Venue:

Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Date: 11/05/2026

Emmylou Harris released her first album in 1969. Long deleted, ‘Gliding Bird’ made little impression when it was released and it wasn’t until 1972 that she surfaced again, duetting memorably on Gram Parsons’s first solo album ‘GP’ and subsequently on his posthumously released ‘Grievous Angel’ in 1974. Her next solo album, ‘Pieces of the Sky’ was released in 1975, was a commercial success, and was the first of a string of magnificent albums she released in the 70s. She came to the attention of many of us in the UK with a couple of Old Grey Whistle Test performances, and she toured here with the Hot Band, that incredible ensemble featuring the likes of Glen D. Hardin. James Burton and then Albert Lee, and a young Rodney Crowell. She was like no female country singer we’d ever seen – in jeans rather than rhinestone covered dresses, wielding a large acoustic guitar, beautiful, undeniably. But beyond that, her voice, her selection of material, and her band were all captivating.

She kept working through the 80s and 90s but with less commercial success, her music moving sometimes uneasily between bluegrass and country and more MOR » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Portland Arms – Cambridge

Date: 07/05/2026

Well that’s a band I want to see again! Great fun. Despite the fairly low turn out, the band showed great enthusiasm and the songs (even the very new ones) were all delivered slickly with tongues often firmly in cheeks.

There’s already a long list of bands that are cited in the “if you like this then try Barbara” category such as Divine Comedy and ABBA but I would add Sparks and Deaf School to the list. I think it’s probably impossible for me to dislike a band with “bop showaddy” and “oo bop” in the backing vocals along with the constant harmonies.

One major problem/gripe though. The doors opened at 7:30. The main (only) act was on stage at 8pm!!! Now I have no real problem with this but that is not convention. There was nothing on the band or venue social media (that I could find anyway) that gave any warning of this. I missed the first couple of songs. The timings showed doors open at 7:30pm, finish time was shown as 11pm. With no warning, I think even starting at 8:30pm is a little (unconventionally) early. It » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Arts Centre, Helmsley

Date: 01/05/2026

Having seen Sarah was playing nearby I drove up Sutton Bank to Helmsley on Friday night. A steep climb brings you to the North Yorkshire moors and the view on the drive up gives you a panoramic view of the Vale of York. Alas as I was driving I had to concentrate on the very steep drive up. I’d visited the Arts Centre before some twenty(ish) years previously so I’d a rough idea where it was which was more than the people I asked who didn’t have a clue. Luckily I found it more by chance and the small sign I spotted on a ginnel wall.

Although Sarah had played there three times before the venue had moved the concert from the auditorium to the bar to accommodate the small but perfectly formed audience. Very civilised with tables to put one’s drinks on. Tea for me as tackling Sutton Bank on the way down needs a clear head. A perfect spot right at the front about two metres away from the ‘stage’ *floor.

Bang on 7:30 introduced by her sound man as “The kaleidoscopic Sarah McQuaid ” he’s been working through the alphabet » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Lansdowne Cinema, Kanata, ON

Date: 29/04/2026

I think I first saw this concert in the 80s, I remember taping it from Austrian TV when it was broadcast very late at night once. I haven’t revisited since vidually, but bought the live album (Lennon only) that came out in the 80s, I didn’t buy the monstrous box set that came out last year, but got the audio 2 CD version and the RSD vinyl EP. For well known reasons 2 songs were omitted from that release and that remains the case for this film. It appeared in cinemas for “one night only” on April 29th. It has been spruced up visually and the audio sounded really great, possibly with some artificial enhancement. It is only 80 minutes long and will not be competing with The Last Waltz or Stop Making Sense for greatest concert movie ever.

It was in aid of the One to One foundation that benefited the Willowbrook State School a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities. There was originally going to be jsut the one show at Madison Sq Garden, but it sold out quickly so an additional matinee performance was added, so 2 shows » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Castle and Falcon, Birmingham

Date: 04/04/2026

The Castle and Falcon is surely the best place in Birmingham to see a band that draws a straight line from the crustie/hippie/Castlemorton days of early rave scene, as it most closely resembles our clubbing days at the Co-Op Hall down the Cowley Rooad (now the 02 Oxford and presumably cleaned up from the late eighties when we saw such bands as Gaye Bykers, Senser, 1000 Yard Stare and early basic rave nights with luminaries such as DJ Remould).

