Venue:

The Jazz Cafe, Camden, London

Date: 09/12/2020

A night out you say? In London? In late 2020? Well, yes. Thanks to cabaret style table seating, table service for drinks and face coverings when not actually seated I was able to go to my first gig since my birthday in March. Even in a normal year when we would go to a gig or two a month this would be have been an excellent show, but in 2020 when audience and performers alike are starved of being in the same (socially distanced) room with a group of like minded people making and listening to music it was just the boost everyone needed.

This was an evening at The Jazz Café in Camden to celebrate the legacy of John Prine, who succumbed to Covid earlier this year. This first half was made up of covers of Prine songs, the second by the artists’ own material, from a line up of (deep breath) Angie Gannon, Beth Rowley, Felix Holt, Joe Harvey-White, Josh Flowers, Laura Tenshert, Louis Brennan, Michele Stodart, Naomi Larsson, Pat Ralla, Ren Harvieu, Robert Chaney, Romeo Stodart and Zak Hobbs.

The Jazz Café has been refurbished and greatly improved » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Nowhere, yet everywhere

Date: 29/05/2020

Nights Out? Are you serious? In the tradition of Russian election results, this is part announcement and part review in that we already know what is going to happen. By now it is accepted that Covid 19 has laid waste to the entire festival season, not to mention gigs at every other live venue, and people are getting nervous about when or even whether the new normal will accommodate such things. But you can’t keep a good festival down. So the lovely people of Chester Folk Festival have pulled together a remarkably full and diverse programme for an online festival. Chester is at the smaller end of the festival spectrum, and so is even more of a genuine community than most. I shall miss tonight’s reacquaintances with those that I meet year after year in the pubs and beer tents. But lo! there is a virtual beer tent; there are singarounds; there are chances to chat to the artists; there are even dance workshops – all Zoomed into your living room, of course. As for the gigs, these have been painstakingly stitched together from lockdown-recorded footage, provided by artists who had been booked » Continue Reading.

Venue:

New Plymouth Botanical Gardens, North Island, New Zealand

Date: 13/03/2020

New Zealand is the first country of size to herald in the new year.This year it may have been the last country to host a music festival before the “great shutdown”.

Womad ,as most will know, is a world music festival started by Peter Gabriel et al to promote musics from around the world. I have attended the festival in Adelaide – Womadelaide, reasonably regularly for many years. The last coule were very hot,crowded and with the foot traffic and heat, very dusty. For an asthmatic like me I had had enough. The Womad caravan continues on to NZ after Adelaide so this year a group of us decided to make the trip “across the ditch” take in the festival and tour the north island as well. Things were getting tight, with the virus hitting the northern hemisphere but down here it was the relative calm before the storm. So off we go! First impressions- what a beautiful lush park and as we turn into the first staging area there is the perfectly formed Mt Taranaki- overlooking proceedings.It is very hilly, unlike the flat grasslands of Adelaide, which » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand

Date: 10/03/2020

I’ve never been a fan of Pat Metheny. In fact, I have never been a fan of jazz guitar though there are notable exceptions. Just too noodley and in the case of Pat Metheny that signature tone of his electric guitar sort of reminds me of Kenny G. Everything merges, I can never tell one song from another. There are times I’ve thought “if that was on piano, I’d like it, but not on guitar”. But I have a couple of early ECM records of his, coz that is what you did and I have seen him once before. Sort of. I was given free tickets courtesy of doing a radio show on a station the promoters were advertising on. My brother and I went along and within 20 minutes of said noodling we looked at each other and then repaired to the bar, never to return.

A mate wanted to go in Melbourne ,on this tour, and I said “nah, too fucking boring”.

As it happens, Nick has a spare ticket and having never set eyes on the bloke 2 days ago I’ve had beers at a mingle (see blog), » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The London Palladium

Date: 25/02/2020

I have not been so excited going to a gig for years. Peter Green was my first musical hero but I never saw him in his pomp (I was 12 years old when he quit Fleetwood Mac) and I have never seen the later incarnations of his band, much though I love many of them.

The line-up for this one-off celebration (two years in the making, according to our host, Mick Fleetwood) kept growing. Mick said that Billy Gibbons and Steven Tyler were the first two people to say yes, and everything else grew from there.

