The S.H.I.T. – Brand-New Blues Rock Supergroup – premieră în România!

The S.H.I.T. este un nou supergrup internațional, format din patru muzicieni excepționali ai scenei blues și

rock: Innes Sibun (chitară și voce), Mike Hellier (tobe), Roger Inniss (bas) și Rob Tognoni (chitară și voce).

Acești artiști, formați pe scenele mari ale blues-ului și rock-ului, s-au unit pentru a crea un proiect original,

plin de energie și atitudine.

Muzica lor combină blues-ul, roots și Americana, într-un stil autentic, caracterizat de virtuozitate instrumentală și prezență scenică remarcabilă. Acesta va fi primul concert susținut vreodată de The S.H.I.T. în această nouă formulă cu Innes Sibun la chitară și voce.

Innes Sibun (UK) – unul dintre cei mai apreciați chitariști britanici de blues rock, parte din Robert Plant Band și artist cu peste 30 de ani de experiență scenică. Unul din prietenii statornici ai Transilvania Blues Nights ca parte din proiectul The Malone Sibun Band împreună cu texanul Marcus Malone, prezenți de trei ori la Brașov, în 2019, 2020 si în 2023.

Rob Tognoni (Australia) – The Tasmanian Devil, un showman de forță, chitarist exploziv și o carieră de peste trei decenii. A mai fost prezent la Transilvania Blues Nights cu propria trupă în 2022 și 2024.

Roger Inniss (UK) – basist cu o versatilitate remarcabilă, activ în proiecte de blues, funk și soul. A colaborat cu artiști precum Joanne Shaw-Taylor, Snowy White, Mick Taylor, Edwin Starr, Chaka Khan. A fost prezent la Transilvania Blues Nights de două ori, alături de brazilianul Fred Sunwalk.

Mike Hellier (UK) – baterist cu groove puternic și experiență eclectică, a cântat în diverse formule, de la Mike Scott (The Waterboys), James Hunter, Johnny Thunders, la Mudd Morganfield, fiul lui Muddy Waters.

Un concert-eveniment în premieră națională și la Brașov, în cadrul Transilvania Blues Nights.

Un eveniment marca Transilvania Blues Nights, recomandat de Rock FM și Zile și Nopți.

Sponsori: BCR, ButanGas, Dräxlmaier, Tehnic Mihor BitDatamining, Aplind

Parteneri de ospitalitate: A-Ha Bistro, Coliba Haiducilor, Brașov Old Town Apartments.

6 decembrie 2025, ora 20:00, open doors 18:00. Transilvania Blues Nights. Clubul Rockstadt, Brașov.Bilete: pre-sale 120 lei până în data de 05.12.2025; 150 lei în ziua concertului. Informații și bilete: www.transilvaniablues.ro

Eveniment Facebook: Concert The S.H.I.T. @ Transilvania Blues Nights

Subscribe to the Transilvania Blues YouTube channel here

B. There & Let There B. Blues!

RIP Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard was one of the greatest playwrights of the last century, screenwiter and script doctor and author of the play Rosenkrantz and Guilderstern are Dead (1966). In 1990 he directed also a film based on his play, the film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival as well as the Fantasporto Directors' Week Award. He co-wrote Brazil with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He won the Oscar (and Golden Globe) for a lesser film,  Shakespeare in Love, in 1998. His forte were the adpatations. 

RIP Udo Kier

Udo Kier died on November 23d in Palm Springs. He was 83. One of the greatest actors. Ever. Only through his mad glaze, blue piercing eyes, he dominated every screen and stole every scene he was in.

Takes me some time and pain to write about him. I knew him, met in different occasions 4 times over the years. Interviewed him with Andrei on the set of One Point O in Bucharest in 2003. We spent hours in a derelict block of flats, now demolished, in a smoked flat, under the lights, into the night. Uberhot, hot early summer night in Bucharest (8th of may as the picture says). Udo came for a film and stayed for one more, got a part in Andy Garcia's Modigliani. His hair was dyed blonde for the part. We got Polaroids with him, each, this is Andrei's here. 

