Brought to Thailand by Live Nation BEC-Tero, the three members of Years & Years – vocalist Olly Alexander, bassist Mikey Goldsworthy, and keyboardist and synthesizer player EmreT?rkmen – hail from London, and came together as a band in 2010 before gaining massive mainstream global success with the hit “King” in 2015, which shot to the top of the UK charts and made the top 10 on charts around the world. The follow up “Shine” reached the second rank in the UK, preceding their first full album “Communion”, which was met with widespread critical acclaim and debuted at the top of the charts.

This year, the band released its second album “Palo Santo”, a concept album that tells the story of a parallel universe inside Olly’s imagination where traditional notions of sexuality and gender no longer exist. It has been praised for its “deep emotional resonance”. The album’s ideas are told through the music, the accompanying videos and a short film.

For this tour, Years & Years have set their sights on taking the audience into the Palo Santo universe, expressing their creativity through their music and spectacular performance, presenting a new kind of excitement in their own distinctive style.

Tickets for the show start at Bt2,500 and go on sale on January 5 at all ThaiTicketMajor outlets, http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com or by calling (02) 262 3838. Live Nation members can access pre-sale tickets on January 4.

Steve Garrigan, Mark Prendergast, Vincent May and Jason Boland will be playing hits including “All I Want”, “High Hopes”, “Love Will Set You Free” and “The One”.

Also on the bill at the festival are Thai acts Polycat and Phum Viphurit. Passes cost Bt2,800 (Bt3,200 for VIP treatment) at http://www.Ticketmelon.com.

Brace for overdose of cute

You can see Japan’s AKB48 and all six of their sister idol groups on the same stage at the Asia Festival coming to Impact Arena on January 27. Bangkok’s BNK48 will be there, of course, and so will JKT48 from Jakarta, MNL48 from Manila, SN48 from Shanghai, TPE48 from Taipei and SGO48 from Saigon.

The festival opens with an afternoon “High-5” session in which members of all the groups will participate and perform mini-shows. There’ll be a “dress-like-AKB” booth, a costume museum and lots of Asian food. The concert begins at 7pm. Tickets are available at https://bit.ly/2LbedqX.

Get ready to morlam

The second annual Soeng Festival, where Isaan dance meets modern music, is set for the rooftop of Fortune Town on Bangkok’s Ratchadapisek Road on December 22, starting at 3pm.

The Paradise Bangkok Morlam International will be back, along with T-Bone, Sriracha Rocker, Rasmee Isaan Soul, Stylish Nonsense & Kota, Adisak Puangok, Yensuk, Mocca Garden, Rap Isaan, M Tarakorn and DJ Daokanong, plus special guest Pornsak Songsang.

Get a ticket for Bt690 at any 7Eleven or from http://www.Allticket.com. Check out the “Thaidancemusicfestival” page on Facebook.

Bird shares his dream

Superstar Thongchai “Bird” McIntyre will present “Dream Journey Restage” at Impact Arena next March, a followup to his hugely success show “Baeb Bird Bird”.

Seats go on sale Friday for Bt1,500 to Bt6,500, the latter price including a BBB gift set, at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

’Tis the season

Just in time for Christmas, the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky’s festive “Nutcracker” and timeless “Swan Lake” in “Fanfares and Dances” at Mahidol University Salaya’s Prince Mahidol Hall on December 21 at 7pm and December 22 at 4pm.

Narong Prangcharoen will also share the concerto he composed for the brass quintet of the World Brass Association. Seats cost Bt400 to Bt1,500 at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

British graffiti artist, drum ’n’ bass DJ-actor Goldie is performing at Beam on Bangkok’s Soi Thonglor (Sukhumvit Soi 55) on Sunday night. Warming up the crowd for a man who’s sold more than 2.5 million records will be Phatfunk DJ Azek.

Advance passes cost Bt390 at http://www.Ticketmelon.com. Book a table at (02) 392 7750.