The band consists of your chemistry teacher who knows how to cook up MDMA but is just too nice a guy (Steve Hillage) to do so, and Rive Gauche Parisienne chic grandma Miquette Giraudy, just back from a cameo alongside Juliette Binoche in Michael Haneke’s latest.

I’m not a S7 uberfan, and know 777 and their stuff with Rovio and that’s about it. But it matters not. One track blends into each other in a continuous mix built around one to the floor techno drums, sequenced bass lines, and long looping textures either from keyboards or Hillage’s guitar or both. Some tracks are a bit quicker, some a bit floatier, but there’s a » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Deaf Institute, Manchester

Date: 02/04/2026

I was brought along to the Deaf Institute by may mate, Damian who said, dont look up who you are going to see, just go into it blind.

After the support slot from the feisty indie poppers, Hunny Buzz, whos sparky songs warmed the sell out crowd up nicely, I heard the name Tom A Smith mentioned. Its a name that conjours up images of a bearded troubadour singing melancholic songs of the mid west. Wrong.

Up pops Tom A Smith, a cross between Mika ,Bob Geldof and Tim from the Polecats. He appears to have had the blood drained from his veins and replaced with a fixture of adrenaline and charisma. The songs are what the youth of today would call “Bangers” . They are infuriatingly catchy and have a sound somewhere between the first Killers album and classic `80s synth pop thanks to keyboard player Hannah. The songs, well (checks CD`s bought from merch desk) SFX is obviously an audience favourite and Tom got the crowd (including me) singing along to ” I Don`t Blame You”. “Fashion” with the hookline ” Lets get some bass in this room” features teethrattling » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Grace, Highbury Corner, London

Date: 25/03/2026

Jonny Morgan & The Moral Support are virtually unknown but are I believe one of the very best live bands around. Not so obscure that they can’t sell out the 150 capacity Grace, but operating at a level where they are having to build an audience through hard gigging at a time when it’s never been more difficult to establish a presence. This was the second last date of their tour promoting their new album The Hope That Kills You and the third time I’ve seen them. They just get better every time. They come on stage to LZ’s When The Levee Breaks. They rock. Set opener Another Heartache matches the intensity of the recorded intro. While they do rock they also have a delicate side too, as displayed in a song like 30 By Spring. Aside from Jonny on guitar on vocals there is the twin attack of Joe Coombs on guitar (“looks like Jesus… plays like him too) and Eve Lesedi on saxophone. (Eve recently became Mrs Morgan, or he became Mr Lesedi). Johnny is obviously the fulcrum of the band, bringing his “white boy, middle class blues from » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Tabard Theatre. Chiswick

Date: 18/03/2026

David Visick is better known here as Chiz, and it was his comment on the Shameless Self Promotion thread that alerted me to the play – and I’m very glad he did. Imagining a meeting between the old king Hamlet & Yorick the fool, it was a fast paced, witty exchange between the two of them. The King’s pomposity punctured by the down to earth fool. Tim Marriott (the King) is best known for his role as the Deputy Manager in the Brittas Empire and is a stalwart of the Tabard theatre (a friend told me “he dies at least two shows a year”) The play opened with his death, before emerging in purgatory. Nicholas Collett’s fool reminded me of a taller version of David Rappaport in Time Bandits. The Waiting for Godot premise was that the pair was stuck in this “non world” together, and even when given the chance to move on, they remained.

It’s ages since I read Hamlet, but it’s so much part of general culture, I didn’t feel that I missed any references, nor did it stick solely to Shakespeare. The laughs were frequent, I thoroughly enjoyed » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Harmonie, Bonn

Date: 19/03/2026

You may be familiar with vintage YouTube videos of bands playing on German TV with the logo “Rockpalast”. Kind of like their equivalent of The Old Grey Whistle Test with rock, metal and jazz acts from the mid 70s onwards. Well apparently WDR, the host channel based in Cologne, hosts a twice yearly music festival in Bonn.

Thursday night saw two bands play the Bonn Harmonie, which can’t have a capacity of more than a few hundred. I didn’t know either band before the start of the week, but Godspeed You Black Emperor! had sold out a venue in Cologne on Friday, so I was looking for something alternative.

The headliners, Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys*, normal rock instruments plus viola, are described variously as art pop | tender noise | post punk | minimal wave. Lucy made for an intense lead singer, coming onto the stage in a white dress, looking somewhat like Polly Harvey, to ambient guitar and viola drones and tones, prowling around voicelessly, looking out into the crowd like a general surveying her troops before grasping the microphone and, to the rising beat of the drum and » Continue Reading.