Then he was invited in Cluj at TIFF in 2006 and we hang out with him, even to a second hand shop where he bought a glorious long leather coat. This is another pic from Andrei, from one night to never forget, in the Diesel club, in the cellar VIP room (ha, another place that does not exist anymore...)

Then year passed, I had Udo's US address and mail, we sent him a script of a film still not done today. Didn't pass us to his agent or anything. I don't have the same mail address so that got lost.

In 2015 I was a guest of Grossmann film Festival, and spent more time with Udo, also there. We even went to see an art exhibition together. 

Found another pic from Grossmann 2015, with my buddies, director Kritstjan Milic (Zivi i mrtvi) and Kapelmeister of the fest, Marko Mehtsun. 

And last time I saw him in Cannes, on Rue des Antibes, in 2019, as he was there with the cast of  Kleber Mendonça Filho's Bacurau, great film. We met on the street and had a chat.  The last part of Udo is in Filho's new film, The Secret Agent.  A beautiful heartfelt goodbye...

On the screen I saw him last in Hunters, season two where he played obviously on of his recurring characters, Adolf Hitler. Update: I just saw My Neighbor Adolf and liked it, Udo is at his best. 

Goodbye Udo, it was a pleasure and an honor to meet you...

The Running Man (2025)

The new Running Man, is not a remake pre se of the Ahnuld 1987 vehicle, but a more faithful adaptation of Stephen King as Richard Bachman novel, written in 1973, published in 1982. That novel happened in the year 2025 and actually today it happens, with the Squid Game series and a Korean Reality show named exactly Running Man. So Ben Richards is in a banal world, becoming more real every day. I mean, it's like Y-day news after the Hunger Games series and all the Tv/straming fare of this kind. 

Running man is of course influenced by Rollerball, which still stands up as one of the best film of its era (not the shitty unnecesaary reamke) it's even worse tha n its remake.

Everyone's commenting, oh, it's an Edgar Wright film. Ok, that is like a certified value for a big budget blockbuster Sf action  (110 mill. $). surely not. I was also very dispointed by Lst Night in Soho, his take in gialllos, very pretentios and shallow. The most action Wright directed was in Baby Driver, which I enjoyed most of his all films, and he's better in making quirky, funny, heartfelt little films, not Hollywood fodder.

Also Glen Powell, which I've just seen in the lastest SNL edition, can't carry the film., at all. Not a problem with the guy and he tries hard but neh.

This would've worked as a Snake Plissken adventure, like Escape fromn the Dome. I guess Wright gave a few nods to John Carpenter. 

There's also a problem with the duration which is overlong, 2h13 min, oi, the film doesn't start until we get to the show and no matter how good Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo are, they can't help much.

Also this world, used and dirty, used to cost less to produce on the screen. Here they went to Bulgaria for exteriors and day shots. Somehow doesn't look like America. The rest of it was hot at Warner Bros' studios in England.

Now for the music, unimpressive loud score by Steven Price. And as Edgar Wright ia great fan of songs to use on the soundtrack (yeah, great in Baby Driver), here most of them are wasted. Rolling Stones'  Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), Sly and the Family Stone (Underdog)-on the main credits, Iggy and the Stooges (Search and Destroy), The Allman Brothers (Revival) , Miles Davis (Red China Blues) and Tom Jones (Keep on Running) on the end credits. Including a riff of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (last heard appropiately in One Battle After Another). And Jamie XX, far from my desk ;)

It's been Stephen King's year all over, from Life of Chuck to Welcome to Derry, the IT prequel that runs now on HBO MAX, MGM's The Institute series, passing through The Monkey and another Bachman opus, The Long Walk (which I liked best of these all, my review here). 

Wright's film is full of King references /Easter eggs for the eyes of King's fans and King himself, credited as an executive producer. Of course King was happy with the film, as I know his tastes in film (ex: how much he hated Kubrick's The Shining and managed to to a sequel just to get rid of that Kubrick hangover, I don't care so much about what he likes or does not cinematically...hey, what about that Maximum Overdrive? 

2 1/2 out of 5 

*I opened recently a Letterboxed account in order to write down the films I see which I hardly can here, and my "reARviews" will be isssued there. Same ratings apply.