Philharmonic evening

The Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra will present “Tales from Afar” at Mahidol University Salaya’s Prince Mahidol Hall on December 14 and 15.

Gudni Emilsson will conduct and Icelander Dimitri Ashkenazy will solo on Carl Maria Weber’s “Clarinet Concert No 1 in F minor, Opus 73” and overture from “Der Freischutz”. Also on the programme are Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite No 2, Opus 55” and Morakot Cherdchoongarm’s new work based on the Buddhist-theme book “The Pilgrim Kamanita”.

Seats cost Bt400 to Bt1,500 at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

From Russia with music

The Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra will pay tribute to His Majesty the King with the concert “The Russian Pieces” at the Thailand Cultural Centre on December 15.

Charles Olivieri-Munroe and pianist Poom Prommachart will be along for the evening, which will include Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No 1 in Bflat Minor, Opus 23”, Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture, Opus 97a”, Mussorgsky’s “Night on a Bare Mountain”  and Stravinsky’s “The Firebird”.

Seats cost Bt400 to Bt2,000 at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

Nuvo plays to help kids

Evergreen pop band Nuvo is taking part in “The One Love Concert for Children in Need” at GMM Live House at CentralWorld on December 16. The One Love Foundation and Phyathai 2 Hospital are raising funds to treat underprivileged kids.

Seats cost Bt3,000 at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

Blackpink headed for Impact

Blackpink, the highest-charting female K-pop act in Billboard Hot 100 history, will play Impact Arena on January 12 and 13.

Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa, and Rose broke out in 2016 with the singles “Boombayah” and “Whistle”, followed by “Stay” and “Playing with Fire”. The EP “Square Up” scored again with “D-du-Du D-du-Du”, the music video for which surpassed 10 million views within six hours.

Seats cost Bt1,900 to Bt7,500 at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3456.

Thai fans were out en masse last Saturday night eager to travel back to the heyday of two of the best-loved boy bands from the 1990s through Boyzlife’s debut concert in Bangkok at GMM Live House.

The freshly minded duo each represent one of those bands of yesteryear – Brian McFadden the “songperson” of Westlife and Keith Duffy that for Boyzone, and together they capably guided the audience back through the years, pausing now and again to crack some jokes.

I personally found it strange to listen to those oh-so-familiar songs while looking at only two men on stage and was a little disconcerted to find that the backing tracks had me thinking of music contests like “Britain’s Got Talent” or “The X Factor”.

The concert opened with sets by two Thai artists of the 2000s, Oh Seksan and Pramote Vilepana, both of whom delighted the audience with their old hits and their new numbers.

Screams rang out from the fans – most of them adolescents during the Westlife and Boyzone era – as McFadden and Duffy came out on stage and swung into some throwback hits.

The pair kicked off with “When You’re Looking Like That” from Westlife’s second album, 2001’s “Coast to Coast” then segued into “Picture of You” from Boyzone’s third album “Where We Belong” in 1997, which became known as the theme song of the film “Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie” and led Ronan Keating to win an Ivor Novello Award. “World of Our Own”, as the title track from Westlife’s third album, was next, followed by the cover of The Bee Gees’ “Words” which became Boyzone’s first number one hit in the UK.

After McFadden finished “Swear It Again”, the first single from Westlife’s self-titled debut album and also the best-selling debut single of all-time from an Irish citizen, Duffy made fun of his bandmate Ronan Keating’s Irish accent in “Baby Can I Hold You”. The audience laughed and sang along with him.

The audience kept on laughing, as the pair amused the audience with “Mandy”, with Duffy pretending to be a dancing girl and embracing his bandmate. After Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” covered by Boyzone, the audience let out a big roar and a round of applause as the first few notes of Westlife’s “My Love” were played.

Boyzlife then went romantic, singing Boyzone’s “You Needed Me”, “Love Me for a Reason” and “No Matter What” and Westlife’s “Flying without Wings” before leaving the stage.

Shouts for more echoed around the hall and they were soon back, ending their onehour concert with encores “If I Let You Go”, “When The Going Gets Tough” and “Uptown Girl”.