Venue:

O2 Victoria Warehouse Manchester

Date: 11/03/2026

This has the feeling of a home gig. Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson had her first attempt at cracking the music biz while living in Manchester in her early twenties – it failed. The night before the gig she had been papped at a Canal Street drag night, an event she turned into a bit of a comedy monologue during the show. In fact, parts of this show were more like a Julian Clary (or for older readers Frankie Howard) gig. The stage setting seemed to be a reference to Snow White, three steps at the centre led up to the Wicked Queen’s mirror that became a video screen. It kicked off with the band playing without her for a few minutes while CMAT entered through the cheering crowd on a stagehand’s shoulders singing Janice Joplining. A rousing version of The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station followed, accompanied by a mass committed chant of; “So, okay, don’t be a bitch, the man’s got kids and they wouldn’t like this” flagged the way this was going. The rest of the set, which was dominated by Euro-Country tracks, saw Ciara rolling on the floor, draping herself over » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Gorilla, Manchester

Date: 22/02/2026

Courtney Marie Andrews has been making music since her teens but her breakthrough record was the wonderful ‘Honest Life’ which, as she mentioned tonight, will be ten years old this year. It was a record that indicated a rare talent with the potential of major success. That has eluded her, but she has retained a strong fanbase throughout that time. This is the third time I have seen her in concert and each time it has been in an intimate venue of maybe 500-600 capacity – no more, no less. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge over that decade. If her songs are anything to go by she’s gone through a degree of emotional ups and downs as she’s moved from her mid-twenties to her mid-thirties. She’s channelled those experiences to create a quietly impressive body of work – four albums have followed ‘Honest Life’, each of them offering her particular brand of heart-on-sleeve songs dealing with the excitement and heartbreak of love sought, gained and lost.

And judging from this performance she has matured as a performer. On both previous occasions I saw her she was excellent, but there was » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Club Volta, Cologne

Date: 21/02/2026

Yasmine Hamdan is a Lebanese singer who first cashmere to attention in her early 20s as part of an Arabic electronica duo, Soapkills. Later she had a cameo in Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive.i first heard her when I was doing a scrape of a much Arabic music as I could find in 2023.

I was in two minds about going. I haven’t been to a live gig with a crowd in more than a decade (kids, you see). It was in the burbs of Cologne and a good 15 minute walk from the nearest train station. Did I really like the album I’d heard tracks from? (I Remember I Forget)

My daughters persuaded me to go, and was i pleased they did! The support act, The Shift, a German Australian art pop act, were whacky and tremendous fun, with enough beats to get me wigging out with a couple of women next to me.

Yasmine herself, when she came on, exuded enormous confidence and assurance, and was cheered loudly by an expectant crowd. She did not disappoint. With a band of drummer/percussionist (manhandling his toms with » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Landmark Cinema, Kanata, ON

Date: 19/02/2026

A one night only cinematic experience (streaming on Prime next week), the screening was more or less sold out.

In brief, roughly the story of Macca’s progress from the end of one band to the end of another. Concurrently dealing with the break up with his best friend until the devastating final end of that relationship. Scotland features throughout

It’s a familiar story, but beautifully told. Thankfully no talking heads, but a large range of audio narrators including present day Macca himself, Linda, Wings members, his kids and various concurrent musicians and musical industry figures.

I gasped at some of the archive footage and there were also quite a few laughs during the almost 2 hour duration. Macca was a genial off screen presence and perhaps more open than usual, but some of his weaknesses were hinted at during the film. If you are not a McCartney devotee it won’t change your mind, but for those of us with ultimate taste an extremely enjoyable evening. Director Morgan Neville did an excellent job making it a generally riveting experience. Recommended.

The audience:

It was dark, couldn’t see

It made me think..

It’s » Continue Reading.

Venue:

170 Russell ,Melbourne

Date: 31/01/2026

A celebration of Lou Reed. Note – not a tribute show a celebration. Tribute shows are fine for what they are. Play all the hits, pretty faithful to the original and heck they might even try to look like the band. This was different, established musicians with solid careers of their own playing stuff they like. Pretty close to the original versions but certainly not just the hits. Any Lou show that opens with Rock n Roll Heart ain’t a hits show.

