Fan To Fandom

About a month ago, I began writing about fan culture for Exit Left Magazine.

In my first article, I discuss how the creation of ‘fandoms’ – online communities where fans are brought together over a shared interest – have changed what it means to be a fan of somebody or something. I also discuss how the possibility to talk to a star online has ultimately changed what people deem to be appropriate behaviour and how this has transcended to face to face interactions.

My next article has just been completed and will soon be published. You can read my first article here.

Update [23rd May, 2016):

My second article has been published!

In this article, I talk about conventions. In April, I went to the annual Glee convention held by Starfury Conventions and, coming from the perspective of someone who is developing a career in media and events, I comment on the rare nature of stars freely wandering and mingling with guests.

Go give it a read here and don’t forget to share your thoughts!

See the full gallery on Facebook and Instagram.

Dominic Barnes and Curt Mega at G6 (Photo taken by Trott Shots Photography)

Lauren Lopez and Dylan Saunders at G6 (Photo taken by Trott Shots Photography)

 

 

The Tonys are Coming: A look at this year’s Stars In The Alley concert in photos

Kristin Chenoweth (Wicked) and Alan Cumming are set to host this year’s 69th Annual Tony Awards, which will be held at the Radio City Music Hall on 6th avenue on Sunday, 2nd June.

With twenty-two shows being nominated for Tonys covering twenty-nine categories, getting to know all the nominees before the ceremony was made simple with last Wednesday’s Stars in the Alley event. Stars in the Alley is an annual event that takes place in Broadway’s famous Shubert Alley to celebrate the end of the official theatrical season. The event welcomes stars from nominated shows and long-running favourites to its stage for a morning of musical festivities.

This year’s concert was hosted by current Hedwig and The Angry Inch star Darren Criss (above left), who welcomed various co-hosts from current Broadway plays and musicals to introduce singing acts. Hosts included Vanessa Hudgens (above right) and participating musicals included The Lion King, Kinky Boots, and Matilda the Musical.

A gallery of the event can be seen at on the Trott Shots Photography Facebook page.

The Script paint London Green for St Patrick’s weekend!

*See the original Inquire Media post here*

Last weekend, the pop-rock trio from Dublin, Ireland, visited London’s O2 Arena as part of their ‘No Sound Without Silence’ tour, which commemorates their latest album. The album peaked at number one in the album chart in England and Ireland in September 2014, following in the successful footsteps of their previous three albums. Starting in January and finishing in June, The Script will perform fifty-five shows across twenty-seven countries including the United States, South Africa, and Japan.

Winning photo for the InQuire Media Photographer of the Year 2015

Supported by Brit award-winning rap artist Tinie Tempah, the boys took to the stage of the O2 Arena and entertained fans with eighteen songs covering all four albums. The presence of their Irish heritage was immediately brought to the stage as they were led alongside the standing pit by people holding luminous green flags, commencing the concert with ‘Paint the Town Green’ which celebrates St. Patrick’s Day.

After kicking off the set with such a high-energy song, the band went on to perform some of their most-loved hits including ‘Before the Worst’, ‘Breakeven’, and ‘Superheroes’. Many fans were delighted that the ritual performance of the song ‘Nothing’ was brought back after having received complaints about its omission from earlier shows in the tour. As seen during previous tours, frontman Danny O’Donoghue asked for someone in the front row to phone an ex so he could sing the break-up song to them. You can see the full performance here:

 

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram account for more photos and video highlights from The Script and many more artists !

Comment below your thoughts on my photos – the band loved them, how about you?

 

 

 

Katy Perry at the O2 Arena

Since the beginning of May this year, one of the biggest names in current music has been celebrating the release of her latest album Prism. Beginning in the United Kingdom, for four nights the stage of the O2 Arena was taken from a neon rave set through an Egyptian desert to a cat play pen when the Queen of Pop Katy Perry visited London for the first of four legs of The Prismatic World Tour. With a record-breaking six quintuple-platinum certified singles in the United States to her name and ten Top Five singles across three albums, creating a set-list to please all fans old and new may seem a challenge: but, not for the Mainstream Monarch. Katy covered an impressive twenty-six songs including all of her biggest and hits a variety of beloved unreleased album songs such as ‘Double Rainbow‘ and ‘Ghost’ taken from the latest album, which were performed as a mash-up.

Kicking off the show with the first number one single from Prism, ‘Roar’, Katy went on to perform her most powerful and personal anthems ‘Part of Me‘ and ‘Wide Awake‘ before gracing the stage as a pharaoh upon a mechanical horse for ‘Dark Horse’.

