KEY POINTS:
If love is your drug you'll be happy to know Bryan Ferry is heading to New Zealand for two shows in December. The former frontman and Mr Suave of Roxy Music performed such classics as Love Is the Drug, More Than This and Slave To Love.
Ferry has never felt the urge to hide his opinions - this year he hit the headlines for describing elements of the Nazi regime in Germany as "just amazing."
"The Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves," he was quoted as saying.
A day later Ferry apologised profusely saying he was praising the Nazis' aesthetics, not the regime itself.
Joining Ferry is singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading best known for her 1983 hit, Drop the Pilot, her self-titled album from 1976, and 1980's Me Myself I. As well as playing their classics at the shows, both Ferry and Armatrading will be doing songs off their new albums.
Ferry's Dylanesque reinterprets Bob Dylan songs, while Armatrading's Into the Blues is, as the title suggests, a blues-based record.
They play the Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland, on December 3 and the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, on December 6.
If you wanna touch the sky, Lupe Fiasco is your man. Following his Big Day Out performance this year the Chicago MC returns to Studio on K Rd for a one-off intimate gig on August 16. There are only 700 tickets to the show which includes Fiasco's sidekick Gemini and local support from P Money, PNC and David Dallas of Frontline.
On the rumour mill, we could be seeing Elton John back here at the end of the year since he's doing five shows in Australia, including one at a winery in the Hunter Valley.
The flamboyant 60-year-old was last here in December for one show in Wellington. He's a Bic Runga convert, after the pair met overseas, and since Bic did a winery tour this year, let's hope the pair have been talking. Just imagine Elton at Matakana Estate.