South Korean vocal queen Taeyeon jetted into Bangkok last weekend, filling Thunder Dome in Muang Thong Thani with her magical music in back-to-back concerts on Saturday and Sunday.

Underlining that she was indeed here, she chose to open both with the aptly named song “Here I Am”, dramatically emerging mid-air and gliding down to the stage with the help of slings to explosive cheers.

The vocal queen clings to a hanging fabric as she prepares to do some acrobatic moves during “Love You Like Crazy”.

Wearing a red dress, she shone like a goddess and her voice was as heavenly as you’d expect for such a deity. The audience was in awe, relishing the fact that the South Korean star was here once more.

With her shows last weekend, Taeyeon goes down in history as the first female singer from South Korea to have successfully staged two rounds of a solo concert in Thailand. The concerts attracted more than 9,500 fans and many of them gleefully revealed that they had bought tickets for both shows.

Fans light up the Thunder Dome with the official light sticks.

Most of the fans inside Thunder Dome were holding Taeyeon’s official light sticks in their hands too and thanks to the synchronised glows, they glittered beautifully inside the hall.

After finishing her first song, Taeyeon removed her scarf and danced sexily alongside her dancers in a stunning rendition of “I Got Love”.

She then took the excitement to a new level, jumping on a rising platform and showing off her powerful vocals on “Fire”.

The momentum continued with “Love You Like Crazy”, another tune from Taeyeon’s latest album, which saw her performing some acrobatic moves with hanging fabrics.

The star goes for a sexy look as she performs “I Got Love”. 

After delivering four consecutive songs, Taeyeon officially greeted her audience in Thai, saying “Took Khon Kidteung Mai?” (“Do you miss me?”). The answer was an overwhelming “Yes” and Taeyeon was quick to add “Me Too”.

Taeyeon went on to say that her last concert in Thailand, which was held last year, got such a warm response that she kept hoping for a return to the Land of Smiles.

And the South Korean star took note of the fact that her fans were waving the official light sticks across the concert hall this time.

To reward them, she sang “Something New” with her supporters happily crooning along.

The show then shifted to ballads, which showcased Taeyeon’s beautiful voice. Now attired in a white dress, the singer impressed her fans with “Do You Love Me” and “Rain”.

‘Circus’ by Taeyeon

The mood then shifted again with a set that included “All Night Long”, “Baram x 3” and “Stay”, which was performed in Japanese.

Taeyeon then handed over the stage to her dancers, who introduced themselves and proudly presented their skills.

When Taeyeon returned to the stage this time round, she transformed herself into a professional dancer and showed her moves in “Holiday”, “All Night” and “Fashion”.

Her performances were complemented by dazzling laser shows and pyro effects, which reached a peak during Taeyeon’s rendition of “Why”.

A VCR then appeared on giant screens showing Taeyeon walking around a birthday party. When the clip ended, the singer returned to the stage in a cheerful lemon-coloured outfit to sing “One Day”, “Gemini” and “Secret”. At one point, the music stopped allowing the vocal queen to showcase her powerful and beautiful voice.

A rising platform moves the South Korean superstar up high during her concert.

Taeyeon then started talking with her fans again mentioning how she felt she had eaten some of the pyro effects. “Everything in Thailand is delicious,” she laughed, going on to thank the fans who sent her so many gifts.

With “One Day” the perfect song to celebrate a birthday, Taeyeon asked if any member of the audience was born on that day. With so many hands raised inside the hall, Taeyeon began walking around the stage to check if any fan looked serious about the claim. Finally, she noticed a man flying a banner that mentioned he was the birthday boy. And she stopped right in front of him, cutely singing Happy Birthday in both English and Korean for him.

The superstar then focused on her song list, performing “Gravity” and “Fine” before stepping onto the raised platform one more time to present “I Feel So Fine”.