The Then Play On House Band for the night were: Rick Peterson – keys Rick Vito – guitars Dave Bronze – bass Jonny Lang – guitars Andy Fairweather Lowe – guitars Zak Starkey – drums and percussion Mick Fleetwood – drums

I’m going to get the order of this wrong – it was bit of a blur as people came and went – but the show started with a run of early Mac songs, with Billy Gibbons, Steven Tyler and Christine McVie joining at various times. Billy G was just perfect for this. You realise what a » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St Paul’s Church, Birmingham

Date: 22/02/2020

Jurado is one of what I think of as the good guys, one of that welter of earnest and efficient acoustic troubadours, beavering away in their cottage industries, issuing disc after disc, possibly omni-touring to make a buck, never filling stadiums but capable of drawing a couple of hundred souls out on a wet and windy, into a cold and crumbling church in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. I know little of his back story, my presence largely on account of 2006’s ‘And Now I’m In Your Shadow’, a bleak showcase of his sad songs; a quiet earthquake of dashed emotions. Since then he has dabbled, I gather, with other formats, a bit of psychedelia, some found sound, bands and electricity. But I read that latest album, The Shape of a Storm, was just him, his voice and an acoustic, and I was in. Support was a young Canadian, Dana Gavanski, strumming on a muted electric to the keyboard and bass of her accompanist, together, with occasional drum machine, channeling Mazzy Star, with keen, pure Sandovalesque vocals and spare melodies, the spaces as important as the sounds. Lovely stuff, the acoustics of the building » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Date: 21/02/2020

I finally, at the third attempt, got to see Field Music live. Despite the best attempts of the weather to close major roads, and the resulting three hour drive, we made it with 15 minutes to spare.

Emma Pollock (ex-Delgados) came on with just a cellist as her third band member was stuck in Dundee. She did a Delgados tune and Paper and Glue from her first album, one from each of her second and third, a new one, and a rather good cover of John Cale’s Paris 1919. She was alright, engaged with the audience, but her guitar style suits having a band behind her.

During the interval I managed to track down @smudger and @bobness (who, it turns out, had been standing directly behind me) and then David Brewis came on stage to warn us we were going to hear the new album in sequence in full, followed by the hits.

What I hadn’t realised is the pulses at the start of the album are actually bombs exploding and it was loud and a bit frightening. The songs were excellent, and the audience (bar one » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Georges, Bristol

Date: 19/02/2020

There are many songs out there that are older than I am, songs older than my house, older even than the village in which I live. Some of the oldest songs are lost, gone forever with the loss of those who last sang them, and some are still sung, having reached some form of critical mass, and will last for years to come, and finally there are some that fall between these two extremes.

These songs that still hang on by their refrains, resisting the silence, are perhaps known and sung by only a very few people or are maybe even partially lost with only a few verses still known, and these songs are a rich seam that repays investigation, reveals much of interest, plumbs deep emotions and gritty historical experience, provides reflections upon our modern world that often reveal profound takes on humanity that we’d easily have missed without the added perspective of history. They deserve to be preserved, these songs that crystallise the wisdom of elders as sung art. Excitingly, it is often these diminished, shattered and incomplete works that can be manoeuvred or cajoled into revealing things their authors and » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Hammersmith Apollo

Date: 17/02/2020

Firstly, this was a Clapton-curated event so was based exclusively around Ginger’s output between ‘66 and ‘69. For fans of the Graham Bond / Airforce / Baker Gurvitz Army / Fela Kuti versions of the man should move on because there’s nothing for them to see here.

There was quite a ‘special event vibe’ percolating around the crowd outside, then inside the venue. I’ve not been to many standing gigs at Hammersmith (Stray Cats last year, Portishead in 2008), so the chance to join a chilly queue underneath the A4 flyover was a welcome one. An unscientific and probably wholly unrepresentative survey of the accents and Storm-Dennis-travel-horror stories amongst those who had arrived the obligatory three-or-four hours in advance of doors indicates that a lot of transatlantic and European fans had made the pilgrimage and smelled something epic and historic in the air.

The whole event was geared towards raising money for the Leonard Cheshire charity, so some videos about the work it does were run while we waited. We then got a five minute rough cut of Ginger banging on his toms and banging on about his attitude towards drumming, seemingly culled from » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. Albans Arena

Date: 29/01/2020

The Musical Box are billed as more than as tribute band, given that they have acquired the actual stage sets, costumes and some instruments from Genesis and have had the thumbs up from the original members. The first half opens with “The Eleventh Earl of Marr” and it becomes apparent that we are in Phil Collins era for the most part with impeccable reproductions of tracks from “Wind and Wuthering”, “A Trick of the Tail” and even “…and then there were three” which I really like though more serious Genesis heads think is a bit thin.

