Nicky's tweeted that he's spending a couple of days in London this week for some exciting meetings. Sounds promising

He'd better not do a show there while I'm in ****ing Glasgow

I've always maintained he reads this thread

This link may help:
http://www.nandos.co.uk/postcodesear...s?input=london

BTW I recently had a bad steak at the Canary Wharf Nando's (above the DLR station). Beef Jerkey eats like butter compared with the leather I got. But I must admit: it's a place for eating chicken, and not for beef.

Top tracks as to:
http://www.last.fm/music/Nicholas+McDonald

Last week:
1 - Someone like you 88
2 - If you're not the one 80
3 - Answerphone 18
Others below 15

Last 6 months
1 - If you're not the one 1277
2 - Someone like you 723
3 - Answerphone 706
4 - In the Arms of an Angel 457
Others below 200

logged on 2014-07-30 at 8 pm

Jeez, you've only gone to Glasgow, not halfway up the Amazon .....

Good news about London surely? Looks promising for him doing a gig on your doorstep sometime soon. Bear up.

OT I know, but an interesting article in The Guardian about the future of albums now that so many people are streaming music. I think they're looking on the black side a wee bit - people still swear by vinyl fgs, so it's a bit premature to write off cd's, but streaming is definitely here.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...sts-extinction

Yeah I know, but it would be truly ironic given this is where he's done most of his gigs!

It's weird because vinyl has become such a niche thing, almost like a collectable item rather than something that people will play constantly until its worn out.

The last album I bought on CD was Born To Die by Lana Del Rey. I really have no desire anymore to buy an album on CD. I buy everything on iTunes now including albums.

I guess it's a case of each to their own.

Nicky + Bored = LOL

https://vine.co/v/MEDzibTIAj7 (albeit slightly disturbing LOL )

https://vine.co/v/MEDiql1gOpw (this one is for you mmpfb )

Vinyl is having something of a resurgence, with sales going up, I would say it's actually quite a bit more than a niche thing. I have a ridiculous collection of 12"s that takes up a large portion of floor space at my mum's house currently. Try as I might I can't bring myself to sell any of it off, despite there being a fair few records in there worth a fair bit of money (and a fair few of them being pretty shit). And I've actually started buying it again. There just doesn't seem much of a point to CDs nowadays, as they just end up as MP3s anyway. Vinyl, on the other hand, is it's own thing, has it's own sound, and sounds amazing on a decent system. More often than not they come with MP3 downloads nowadays anyway, so buying something on vinyl includes the best of both worlds.

I wonder what these photoshoots Nicky's been doing today were for.

@nickymcdonald1: Had such an amazing meeting today , Safe to say I am very excited about everything that's to come 😀😀

Oooh, promising indeed

In other news, Glasgow is awesome.

Ha, isn't it just. I'm just home from there and it's such a buzz.

Photo-shoots, new website, amazing meetings, things are moving along

It makes me smile because a few months ago we were all saying nobody is doing anything, the whole thing is a shambles. LOL

I'm still hopeful that Nicky genuinely becomes more popular over time and can somehow win over many sceptics who aren't quite #TeamNicky right now.

There will always be haters but hey...do you know a hater who is doing better than you?

Yup, certainly seems that way. So good to hear(read) him being so upbeat

The picture in his updated twitter bio:
Is that the Belfast Odyssey arena?

Food is important for Glaswegians.
We heard Nicky at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO89zFKp3PQ
Here is another Macdonald also commenting on backstage food:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB61M69pah8

PS: about festivals
Travelling by train:
- London-Lille: 1:30 hrs; London-Brussels and London-Paris (Eurostar): 2 hrs
- Euston-Glasgow (Virgin): 5 hrs
Lodging on the continent
- Festivals end at about 5 am (with house-alike acts from 2 till 5)
- Early local trains are scheduled from 5 in the morning on, allowing to catch the first Eurostars.

Food is important full stop.

Apparently Nicky is heading up to Tinto Park today to do a bit of motorbike racing. If you're in the area, you know what to do.

On a related note, I still think Nicky should film a music video at Tinto Park. I even sent Eileen a message on Facebook with a rough storyline. Would be fantastic if they actually did this.