Fans were taken on a nostalgic trip with ‘I Kissed a Girl‘, the single that sparked Katy‘s career in pop music in 2008. Several tracks from her first pop-rock album One of the Boys were then performed, including her second single ‘Hot N Cold‘.  As to not leave any fans disappointed, multiple mash-ups were created to ensure the majority of her discography was covered in her set-list. Surrounded by a garden set with sunflowers growing out of even the keyboard, an intimate acoustic set was performed at the end of the catwalk which included a rendition of ‘Thinking of You‘ combined with ‘The One That Got Away‘, one of the biggest hits from her third album Teenage Dream.

Ending her two-hour set with two hot chart-toppers ‘California Gurls‘ and ‘Teenage Dream‘ from the prestigious third album, Katy returned to the stage, inviting one lucky audience member to join her in order to celebrate their happy returns with her own ‘Birthday‘ song, then finishing her explosive set with her fifth song to reach quintuple-platinum certified status, ‘Firework‘.

---

 

Don’t forget to keep up to date with my coverage by following my Instagram account!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starfury Events presents: G4

Over the past weekend, fans of the hit musical television series Glee and the American musical theatre group Starkid Productions gathered at London Heathrow’s Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel for the fourth annual Glee convention. Fans were welcomed to meet and greet their favourite stars, as well as joining them for fun professional photos, autographs, and panels. Although the stars weren’t the only people they were excited to see: fans from all over the world were reunited, with their friendships becoming rooted in reality rather than the twittersphere.

Winner of the InQuire Media Photographer of the Year Award 2015

This year’s guest list was one of the most impressive of the convention’s history. Frequent attendees included Max Adler (known on-screen as Dave Karofsky) and Dalton Academy Warbler members Curt Mega and Dominic Barnes.  Starkid were represented by familiar faces Joey Richter, Joe Moses, Dylan Saunders and Brian Rosenthal, with the addition of more recent members Brant Cox and Jeff Blim.With no apparent connection to Glee, the link with StarKid derives from the attendance of the headline guest: Darren Criss. Criss shot to fame after starring as Harry Potter in Starkid‘s debut YouTube hit A Very Potter Musical. Shortly after, he landed the role of inspirational gay teen Blaine Anderson: the love interest to Chris Colfer‘s character Kurt Hummel. Criss took to the stage on Saturday evening to play an exclusive, acoustic concert for the London crowd.

    

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram for more photos and some exclusive videos!

More information about the conventions can be found here:

http://www.seanharry.com/G1/

McBusted Take on London’s Hyde Park

Almost a decade on from their split in January 2005, the pop rock group Busted have joined forces with close friends and equally loved noughties pop rock group McFLY to form the ultimate supergroup. Five days into their thirty-four date tour around the United Kingdom, McBusted took to the stage of London’s O2 arena. Following on from the tour, the boys commemorated their successful joint comeback by taking their set to the biggest audience the group and both original groups had ever seen: London’s Hyde Park.

Headlining the Barclaycard’s British Summer Time festival, McBusted were supported by one of the most impressive line-ups of the festival. Beginning with Essex-bred Britain’s Got Talent winning dance troupe Diversity, followed by indie pop band Scouting For Girls,  the next performers to grace the stage were one of the hottest pop groups of this year. The Vamps got the crowd  pumped for the ultimate group that started the boyband hype: The Backstreet Boys.

Arriving from the sky in the DeLorean, the supergroup – comprised of two Busted members James Bourne and Matt Willis and McFLY members Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Harry Judd and Dougie Poynter – took a trip down memory lane performing fifteen of their twenty-seven combined top ten singles plus some special surprise songs, starting with a selection of Busted’s top hits including You Said No (Crash and Burn) and Who’s David.

Paying homage to the iconic 80s cult movie Back to the Future in such a spectacular fashion is not just pertinent because it is the favourite film of Tom and James, but it is also the inspiration for McFLY‘s name. Followed by a video taking fans back to the day Busted announced their split, Matt and James descended from the sky, exiting the DeLorean from to then be joined on stage by the boys from McFLY, who burst through the stage floor and went straight into their opening number Air Hostess. However, this was not the only spectacular surprise stunt pulled off by the band: halfway through the set, they took to the sky in the middle of the crowd on a UFO on which they performed Star Girl followed by an unreleased song from Busted’s second album and finishing with McFLY’s fourth single Room On The 3rd Floor.