It is immediately apparent that the band are top players, perfectly reproducing the parts pretty much note for note, with “Phil” grinning and clattering around the kit just like the real thing. “Tony” even reproduces Mr. Banks’ slightly prim expression as he trills out signature keyboard lines. Tribute bands stand or fall on the vocals and here they are right on the money. A minor frustration is that the vocals are slightly too low in the mix – as Feedback File remarks to me, recreating crap 70s live sound is possibly a tip to authenticity too far. » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Band on the Wall, Manchester

Date: 28/01/2020

I’ve reviewed Wire on here before. They’re always worth seeing, of all the Post-Punk bands of their era they’re probably the most vital and fresh sounding. They’ve made a virtue of not relying on past glories. They could have easily made a tidy living doing the ‘classic albums’ circuit playing their first eighventies 3 LPs for EMI/Harvest (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154) in full and doing the punk festivals playing ‘I Am The Fly’ and ’12XU’. Instead, since their most recent reformation in 2000 they’ve stayed doggedly in the present releasing new LPs which have garnered critical plaudits, gained new fans and and playing live shows which largely see them playing new music with only the occasional dip into the back catalogue – as frontman Colin Newman admits Wire are ” their own worst tribute band”. Seasoned Wire fans therefore have pretty much grown accustomed to a live show that will consist of new album tracks, maybe a few select oldies but rarely the obvious ones. More often than not they will be trying out new tracks from a yet to be recorded new album.I’ve seen a lot of these, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Rochford Winery , Coldstream, Victoria, Australia.

Date: 10/01/2020

Cold Chisel are a legendary band down here. Massive catalogue. Hard rockin, singalong anthems, radio friendly – they are the band that should have had massive global success but left it too late or lacked the stamina – whatever, it didn’t happen. Jimmy Barnes solo , an inferior version, has had some success They have reformed a few times for, no doubt, highly lucrative tours and this time they were playing wineries. Sign of the times I guess as, back in the day, their vodka fuelled performances would have been better located in a distillery.

But I had never seen them in all my gig-going days. So it being summer down here, an outdoor gig seemed a good idea. Started to get a bit anxious with all the bushfires and their first gig at another winery in central Victoria was cancelled due to smoke. Our gig was second and Mrs Wells and I had secured gen admission tickets via an insurance company we used. Parking close to the gig, express lane to the bar all going well. Until we sat down. I kid you not, the moment of arse touching » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Date: 05/01/2020

I’ve seen Van Morrison in concert several times. But I’ve always wanted to see him perform in his – and my – city of birth, Belfast. So when my Christmas present from Mrs BB was a ticket for this concert, you can imagine my excitement. Not only was it a hometown gig, it was in the intimate surroundings of the 400 seat Lyric Theatre. And it was 6 rows back, dead centre. The ticket price was eye watering, but, hey, it was a fundraiser for the esteemed and historic Belfast Linen Hall Library, so it was all in a good cause.

And so it was I found myself as part of an audience buzzing with anticipation last night, expecting a decent gig (Van never delivers less than that these days) and hoping for a special one. The evening began with the Director of the Library thanking us for our contribution, and giving a heartfelt encomium to Van, ‘a true Bard of Belfast’, for doing this concert for them, and for accepting an honorary membership of the library. He finished and was off stage a few seconds before the advertised start time, and true » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Roundhouse, Camden

Date: 20/12/2019

Starting a night like tonight with “Rock n Roll Deserves To Die” from their new album “Easter Is Cancelled” could have been seen as a self full filling prophecy by some. Not it seems by Justin Hawkins and his band. They flew into this raucous blast at the hand that feeds them with tongue as always firmly in cheek. Justin, brother Dan, Frankie and Roger Taylor’s (Queen) son kicked off a two hour rampage of lights, fireworks, sweary backdrops and heavy metal drama and didn’t take a breath. Doing “Easter Is Cancelled” in full was another brave step but they know their craft, know their audience and just fucking know. It’s a collection of new but familiar songs straight from the heavy metal handbook. Just brilliant fun with Justin’s truly astonishing operatic voice leading the way. The crowd loved it but the anticipation for the second half of hits was everywhere. It duly kicked off with “One Way Ticket To Hell and Back” and the metal levels went up to twelve. Thirteen songs in before they dipped into “Permission To Land” with a storming “You’re Really Growing On Me”. A cover of Radiohead’s » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Oxford New Theatre

Date: 08/12/2019

So, Dweezil is 50 and so is Hot Rats, and a bunch of predominantly old farts turned out to celebrate. It was my second DZ gig in Oxford, having lucked into a front row seat to see him play Apostrophe, my all time fave FZ album, complete with some pre hologram guitar interplay with some film clips. That evening set the bar pretty high and I wondered how well an evening of Rats would compare.