As the lights went down, the audience started shouting for more. Taeyeon obliged, returning with “Time Lapse” as fans across the hall waved a message reading, “TY4EVA”, and formed the sign “(Heart Symbol) TY’s”

Impressed, the vocalist asked for a banner from a fan and emphasised that everyone in the hall should post the hashtag #TY4EVA on the Internet. She then made sure that she got her picture taken with her supporters inside Thunder Dome.

“I am so happy to meet you all here and I hope you are happy too,” Taeyeon shouted, before taking a seat on a hanging chair that was raised up high as she performed “Circus” holding the whole audience spellbound.

Taeyeon wrapped the concert with a perfect “I” as paper streamers came down across the hall.

Waving goodbye as a moving pole raised her up high, the shining star disappeared from view.

It took a while before members of the audience started filing out, no doubt because Taeyeon’s charming voice continued to echo in their head.

On the DJ side, headliners include Alesso, Galantis, Porter, Robinson, Showtek and Major Lazer Soundsystem featuring Oh Wonder.

Also putting in an appearance are 16 girls from the Japanese idol group AKB48 and K-pop idols Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin from Exo CBX, Taeyong and Ten from NCT U, NCT127, Donghae, Eunhyuk and Ryeowook from Super Junior, DJ Hyo or Hyoyeon of Girls Generation, and Taemin of SHINee.

Tickets are Bt3,300 for GA Tier 1, Bt7,000 for VIP, and Bt107,000 for VVIP for five persons. Get them now at http://www.MayaMusicFestival.com.

To close out an extraordinary year, Apple Music’s editors have awarded highest honors to the artists who truly represent the very best of 2018. Drake owns the Artist of the Year category while country’s Kasey Musgraves scores Album of the Year for her dynamic Golden Hour. The fiery collaboration between Cardi B, J. Balvin and Bad Bunny made “I Like It” an easy choice for Song of the Year and Breakout Artist Juice WRLD has been giving everyone “Lucid Dreams” all year long. But these all-stars weren’t the only stars: Apple Music’s global year-end charts and editorial playlists are packed with the year’s biggest hits and favorites from all over the world.

Best Music of the Year

Artist of the Year: Drake

Breakout Artist of the Year: Juice WRLD

Song of the Year: I Like It – Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny & J. Balvin

Album of the Year: Golden Hour – Kacey Musgraves

Charts

Top 100 Global Songs

Top 100 Global Albums

REGGAE MUSIC, whose chill, lilting grooves found international fame thanks to artists like Bob Marley, on Thursday won a spot on the United Nations’ list of global cultural treasures.

Unesco, the world body’s cultural and scientific agency, added the genre that originated in Jamaica to its collection of “intangible cultural heritage” deemed worthy of protection and promotion.

Reggae music’s “contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity underscores the dynamics of the element as being at once cerebral, socio-political, sensual and spiritual,” Unesco said.

“While in its embryonic state Reggae music was the voice of the marginalised, the music is now played and embraced by a wide cross-section of society, including various genders, ethnic and religious groups.”

A member of the group Ivoire Binghi displays reggae clothing during the second edition of the International Festival of Abidjan Reggae known as AbiReggae at the Palace of Culture in Abidjan, Ivory Coast./EPA-EFE

The musical style joined a list of cultural traditions that includes the horsemanship of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, a Mongolian camel-coaxing ritual and Czech puppetry, and more than 300 other traditional practices spanning from boat-building and pilgrimages to cooking and dance.

Jamaica applied for reggae’s inclusion on the list this year at a meeting of the UN agency on the island of Mauritius, where 40 proposals were under consideration.

Reggae was competing for inclusion alongside Bahamian strawcraft, South Korean wrestling, Irish hurling and perfume making in the southern French city of Grasse.

Reggae emerged in the late 1960s out of Jamaica’s ska and rocksteady styles, also drawing influence from American jazz and blues.

It quickly became popular in the United States as well as in Britain, where many Jamaican immigrants had moved in the post-WWII years.

The style is often championed as a music of the oppressed, with lyrics addressing sociopolitical issues, imprisonment and inequality.