I can't think of many music videos based around motorbike racing so it'd definitely stand out from all the run-of-the-mill pop music videos you usually see.

Good idea.
The Nicky fame needs to be kept alive outside Glasgow-Lanarkshire.
His image is not yet faded away and there is still demand, cf. a reaction to my posting about the Jersy gig:

It takes some time for producing new songs, and not all will be successfull in the market.
So one has to fill the gap. Why not producing decent clips with cover songs?
Like others do. As e.g. Conor Maynard. Is RCA the handicap and are there restrictions from that side?
Recording cover songs is different from performing cover songs. For recording one needs a "mechanical license". Most young starters don't care though.

Leah McFall (from The Voice) was on R1 yesterday, talking about her collaboration with Will.I.am. One interesting point was how they had spent 18 months working on songs until they got it right. She released some covers immediately after The Voice certainly, but then worked on her music, seeing no immediate rush to get stuff out there. I don't see why Nick can't take the same sort of time, he is a lot younger after all.

There are a few major differences.

1. Leah McFall was being hailed as some sort of saviour on The Voice and come the final, all 4 judges were practically telling the viewers "this is the winner, we can't fix the phone votes so please vote for Leah because she is the winner".

The result? The blind girl with a much more pleasant (if not unspectacular) voice won instead. Danny from The Script was her mentor and when they announced she had won, the look on Danny's face was one of "oh no, she wasn't meant to win.....oh, hold on, I'm her mentor, I need to be happy for my act".

2. Nicky was up against Sam Bailey who was being hailed as THE one to vote for. Difference between The Voice and The X Factor is that, for some unbeknown reason, the viewers of TXF tend to listen to the judges and base their judgements on what the judges say - even when they're clearly talking out of their backside. Eg; Gary Barlow says Christopher Maloney is a fantastic singer, all the Take That fans vote for Christopher...because it's Gary's act. Not because Christopher is a "brilliant singer".

3. Timing is everything. Leah was on The Voice in early 2013. Her single Home has bombed this week. Bare in mind that Answerphone was released just 3 months after X Factor finished and charted at #73. Home looks likely to chart even lower after a wait of 18 months. Yet it took Ella Henderson 18 months to release her debut single Ghosts, and look how successful Ella's song has been.

4. The target audience is key. The Voice on BBC1 on a Saturday night. What were the odds that the age of the average viewer was between 30-40? Leah isn't aimed at that age group. The age group Leah was aimed at were probably out clubbing in town. They probably caught up on the Sunday on YouTube and bought her version of I Will Survive from there, not from watching the show live on the Saturday night.

On the flip side, X Factor has a bigger audience so any act on X Factor will get more exposure because of it. However, we also need to remember Sam Bailey got just over 1 million votes in the final. Absolutely shocking number of votes and I'm sure that even James Arthur, Little Mix and Matt Cardle polled more votes in their respective finals. The percentages revealed after the final showed Sam getting a massive increase in her votes compared to Nicky (especially from the Saturday night) so Nicky must've only got about 550,000 votes in the final.

On a seperate note, Home by Leah McFall is garbage. The worst thing about the song is Will.I.Am's woeful excuse for singing. Leah doesn't sound that bad, but she looks uncomfortable in her music video.

So for Nicky, they need to make sure he's comfortable in front of the camera. That's why I think having a music video where he's riding his motorbike would be awesome. It shows Nicky at his most natural, and people watching the video would enjoy the video much more because of it.

If Nicky ever did a music video where he clearly didn't look comfortable, it'd be really obvious and just lead to people taking the piss.

Sometimes I think you're here more to push you own ideas than genuine appreciation of Nicky.

He'd be just as comfortable being filmed in Nandos though - doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'm a bit confused - this would be a video for which song? Or should they wait for the song first and then think about the VT..

Why the rush? It's not for us to dictate the pace anyway, far less dictate what Nicky should or should not do. This is supposed to be an appreciation thread for Nicky, not a showcase for our ideas and ambitions.

Ella Henderson waited 18 months, why this hell for leather, anything will do mind set for Nicky?

I think all of us appreciate Nicky's singing and his vocal qualities very much.

Do we have to wait for a couple of years and close this tread for a while? It makes no sense us reposting his tweets in this medium.