Not only did the boys entertain with their highly acclaimed set list but also with their ongoing shenanigans, comprising synchronised dad-dancing to a special cover of The Jackson Five’s I Want You Back and launching merchandise at fans with guns and cannons. Of course, there was also a whole lot of banter between the bands, the majority of which was shown through the use of pre-made videos, such as the hi-jack of the best men section of Tom’s infamous viral wedding speech by James and Matt which naturally led into the first song of their encore: Crashed the Wedding. The atmosphere was then calmed with a heart-warming performance of McFLY’s number one Comic Relief single All About You, going on to finish the show with the electrifying crowd-pleaser that sparked this ingenious fusion of the two bands: Year 3000.

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram for exclusive photos and videos!

 

 

 

RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 7

With Nationals coming up and Mr Schue not being able to attend any Glee rehearsals, Blaine steps up and tries to help the New Directions get together some ideas. However, when he starts dismissing other peoples’ ideas and focusing on the elements he can personally fulfil for the performance, it isn’t long until his fellow classmates confront him about his bossiness and refuse to co-operate. In New York, Pamela Lansbury are experiencing a similar situation under Kurt‘s control when the band gets its first gig. Kurt holds an emergency meeting to announce that he has booked their gig at NYADA’s piano bar Callbacks, coming up in a few days. Although he is excited it about the venue, the rest do not have faith in it as being the best choice for their début performance. After announcing his decision to return to his original impulse of the band being a Madonna tribute band, the scene transforms into Kurt‘s daydream of them performing Into the Groove. Once he has returned to reality, the emergency meeting is disrupted by a phonecall from an ego-bruised Blaine complaining about how the New Directions refuse to listen to his obviously genius ideas, to which Kurt introduces the theme of the episode by suggesting he may have come across like a puppet master.

After taking what Kurt had said into account, Blaine decides to take a stand by sitting in the back corner of the next Glee rehearsal and not singing or dancing. Much to his surprise, the rest of New Directions turn into puppets and begin praising him for being so talented and beg him to perform a song for them: Queen – You’re my best friend. Unfortunately, though, when everyone is once again made of flesh and not felt, it turns out that they are actually more annoyed because he sulked through the entire lesson. Later on in his Arts and Crafts class, Blaine truly becomes a puppet master when he makes a puppet of Kurt. However he is soon confiscated by Sue after Blaine helps her up from falling over in a pair of heels for fear that the heels have made him lose respect for her. After school hours, Blaine sneaks into her office to get Kurt back but is caught and prevented from going to Pamela Lansbury‘s first gig when punished with a week’s detention. Kurt is furious that he isn’t coming to see him, and even more so when he discovers that only one person turned up as he was expecting to see the real Angela Lansbury, but he later on proves to be the best person that could have been there when he gets them a gig at the Williamsberg music hall via his nephew.  Worried about having a puppet fantasy in detention, outside of the choir room, Blaine goes to the auditorium and is caught being flirted with by a puppet he made of Tina… by Tina herself.

This week is not only an important one for Pamela Lansbury but also McKinley High as the School Board are visiting for an investigation into the school’s conditions and to evaluate whether Sue should be promoted to being its full-time principal. During the first meeting, after thinking the Superintendent was possibly flirting with her by asking her to go grab some drinks some time, it is made incredibly clear that he thinks Sue is in fact a man. Offended and not sure how to dress like a lady and still be as respected and feared as she is in the school, she enlists Mr Schue for some help and ends up daydreaming about dancing with him to Cheek to Cheek from Top Hat in which Mr Schue is Fred Astaire and Sue is Ginger Rogers. As she did not get much help from him, she asks Unique to give her a makeover. When the School Board returns to finish their evaluation, the Superintendent apologises for the misunderstanding, lifting Sue‘s spirits, but soon crushing them when he rejects her offer to go out on a date. Sue is instated as the permanent principal at McKinley and we find out that the weird daydreams experienced by herself, Blaine and Jake were caused by a gas leak.

Following on from the last couple of episodes, Jake is still feeling pessimistic and unmotivated about the Glee club. After taking Blaine‘s advice about sitting in the back corner of the classroom, he also experiences a surreal daydream in which he is dancing with the Cheerios to Janet Jackson’s Nasty/Rhythm Nation. Again, like Blaine, he wakes to find everybody has left, even angrier with him than they were originally. Later on, he finds out that Bree is pregnant with his baby and asks him to go to a doctor’s appointment with her. Fortunately for him, it turns out to be a false alarm and he learns that he needs to think about what he’s doing before he really does end up in a similar situation. In a moment of harsh realisation, he tells Marley he still loves her and that he needs her to make him a good person, though she isn’t sure she feels the same way towards him anymore.

