Beyonce Knowles will perform in Malaysia next month, two years after canceling a show in the Muslim-majority country after protesters threatened to disrupt the concert because of her sexy image and clothing.
The R ’n’ B superstar’s upcoming show is already drawing the ire of conservatives in this country, where female performers are required to cover up from the shoulders to knees with no cleavage showing.
Knowles said on her Web site that she will take the stage at a stadium in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 25.
Knowles canceled a planned concert two years ago following protest threats by Malaysia’s opposition Islamic party. At the time her talent agency said the show was called off due to a scheduling conflict.
Sabki Yusof, youth vice head of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said yesterday that they would send a protest note to the government over the concert. He said it was the government’s “responsibility to protect the people of Malaysia” from what he described as immoral Western influences.
“We are not against entertainment as long as it is within the framework of our culture and our religion,” Sabki said. “We are against Western sexy performances. We don’t think our people need that.”
Meanwhile, music producer and convicted murderer Phil Spector says life behind bars is driving him “insane.”
“This 24/7 lockdown life is slowly driving me insane and killing [me],” Spector, 69, wrote in a letter to a fan that was posted online on Friday.
Spector, who revolutionized pop music in the 1960s with his “Wall of Sound” production technique, is serving a minimum of 19 years in prison for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
In the letter written in July to a fan, Spector complained that he was unable to “say goodbye” to anyone, or organize his business affairs before going to prison.
“How cruel but apparently not unusual,” Spector wrote. “And they call this a ‘civilized’ society. Bugs live more civilized beneath their rocks!”
Leonard Cohen, one of the stars Spector worked with before Spector withdrew from music in the 1980s, was released from a hospital in Spain hours after collapsing on stage during a concert.
Organizers of his Friday night concert in the eastern city of Valencia said the Canadian singer-songwriter, who turns 75 this week, had fainted on stage after being stricken with food poisoning.
Witnesses told Spanish media that Cohen was performing Bird on the Wire about half an hour into the show when he lost his balance as he went to pick up a guitar.
He was saved from falling by backing singers, but moments later he collapsed again and was helped off stage to receive treatment from a medical team in the concert hall. He was then taken by ambulance to hospital, from which he was discharged in the early hours of Saturday.
A member of his band, Javier Mas, came out almost an hour later to tell the thousands of people gathered in the Luis Puig Velodrome that Cohen was suffering from a stomach complaint and would not be returning to the stage that night, but that he hoped to reschedule the show for another time.
Cohen quit the music scene in the early 1990s, living at a Buddhist monastery in California. But he was forced to return after he was swindled out of his retirement nest egg by his former manager.
His most recent album, Heather, was released in 2004. And last year, he embarked on his first world tour in 15 years.
Also embarking on its first tour in more than a decade is Pavement, one of the most influential indie-rock bands of the 1990s. The band’s label, Matador Records, announced on Thursday that Pavement will reunite for a tour — and only a tour — to begin on Sept. 21 next year in New York’s Central Park.
Though not hugely commercially successful, the California-based band is widely credited for its influential low-fidelity sound and ramshackle artistry.
Pavement broke up in 2000. Several of its members have since released solo material, most notably its lead singer and songwriter, Stephen Malkmus.
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