bought and paid for tickets gain entrance.

Virgin Radio DJ Christian O’Connell decided to make the most of fans desires to get tickets and held a contest to see what the most outrageous thing they would do to get hold of one.

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Surprise surprise, tickets for the Led Zeppelin reunion concert have started appearing on auction site eBay.

If you were unlucky in the massive million people strong lottery for £125 tickets to the gig, feel free to go on eBay and prepare to bid up to £1000 ($2100) instead.

This has provoked the concert’s promoter Harvey Goldsmith to brand eBay the “biggest rip-off merchants in the world”.

Harvey spoke about the debacle on Kerrang Radio yesterday and had the following vitriol to say:

“I wish eBay would drop dead and die… I have begged them to take the tickets off and they have basically told us to fuck off. So I will do everything I possibly can to ruin their lives.”

Ooh, that’s not good. Despite plans for this concert to be totally above touts and auction sites, by a mixture of security measures, it seems both sellers and buyers are willing to take the risk that the will be refused entry to the concert and paying huge amounts for the pleasure.

Did you get on the site? Have you registered for the chance for a ticket to the one off Led Zeppelin gig? If you have you are not alone, as up to noon today when the ticket ballot closed, over 1 million people had registered on the site. Oh mama.

The ballot was due to close on Monday afternoon but was extended until today to give as many fans as possible the chance to grab tickets. Event promoter Harvey Goldsmith said:-

We are absolutely overwhelmed with the number of hits received,”

“In the first day alone, we received an unprecedented number of hits that literally knocked the website out. Over the last seven days we have recorded over 1,000 million hits. This response is amazing and from it we have had over one million registrations. We would like to thank all the fans for their support and we hope that all those fortunate to be successful will keep the tickets out of the hands of touts.”

So if you are sitting there with your confirmation email in your inbox you currently stand a 1 in 50 chance of having your name drawn out and being able to get your hands on 2 tickets for the gig. You just have 2 weeks to wait to find out if you’re one of the lucky ones, as the draw will take place on October 1st.

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Led Zeppelin will be reforming for a one off gig at the London 02 Arena in London on November 26th. It’s definite, it’s been confirmed, and all the details of the concert are now solid.

Led Zeppelin will be the headline act at the gig, with a diverse range of performers including Pete Townshend, Bill Wyman And The Rhythm Kings, Foreigner and Paolo Nutini.

The one off show will raise money for the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund. This fund was created in honour of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun who died last year, and helps pay for university scholarships in the UK, US and Turkey.

Now here’s the biggie, details on ticket prices and how to get hold of them:-

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