The episode ends on both the guys in New York and the New Directions receiving puppet versions of their selves from Blaine as an apology, which they use as props to Ylvis’s cult hit What does the fox say?

Watch A Previously Unaired Christmas tonight on Sky1 at 9pm

NOTE: Glee will be taking a hiatus over the christmas period.

Related articles

• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 3 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 4 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)

RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 6

McKinley throws its first annual Career Fair to help the students decide which career path they would like to follow. Mr Schue is upset that there are no stalls for careers in the arts and decides to ignore Sue‘s comments that it is because they do not exist and encourages the Glee club to always strive to fulfil their dreams, just like Billy Joel. Blaine and Sam kick the assignment off with Movin’ Out before they leave for New York for Blaine‘s NYADA audition and Sam‘s interview with Hunter college. Whilst in New York, the boys visit Kurt, Rachel and Santana for lunch in the diner whilst they’re working and prepare Blaine for his audition by getting him to perform Piano Man. 

Unfortunately, Sam‘s interview does not go so well. He admits that he does not actually want to go to college but has always wanted to be a male model, so Rachel helps him to set up their own photo shoot in the flat and gets the photographer from Funny Girl to help out. The portfolio they compile with the photos gets Sam an interview to model with the House of Bichette Modeling Agency, where he is told he will have to lose ten pounds and then pay someone to get him another photo shoot. When he returns to the flat, everybody tells him that losing weight would be ridiculous, which they express aptly through Just The Way You Are.

Now that Becky is back at McKinley, Artie is worried she will always be Sue‘s Beck-retary and does not want her to miss out on college for fear that she will not be accepted or fit in because of her disability. After being rejected when giving her pamphlets for disability-friendly cheerleading colleges, he tries to get through to her with a special performance of Honesty. Sue finally gives in and stops grilling Artie and agrees to let him take Becky on a campus tour of one of the colleges.

As in the last season, the tension between Jake and Ryder returns. Ryder angrily confronts him about cheating on Marley, to which he responds with a performance of My Life, showing everyone he is fine with what they think of him because he is not going to change. Marley is frustrated because everyone warned her what he was like. His performance, his attempt to apologise by putting roses in her locker, the fact that he is asking her to take him back confuses her as she still has feelings for him despite everything he’s done. Ryder decides to seize his opportunity and asks Marley on a date by performing Innocent Man to show he’s a good guy and would never treat her bad. Even though Marley agrees to go out on a date with him, she tells him that this does not mean that they are a couple- she still needs time to get over everything with Jake.

By the end of the week, Sue gives Mr Schue a table in the Career Fair for the arts and Blam return to McKinley with news that Blaine smashed his audition and Sam is going to skip college and become a model and the New Directions. They also manage to squeeze in one last Billy Joel number: You May Be Right.

Watch Puppet Master tonight on Sky1 at 9pm

Related articles

• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 3 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 4 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• Is It Truly “The End Of Twerk” On This Week’s Glee? (popwrapped.wordpress.com)
• ‘Glee’ 5.05 Preview: Twerking and Wrecking Ball (aceshowbiz.com)

RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 5

After Tina catches Blaine shaking what his mama gave him alone in the choir room Mr Schue decides that ‘twerking’ will be this week’s theme as it will teach the kids to embrace their rebellious sides and show the judges at Nationals something different and daring. Of course, Sue immediately addresses the provocative nature of the dance in her News section “Sue’s corner”, pledging to end twerking not just at Mckinley but in all Ohio public schools.

In response, Mr Schue leads the Glee club into a performance of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, in which other students join them twerking as they sing and dance their way through the corridors to the auditorium. As a way of protecting their rights to freedom of expression, he also appeals to the school board about the subject, demonstrating how at first all popular dance trends were considered outrageous and sexually offensive and thus persuading them to be on the right side of musical history.

As well as being contemporary regarding music and dance, this episode also addresses the issues faced in the transgender community regarding self identification. Unique only goes to the toilet during lessons so she can go to the girl’s bathroom when nobody else is in there to say anything about it, as she does not feel like she belongs in the men’s room. Some jocks give her stick in the bathroom which lead into her performance of If I Were a Boy by Beyoncé. Sue decides that Unique can have her own bathroom facility in the school, however it is a ginormous, purple porta-potty with yellow question marks painted all over it and it is bolted to the choir room floor. Mr Schue lets Unique use the staff bathroom as a way to stop her feeling ashamed when nature calls.