This time I was accommodated in the middle of row N – a good view of the stage for sure (in fact better than the front row where the back of the stage drops out of sight), but in seats that only a midget could describe as comfortable. The woman next to me liked to mark time with her right foot – I know because I felt every slightly off the beat stomp. More than a little distracting.

But what of the music? The mix was clear and not so loud as to trouble those of us with hearing aids, although not quite loud enough to drown out the Boden clad arsetrumpet behind me who clearly hasn’t had » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Pavilion, Exmouth

Date: 09/12/2019

Apparently it went something like this…Exmouth Pavilion had a phone call to say that Robert Plant was looking to put together a short tour of small venues and would they have any dates available? Bless ‘em, the management of our local venue, whose usual fare is tribute acts and musical theatre, could indeed oblige and thus it was that Percy got to play with his new outfit in my home town. I was tipped the wink by a mate who works there and thus bagged front row seats as soon as they went on sale, and thus it came to pass that on Monday I was sat right in front of the legendary singer as he treated us to his latest new direction.

There was very little on line to suggest what to expect, although a set list from earlier this year turned out to be pretty much on the money – a couple of songs from 2010’s Band Of Joy and one from Raising Sand, a couple of psychedelic era covers and some old songs from the American Appalachian/country canon, and not a Led Zep cover in sight. The band is a » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Date: 07/12/2019

Hopes were high for this. Even navigating my way into central Nottingham in the dark didn’t put me off.

The Rescue Rooms is round the back of Rock City (which was hosting a sold-out show by Elvana – think Dread Zepplin doing the songs of Kurt Cobain), entered through the bar, across a patio/courtyard and though a door into a room not hugely bigger than the Cambridge Portland Arms but with a full-size stage and a massive PA system. Gig curfew of 10:15pm (so the nightclub could begin) meant early (6:30pm) doors.

Support act Sink Ya Teeth made one of my favourite albums of 2018. Their short but sweet set of bass-driven electro-pop included all the hits: Petrol Blue, first single If You See Me, Substitutes, Complicated, Control, a couple of new ones from forthcoming album, Two, including new single The Hot House. They came on at 7:30pm prompt, and were off again half an hour later.

ACR came on a little after 8:30pm. First track was an instrumental with guitarist/trumpeter Martin on drums and drummer Donald on bongos. Then a segue from the Bootsy intro into Do The Du (this is on » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Islington Assembly Hall, London

Date: 21/11/2019

‘Some artists would be thrown by having an election during their tour – I am not one of those people’ proclaims The Bard Of Barking as he launches into a firey ‘Thatcherites’ on the 1st night of his three night run in the capital. Coldplay aren’t the only ones who are trying to tour with an eye on their carbon footprint although I think it makes more sense when he’s playing the States and flying to each venue.

The format of the tour is first night – career spanning set, 2nd night – Life’s A Riot/Brewing Up/Taxman and last night – Playtime/Don’t Try This/Bloke – although not played in their entirety, just ‘selections from’. Some of the in between song “raps” each night are similar as he addresses the current political and social malaise but 42 different songs are aired across the run (43 if you count a radically reworked with modern references ‘Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards’ on Night 1)

It really interesting to see a progression of his song writing from the social and political themes to the more personal politics of life. Not to say that his » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Tuning Fork, Auckland NZ

Date: 26/11/2019

A letter from the future to my 16 year old self would contain some really good, well-meaning advice – but of course, I wouldn’t have listened. I don’t trust 53 year old me, because he’s probably been oppressed, exploited and had his spirit crushed by the Man, yeah? Well, yes – spot on, spotty! Past and present versions of me have read enough academic papers* about relativity to know enough not to mess with even the smallest decisions I have made, so the whole exercise would be useless.

Apart from this little detail – I would have been interested to know that 53 year old me was in New Zealand (huh?) and was thoroughly entertained by group of young American men pretending to be Depeche Mode from 30 years before. How could that possibly happen?