Reggae also became associated with Rastafarianism, which deified the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and promoted the sacramental use of ganja, or marijuana.

The 1968 single “Do the Reggay” by Toots and the Maytals was the first popular song to use the name.

Marley and his group the Wailers then soared to fame on classic hits like “No Woman, No Cry” and “Stir It Up”.

Rastafarian Reggae fans gather at the start of the Bob Marley Earthday Festival and Rasta Fair at the South Beach in Durban. /AFP

Peter Tosh, a core member of the Wailers, established a successful solo career with hits including “Legalise It,” while Desmond Dekker also enjoyed international success with the song “Israelites”.

Toots and the Maytals rose to prominence with “Pressure Drop” and Jimmy Cliff became an international sensation with “The Harder They Come”, also the title of a 1972 movie he starred in.

The reggae sound, with its heavy bass lines and drums, has influenced countless artists and inspired many genres including reggaeton, dub and dancehall.

The steady beats and smooth grooves have also proven key to hip-hop: Sister Nancy’s anthem “Bam Bam”, for example, has been heavily sampled by superstars like Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, Chris Brown and Jay-Z.

While largely symbolic, inclusion on the Unesco cultural heritage list can serve to raise the profile of the country and the practice.

“Reggae is uniquely Jamaican,” said Olivia Grange, the Caribbean island nation’s culture minister, before the vote.

“It is a music that we have created that has penetrated all corners of the world.”

The world probably doesn’t know anything about them but Brooklyn-based Vietnamese-American musician Brandon Mai, aka Tin, and UK rapper RoxXxan, both members of Tiger Beer’s Uncaged Collective, showed they have what it takes in their solo and collaborative performances earlier this month in Seoul.

Before that though, the pair took time to sit down with The Nation and talk a little about themselves.

Can you introduce yourselves and describe your identity, and your music style?

Tin: I started a year ago and the music style is contemporary R&B. I’m influenced by the likes of Frank Ocean and Daniel Caesar but I also just try to pull from all sorts of places and people like Radiohead.

RoxXxan:  I’m a rapper from London. My style is very hard, very raw, honest, a kind of storytelling, I would say. My backgrounds are Irish and Jamaican, so I mix those in my music as well.

Where do you find inspiration for your music and song writing?

RoxXxan: For me personally, because my music is very honest and very personal to me, I tell my story, so, that is my inspiration. I keep it very honest. It’s like my therapy.

Tin: On a really basic level, I take it from conversations and I usually steal a lot of words that people say when I’m just speaking with friends and we’re sharing our love lives or just talking about life in general. People say some pretty amazing stuff and I think there’s beauty in little phrases here and there so I work off from that and then try to connect it back to my Asian identity or something like that. On a writing level, conversations account for a lot of amazing lyrics.

Can you define the “uncaged” aspect of your music?

RoxXxan: I’m “uncaged” because I’m very honest. I know who I am; I own my identity, and I am ready to express it to the world as a woman who isn’t very feminine. I’m a bit of a tomboy and I’m a gay rapper as well. So, I’m very uncaged. They need to cage me up!

Tin: Asian people are seen as pretty reserved and really quiet and not so expressive so with music and my performance style, I’m just really trying to go all in and express everything from sadness and anger to show the breadth of my personality and breathe some humanity into how the world sees and perceives Asian people.

How did you mesh your performance with the Thai light installation group Yimsamer?

Tin: Basically, Tiger beer put us together and we collaborated through the internet for over a month, just back and forth, and everything kind of clicked. RoxXxan had the beat and the verse and the next day I was already writing a melody. We liked everything from there on and it hasn’t really changed.

RoxXxan: Yeah, I agree. To finish off what Tin was saying, when we got here Tiger Roar gave us time to rehearse and introduced us to designers from China who would handle our costumes. The whole process has been really good; it has been a true collaboration from start to finish.

How do you expect your show to go tomorrow night?

Tin: I think it will be great. We have a lot of surprises in there, there’s a bunch of really cool visuals and I think the venue is amazing – I love the floating islands.