Rebellion is also the theme in New York. Feeling like she needs to change, Rachel decides to cut her hair into a bob that matches the same hair style as Barbara Streisand’s in Funny Girl, which first enrages the director then finally pleases him. However, it turns out she was only wearing a wig. When Kurt panics about how the plan could have gone tragically wrong, she confronts him about his mundane life and they decide to go out and do something crazy: get a tattoo. The next morning, they wake to find that Kurt‘s meaningful message and life motto ‘it gets better’ had experienced some typo technicalities when being permanently applied to his back: a mistake which turns out to have been his fault and not the fault of the tattoo artist. The tattoo artist agrees to try to change it for him and even throws in a free tongue piercing. Rachel confesses she did not go through with it and get her Streisand tattoo done, which we later find out was a cover up- she got Finn‘s name tattooed onto her right rib.

After finding out about Jake‘s secret rendez-vous with Bree, Marley performs Miley Cyrus’ most recent song Wrecking Ball, even swinging on the ball as seen in the music video and smashing down fake walls to express her frustration. Along with their relationship, twerking is ended as Mr Schue makes a deal with Sue to help Unique. Embracing the old-school, optimistic ways of the Glee club, the episode ends on a performance of On Our Way by Royal Concept.

Watch Movin’ Out tonight on Sky1 at 9pm

Related articles

• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 3 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 4 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• Is It Truly “The End Of Twerk” On This Week’s Glee? (popwrapped.wordpress.com)
• ‘Glee’ 5.05 Preview: Twerking and Wrecking Ball (aceshowbiz.com)

RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 4

This week, New Directions find out they will be against the super show choir Throat Explosion in the upcoming Nationals competition. To help them experiment with different performance styles, Mr Schuester splits the kids into Katy Perrys and Lady Gagas and assigns them to perform a song from the other artist.

Meanwhile in New York, Kurt is starting his new band recruiting Santana and Dani, but Rachel decides she instead needs to focus on her career at the moment, especially following the tragedy of Finn‘s passing. To find a fourth member, he holds an open audition at NYADA and has one lone but spectacular performance from Star Child (guest star Adam Lambert) singing Lady Gaga‘s Marry The Night. However, fed up of not succeeding in his career being a Gaga, Kurt at first rejects him and his elaborate style sense which is reminiscent of his own, then accepts him into the band with open arms stripped of his alter ego and simply being Elliot.

Following on from the second episode of the series, Penny the nurse makes another appearance as Sam‘s latest love interest and takes him by surprise when she turns up with a striking fake tattoo on the inside of her forearm and tells him she’s a metalhead. After revealing this musical dark side and highlighting that she is a Gaga whilst he is a Katy, Blaine helps him devise a plan to impress her and prevent her from going to a concert with her ex-boyfriend. For their assignment, Sam takes control and sends a viral video around the school promoting their wild and edgy performance of Gaga‘s Applause, which he successfully persuades Penny to attend…and later finds out she is, in fact, a Katy.

Now they’ve been together for a while, Jake is beginning to feel that his relationship with Marley is becoming repetitive: she’s a Katy and he’s a Gaga and they need to spice their lives up a bit. When confronted by Bree to help the Cheerios choreograph a routine, Marley tells him he should definitely put his talent to use, however she is made suspicious when Unique suggests that he could have been asked to help out as part of an ulterior motive. Thinking about his past reputation and seeing him dancing sexily with Bree when spying on him, she becomes paranoid that he does not want to be with ‘the real Marley‘. As a consequence of her self-consciousness, she changes her outfit for the Applause outfit and is suspended from the assignment for the rest of the week for being selfish and putting her personal agenda above team morale. As for the Gagas, instead of going for the all-out gimmicky approach in the Katy assignment, they decide to strip Wide Awake down to pure music and emotions. As a way of cheering Marley up from being suspended and not being allowed to watch the performance of Wide Awake, Jake invites her round to his house whilst his Mum is out. The two argue about Marley not being ready to lose her virginity to him and in an upset outburst she tells him to go find a girl who will just give him what he wants if that is indeed what he wants: to which he responds by paying Bree a visit.

Back in New York, Kurt, Santana, Dani and Elliot are trying to come up with a band name when Rachel comes in and inspires them with ‘Pamela Lamsberry’- and, with that, she lets Kurt persuade her to join. The episode ends on an outrageously creative performance of Katy Perry‘s Roar by both the New Directions and the New Yorkers, which is motivated by Sue‘s attempt to suspend the Glee club for dressing inappropriately as part of their assignment.

Don’t miss The End of Twerk tonight at 9pm on Sky1

Related articles

• RYCAP: Glee Season 4 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Premiere (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 2 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)
• RYCAP: Glee Season 5 Episode 3 (thelifeofryliee.wordpress.com)