Blue Water Live at the Manchester Ritz

Doves official youtube channel: Video of Doves performing Blue Water at the Manchester Ritz back in November 2000.

Also uploaded onto the channel is a 10 minute Doves album megamix.

Doves For TT

Isle Of Man news reports that Doves will be performing on the Island at the Douglas Villa Marina during the week of TT. Doves are due to play on the Tuesday, tickets go on sale Saturday.

Doves last performed on the Isle of Man, at the back end of 2005.

Official TT website

Lauren Laverne 6 Music Session

Jimi & Martin played a couple of tunes this morning for 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne. Jimi again spoke about the hiatus Doves will be taking after touring the Best Of. Asked of his own plans, Jimi hoped to be able to do some collaborating, naming Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis as the top pick if it was possible! Good luck with that one. :)

They performed acoustic versions of The Cedar Room & Kingdom Of Rust.

To hear the interview/live tunes. It all starts off at 1 hour 25 mins at the BBC iplayer here. Also available to folks outside the UK.
My take on the “hiatus”? Its gotta be good news, if it means Doves do return in a few years down the line sounding better than ever. To put it in context.. it was almost three years between the last Some Cities gig I saw and the Kingdom Of Rust shows last May. Didn’t expect much from them this year, so the tour/summer of festivals has been a Brucey bonus. Fully intend on enjoying the tour in a few weeks. So no tears at the front from this blogger, just a hand of appreciation.

Hartlepool Tall Ships

Looks like Doves will be playing part of the Hartlepool Tall Ships celebration:

Hartlepool will be centre stage between Saturday 7th and Tuesday 10th August when it hosts the magnificent Tall Ships fleet. The Hartlepool Tall Ships Celebration will be one of England’s biggest free events in 2010 with up to one million visitors expected from Friday 6th until Monday 9th August 2010 at Hartlepool Marina.

Line-up

Acts include Doves, Echo and The Bunnymen, Ocean Colour Scene, Sheelanagig, Stornoway, Goldheart Assembly, Golden Animals, The Woven Project, The Dave Moseley Band, Lithium Speed Dementia, The Standards, The White Negroes, and The Runwells.

Music Promoter Andy Kelly, who has been working with the Tall Ships team to secure the bands, said: “It’s great to have Ocean Colour Scene confirmed, they’re one of the best live bands in the country! Echo and The Bunnymen are still as effortlessly cool as ever!”

For more info, visit the Tall Ships website.

Mayrhofen Review #2 & Best Of Album Sales

Another short review of Doves set at the Snowbombing festival, this time from the Independent.

Crowd size had no bearing on the quality of the acts. Doves’ set, though sparsely attended –perhaps the band’s thoughtful and melancholic indie did not appeal to the ravers’ party vibe –was a highlight. With a “best of” album on the shelves, the trio provided a set spanning their 20-year career, including “Kingdom of Rust”, “There Goes The Fear” and the Motown pounding of “Black and White Town”. Doves are used to playing in the UK to crowds 10 times the size of this one, so perhaps Jimi Goodwin could have been forgiven for thinking they were performing for Austrians who had no idea who they were. “I can sing that in German”, he said, unaware that the majority of Snowbombers are British.

Don’t forget, you can catch Doves live on Lauren Laverne’s 6 Music show later this morning. Doves will be playing a couple tracks acoustic, then will do an interview. Expect to hear Doves around 11am-12 noon.

Finally, some sales stats for the Best Of album..

The Best Of Doves: The Places Between is this week’s highest new entry debuts at number 12 selling 9,714 copies.

Gaga’s album sold a total of 25,211 copies to stay at number one, the lowest sale for a number one artist album since The Last Broadcast by Doves topped the list selling only 22,437 copies eight years ago next month

Quite revealing figures, I’m sure you will agree. Apparently they are blaming the weather for the poor sales… I should point out that those sales figures for the Last Broadcast, was for its second week at number one. It sold over 52,000 copies first week.

Andalucía Fails to Chart

Unsurprisingly Andalucía didn’t trouble the UK singles chart despite the best efforts of teps. With no physical release and all promotion focused on the album I don’t think anything other was expected. Here’s what the iTunes UK singles chart (where something like 95% of all single/song sales now come from) looks like..

241. There Goes the Fear – Doves
256. Andalucía – Doves
339. Black and White Town – Doves
576. Pounding – Doves

Not quite as exciting as the Bruno Brooks chart countdown I used to enjoy back in the day. What may be even more surprising, is that Radio 1 didn’t see fit to put Andalucía on any of its playlists. It seems like Doves are no longer cool for school..

Edit: To be fair, I don’t listen to Radio 1, so maybe R1 audience has changed somewhat? 6 Music has played lots of Doves of late, of course that wont be the case if the big wigs at the BBC get their way..

UK Album Chart Highest New Entry

Doves Best of The Places Between this week scored the UK album chart’s highest new entry, coming in at number 12*.

In the Irish chart, the album came in at number 57.

More Stats:

Official album download chart: 15
Scottish Albums Chart: 13

* Not Number 11 as the BBC album chart website first reported.

Information from the official UK charts website.

Chart Update

Doves forum regular teps has been campaigning all week to get Andalicua high up on the UK singles chart. It currently sits just inside the top 200, so if you want to help move the track further up the singles chart…

iTunes
7digital

As of yesterday, the album sits at number 7 on the UK album chart. So if you haven’t bought it already..

If you are in the US. The album is available to download..

7digital

Review: April 7th Mayrhofen, Austria

Doves kicked the year off by playing the Snowbombing Festival in Austria this past Wednesday. Gigwise was there, they have just put up a short review. It seems like red bull and maybe some other stuff was needed for this one..

They’re followed by Doves at the rather ungodly hour of 1.15am, when most revellers are either off their faces on some kind of plant food or other or just getting their rocks off to some faceless DJ. What this means is that the Mancunian outfit play to one of The Racket Club’s smallest crowds, which is something of a travesty bearing in mind both sound and set are near perfect, a rousing double whammy climax of ‘The Cedar Room’ and ‘There Goes The Fear’ proving particular highlights. By this time, Team Gigwise is in need of some sustenance, and even if you can take the boys out of England you can’t take England out of the boy, and kebabs are duly quaffed in double quick time.


Gigwise later added:

Gigwise duly went back into Narnia to take turns self-harming with a rusty nail to Lionel Richie’s ‘All Night Long.’ The Enemy getting Thursday’s prime time 11pm slot and Doves getting Wednesday’s graveyard shift of 1.15am was a bigger tragedy than Iain Dowie’s face. Fact.

Speaking of Iain Dowie… From the beautiful Mayrhofen, next stop on the road for Doves is Hull in a few weeks time, where this blogger will be reporting from.

Live from Abbey Road

Tonight Doves are featured on the tv show Live from Abbey Road which airs on the Sundance Channel in the USA. The show was first aired in the UK last October, well worth a look if you haven’t seen it already.

It is already available to watch on demand if you have Comast or RCN.

Cheers to Rob for the heads up.