RoxXxan: There’s a lot of stuff we’re not allowed to tell anybody.

The Thai group will decorate and install the lighting and the sound. Do you have any special requirements?

RoxXxan: No, to be fair. I’ve never been a diva. All I need is a microphone and a crowd.

Tin: Quite the opposite. The organisers have provided more than we thought. We have clothes designed for us for tomorrow night, and I’m excited to wear them.

Are you excited?

RoxXxan: Yeah, it seems real now. It’s been so surreal, you know? We’ve been planning for months and then we get here and it’s just amazing to be in Korea – on the other side of the world – to be somewhere we’ve never been and then we forget that we’re actually here to work. So today is the first time I’ve felt like ‘Oh my God, we’ve got a huge show tomorrow’. I’m getting nervous, but it’s a good kind of nervous.

What’s the song you will perform about?

RoxXxan: It’s about a lot of things.

Tin:  It started from an idea of passion and we try to explain the meaning of that passion. And it’s about art too. A lot of the lyrics are about RoxXxan’s passion for another person too and so it’s a love story, but a love story for art and also a lovestory for somebody else too – a blurry line between those two meanings.

RoxXxan: Yeah, in love with music, in love with love –it’s like a story.

Listen in and love

Watch their shows at https://tinyurl.com/y9aj8npt, https://tinyurl.com/yc3lgcwr, https://tinyurl.com/ycmblpxw

He’ll be performing numbers from his highly acclaimed projects – “Beauty Behind the Madness”, “Starboy”, and “My Dear Melancholy” – all of which have been littered with chart-topping hits.

Ticket prices start at Bt2,500 at Thai Ticket Major counters, by calling (02) 262 3456 and online at t http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.

A night in the country

Gypsy Carnival returns for its fourth edition to Ton Phueng Farm in Ratchaburi’s Suan Phung district on February 9 on the theme “Treasure Mountain”.

Participating artists include Poo Pongsit, Hugo, Greasy Cafe, Singto Numchok, Joey Boy, Polycat, Yellow Fang and Phum Viphurit and festivalgoers can also enjoy fashion booths as well as the Hell on Dirt bike track.

Early bird tickets cost Bt999 until Monday or Bt1,500 after at Thai Ticket Major outlets. Call (02) 262 3456 or visit http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and http://www.GypsyCarnivalThailand.com.

Khao Yai rocks

Also coming up in the New Year is the Nanglen Music Festival and it’s taking place at 8 Speed motor track in Khao Yai on January 26.

This fourth festival features Potato, Peck Palitchok, Room39, Palmy, Da Endorphine, Pop Pongkoon, Oat Pramote, Paradox, Polycat, BamBam, Clockwork Motionless, Smile Eyes, DJs from Trasher Bangkok, Botcash, Make You Freak, and DJ Maft Sai.

Tickets costing Bt3,500 are now available at all counter services of 7-Eleven or http://www.AllTicket.com. Find out more at Facebook: NanglenMusicFestival.

Divine in drag

Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3 Diva Shangela will be making a special stop in Bangkok with her brand new show “Shangela is Shook” at The Dr Thaworn Phornprapha Auditorium on the fifth floor of Siam Motor Building on Rama I Road on December 13 at 8pm.

Shangela is best recognised as the only contestant to compete on three separate seasons of the Emmy-award winning reality series “Rupaul’s Drag Race”.

Tickets from Bt3,000 to Bt1,500 available at Thai Ticket Major. Call (02) 262 3456 or visit http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.

Rolling in the aisles

Golf Benjapol, Nino Methanee, Tuk Viyada, Mum Laconic, Joom Nareekrajang, Out Rawiwan, Jason Young and Tum Somprasong get together on stage of Thunder Dome, Muang Thong Thani on December 15 for the “Be My Guest The Alzheimer Comedy Concert”.

The show starts at 7pm and tickets costing from Bt1,500 to Bt3,500 are selling fast at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.