Manu Chao in Bucharest, at BestFest 2008 was the second best concert I ever attended. Second only after Metallica, at Rock Im Park.

An amazing show, full of energy and over two hours of great songs.

You can see an example of the performance here.

I never would have thought to see Jay Z playing an Oasis song. :)

The latest and greatest news is that I am going to Rock Im Park in beginning of June. Can’t wait for: Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Prodigy, Disturbed and many others.

Oasis has recently posted online some new songs, from their upcoming album. Great News !

Lots of highly reputed bands have been recently announced to come to the B’Estfest festival in Bucharest this year - I believe this is becoming one of the main music events in Romania.

In summary, the bands that I will really like to see this year are:

4th of July: Alanis Morissette, Cypress Hill and Apollo 440. Unkle will be also playing on this date, but I did not like them so much the last time I saw them.

5th of July: not so many interesting bands so far for this date, but I believe Kaiser Chiefs, Nouvelle Vague and Manic Street Preachers might be interesting.

6th of July: Manu Chao and Roisin Murphy will be the main names for this day. Nelly Furtado will also play but I am not really a fan of her music.

And, finally, Judas Priest will play at the B’estfest Aftershock on 11th of July.

Will be a hot summer…. :)

Initially we said it will, then it was canceled.

Now it is announced again, this time officially here and here.

So, Metallica will be in Bucharest on 23rd of July, Cotroceni Stadium. Tickets will be available on www.myticket.ro.

As a result of listening too much to Radio Guerilla, I got a new obsession - David Jordan with Sun Goes Down.

You can listen to it here.

Chemical Brothers released a new single, with Spank Rock. It is called Keep My Composure and you can listen to it here.

As a result of few months of discussions and many years of friendship, Mihai Seceleanu and myself decided to launch a common project. It is called bizwatch.ro and it is a business blog.

Since we are both passionate about the business world - even though we are focused on completelly different industries -, we believe it is a good idea to share our views, opinions and resources with everybody.

Therefore, starting today bizwatch.ro is live. You are encouraged to send us your opinions on the blog and on our posts there.

And since it is going to be hard to maintain several blogs at once, musicblog.ro will remain as a passion blog for myself but the posting might get significantly lower. Still, I believe I will be able to share nice info with you on music.

Thank you to all 16 people who voted for musicblog.ro in RoBlogFest. I am quite surprised to obtain this number of votes, as I did not want to make any publicity or invitations to voting.

Definetelly the best musical news recently, Cypress Hill is comming to B’ESTFEST in July. This is something I really don’t want to miss.

Till then, warming up with No Entiendes La Onda.

The “Last album bought” series continues with Dan Amariei, from OCS (Omul cu Sobolani).

Dan tells us that the last album he bought is “Editors - An End Has a Start“. As a preview, you can listen to the song with the same title, An End Has a Start.

You can also buy the album here.

Leonard Cohen just posted the new 2008-2009 tour dates and …. Yes, he is coming to Romania.

The concert is scheduled for 14th of July, the location is to be announced.

This should be nice !

Until then …. Hallelujah.

Dor de Duca announced that Linkin Park is coming to Bucharest in July-August. This would be really nice. Looking forward for more details.

Until then, check out linkinpark.com for the new releases of the band.

On 15th of March, Sala Sporturilor will host a 10 hours event of Drum & Bass. Featuring bands like - they have really weird names - Noisia (Netherlands), Shroombab (Austria) and Darko Stepic (Romania), should be a delight for the fans of the genre.

More details on The Drum & Bass Reunion here.

UPDATE: It seems it was all just a rumour, in the end. RockXpress says they got in touch with the organizers and everything is just … air. So, no Metallica yet….:(

I meant to write about this about one week ago when I first heard the rumour. Now it seems it is semi-official that Metallica will come in Romania somewhere in July.

Well, I missed them the first time, most likely I won’t miss them this time. Looking forward to !

Until then, here are two awesome tracks - Bleeding Me and Nothing Else Matters - both S&M version.

It is quite certain that Judas Priest will come to Romania somewhere in beginning of July. The date is not confirmed yet, but I would expect it to be around 4th of 5th of July. This is because on 3rd of July they have their last concert in Czech Republic and then on 9th they will be in Greece.

Judas Priest is one of those ever-lasting bands. They started back in 1974 with their first album, Rocka Rolla, and the last one is dated 2005 - Angel of Retribution. I wonder if in Bucharest they will bring one of those famous bikes on stage, to go along with their music :)

Looks like a very busy year for the rock scene in Romania, Iron Maiden is comming, Manowar will be here, there are some rumours on Aerosmith, I wonder what’s next :)

Judas Priest current line-up is: Rob Halford, K K Downing, Glen Tipton, Ian Hill and Scott Travis.

UPDATE: It is confirmed that Judas Priest will play on 11.07 in Bucharest, at Romexpo. The concert will be part of “B’ESTFEST Aftershock” day.

Another weekend out of Bucharest, but still a lot of events to go to if you stay in the big city….

Friday, 29.02 - Last day before the chaos from 1st of March. If you want to get a special “martisor” for your significant other, we suggest going to “Muzeul Taranului Roman” from 10:00 to 18:00 for buying a non-kitsch gift and finding out more about how they are being made. In the evening, you can go to Suburbia starting 21:00 for a Suie Paparude concert.

Saturday, 1.03 - Lot of “Martisor” parties on this day, in Green Hours for example from 23:00. Also, a big concert featuring Chicane, M.A.N.D.Y. and others will start at 21:00 at Sala Polivalenta.

Sunday, 2.03 - From 16:00, in Laptarie, you can attend “Love lasts for three years“. From 21:00, DJ Vasile will play in Clubul Taranului.

Enjoy the parties !

Kylie Minogue is coming in Bucharest on 17th of May, starting with 20:00. Tickets can be found on www.myticket.ro and in Diverta stores.

This probably isn’t news already, as everybody wrote about this in the last 24 hours. Still, here are some details.

B’estFest will take place this year again in the Romexpo area in Bucharest, from 4th to 6th of July. Last year was a great success and for this year they have already confirmed two names which will most likely attract a great deal of people to the event: Kaiser Chiefs and Roisin Murphy.

Kaiser Chiefs is one of those typical UK bands in my view, featuring a classical punk sound and a lot of aggitation on the stage :). While for sure I am not their greatest fan, they have a good sound and probably most important, a lot of success in UK and in Europe in general.

Roisin Murphy is the voice of Moloko and is one of the craziest singers on stage. Playing mostly electronic music, her shows are impressive both in sound and visuals, but mostly in her appearances. As a preview of her music, here is Roisin Murphy- Checkin on Me.

With these two bands confirmed, B’ESTFEST announces itself as an interesting event, one of the few being able to keep me off the seaside in the summer weekends :)