Well it happened like this – in a smallish venue (perhaps 500 in the audience) Strangelove wandered onto the stage fairly causally and set up the first song, World in my Eyes. The real Depeche Mode whip up the anticipation by emerging eventually after a massive intro sequence. Pretend Dave was remarkable – the physical resemblance to » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Hen and Chicken, Bristol

Date: 26/11/2019

I posted on a Blogger Takeover thread about Geraint Watkins most recent album ‘Rush of Blood’ – a wonderful thing, full of invention and romance. This gig, with a small and hugely talented band, was an absolute delight. Singing and piano playing from Geraint of the highest quality featuring new and old original material and impeccably reworked covers. The band playing only whats needed and nothing more. And he’s very funny!

The audience:

The band are not in the first flush of youth and neither were the audience!

It made me think..

Anybody who hasn’t heard Geraint’s music really should. Try the videos on his facebook page.

Venue:

Band on the Wall, Manchester

Date: 17/11/2019

The track listing for the Lankum albums and that of their previous incarnation as Lynched, might appear overfamiliar to the eye of the regular folk fan. By and large, the themes and tales are trad standards. For crying out loud, they open with that favourite of weddings and karaokes, The Wild Rover. Except that your expectations are not even given lip service from the opening notes, clanging and clashing cyclically. This is not so far from New York minimalism or trance dance, but the roots are unwaveringly folk, as are the instruments – concertina, uillean pipes, fiddle, shruti box. Then there are the voices. The Brothers Lynch undoubtedly have that magic that comes from family members singing together, vocals almost visibly honed in countless Dublin pubs. At times, Cormac Dermody breaks his silence so that all four are making rare harmonies twisting round themselves. But what gets the audience rapt, transcendent, are the songs where Radie Peat breaks out, stark, uncompromising, beautiful. I am told that hers is a classic travelling community style of singing, and it is little surprise that Lisa o’Neill is an associate. It’s harsh, weathered; it wouldn’t » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Islington Assembly Hall

Date: 14/11/2019

No, they are not related to Blues virtuoso Sonny Landreth. Joey and his brother, Dave, are from Winnipeg, Canada. They front a wonderful 4-piece band, keyboards & vocals provided by support act Liam Duncan. The venue was plenty busy enough for a Thursday night, although the chattering during Duncan’s acoustic set was incredibly annoying. The band came on stage on time, plugged in and, BAM, we were off to the races. Joey Landreth is one of my favourite slide players. The fact that he also has the voice of an angel makes him the complete package. His brother is a nimble, nifty bass player and also sings beautifully. Bluesy rock, folk and a bit of country, the middle of the set saw the two brothers and Liam Duncan huddled round one mic, singing exquisite harmonies, with Joey’s quiet guitar providing the colour. It was mesmerising – and no one was chattering then. The drummer came back and they kicked into Maryanne, my favourite from the new (2nd) album, ’87. If only Radio 2 would pick it up, it would be stone banker of a hit. Sung from the view of a drunk, the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Union Chapel, Upper Street, London N1

Date: 08/11/2019

It’s so hard to put your finger on what makes a great performance. You see and hear it, right in front of you, but defining what it is exactly that elevates the playing of the songs you’re hearing from being merely good to the absolutely brilliant is immensely difficult.

There is a focus and intensity, building on the foundation of great songs. There is togetherness among the band members and a togetherness between the performers and the audience – a bond between us all; from us in the audience to them on the stage that further elevates things.

It’s certainly nothing to do with theatricality, though I guess showmanship is a different thing – it’s that ability to communicate the music and the lyrics.

Certainly there is little theatricality from The Delines, yet for this performance my eyes were riveted to the stage and my concentration was total and my enjoyment was unbounded. This was a great, great performance. One of the very best gigs I’ve been to for many years. One of the best I’ve been to in my life.

I only discovered The Delines earlier this year. » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Union Chapel

Date: 08/11/2019

Every once in a while I see a gig that completely surpasses my expectations. This gig on Friday night at the lovely Union Chapel was one such gig. I really like this band but on record it would be easy to misinterpret the stately pace of most of their songs as something that wouldn’t translate to the live setting. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The music is surprisingly intricate – it is their skill as musicians that makes it appear less so. In lead singer Amy Boone they have a voice that is so pure yet so soulful that comparisons to Dusty Springfield are inevitable. The difference being the lyrics of Willy Vlautin. He is one America’s best young novelists and he brings a cinematic experience to the songs. Peopled by losers, petty thieves, heartbroken and down and outs there is always something interesting happening. I particularly like the songs where keyboardist Corey Grey doubles on trumpet which lends a melancholy air to songs when needed which given the subject matter is quite frequent. Drums were from another member of Richmond Fontaine Sean Oldham. Richmond Fontaine were probably too austere at times » Continue Reading.