Dave Graney, Melbourne veteran and formerly of the Moodists, Robert Forster of the Go Betweens, Mick Harvey ex Bad Seeds ,Rob Snarski of the band the Black Eyed Susans which included David McComb of TheTriffids and Stephanie Dalziel who I don’t know. I could tell they were serious when I saw the separate set of toms next to the drum kit,clearly to do the Mo Tucker percussion from the Velvets. A good band of experienced players and off we go. Dave Graney opened with the rocky tracks. Rock’n’Roll Heart was a disappointment of an album and the song itself still resonates for the fascile lines- I guess that I’m dumb, coz » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Birmingham Town Hall

Date: 29/01/2026

Lucinda’s touring schedule since her stroke has been frenetic to say the least. I think I have seen her at least 5 times in that period maybe even 6. She rarely disappoints and tonight was no exception. There is a slight shake up of her live band members. Now comprising Dave Sutton on bass the only remaining member of Buick 6, Marc Ford and Doug Pettibone on twin lead guitars and the magnificent Steve Ferrone on drums. The tour was to promote her latest excellent album World’s gone wrong and there were a fair smattering of songs from the album the highlights being her take on the Bob Marley song Too much trouble in the World and How much did you get for your soul ?(no clues to who that one is about). We still had plenty of room for fan favourites Car Wheels, Lake Charles and Stolen Moments amongst others. The sound was razor sharp, the guitar solos from Marc and Doug often in turn in the same songs were lyrical and exciting and Lu was the most effusive I have seen her for a while. She has an engaging personality, is » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Empire, Belfast

Date: 10/01/2026

The audience:

Lots of blokes with cropped grey hair and their partners, but also a fair number of younger women dancing around, who couldn’t have been ‘there’ back in the days.

It made me think..

About that link to the 1960s. Also about mortality – I lost a great pal from the Belfast music scene recently, and he was only in his 60s, one of those people seemingly indestructible and around forever. The Adventures make a still young sound, yet they’re pensioners. But let us be joyful and celebrate them while they’re still rocking (once in a while)! And if any GB festival promoters are reading this, trust me – book them and they’ll wow your crowd.

Venue:

The Sunflower Bar

Date: 18/12/2025

Belfast’s Sunflower Folk Club is a bit of an oddity, but a welcome one. It happens every Thursday at the Sunflower Bar in a central Belfast backstreet and is unashamedly a throwback to the 1970s. For a start, it’s an English-style folk club on the 60s/70s model, on an island that has only ever had two or three clubs on those lines – happening in an upstairs room of a licensed premises, two halves with floor singers in the first and a guest artist in the second (or a mix of both in the two halves) plus a raffle.

The club is in part a homage to a Sunflower Folk Club that ran from 1977 into the mid-80s at a different pub that was also called the Sunflower, on an even more desolate thoroughfare of Belfast – a venue that was front-page news twice in the earlier 70s for fatal bombings and shootings by terrorists. I imagine the publican must have bitten the late Geoff Harden’s hand off when he offered to run a weekly folk club in the upper room there in 1977. Barry Moore (the future Luka Bloom) was the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

St. George’s, Bristol

Date: 27/11/2025

Between Symarip and Tackhead on my shelves, tucked in between the skinhead ska and the, er, whatever Tackhead were, are some LPs from a woman who released her first solo album fifty years ago.

I’ve heard her sing a few times now. She’s sung with many people, she’s recorded with many people. She doesn’t play an instrument. She plays her voice. She inhabits songs like few singers I’ve heard. She has the rare and uncanny ability to deliver any song in a way that makes it her own.

Last night she sang with the two accompanists with whom I think I best enjoy her performance. They are celebrated jazz players, Iain Bellamy on mellifluous saxophone, and Huw Warren, making the most of St. George’s lovely Steinway. Together with the woman we’ve come to hear sing, these three took us through nearly two hours of stunning music. The songs we heard were chosen from several recorded sources across many years, but they all shared the same thing; unalloyed tenderness, tranquility and sympathetic delivery.

This trio go by the name of Quercus. Check them out if they are new to you. See if you » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Metronome Nottingham

Date: 18/11/2025

All songs are time machines, capturing the moment they were written, the recording session, the day the record came out, the day you first heard the single and went ‘who is that?’ So when bands reform after a substantial hiatus there’s an element of time travel for both band and audience – what are we playing now? How do they look and sound fifteen years afterwards? The Oasis fervour is in large part a desire to travel – for half a day at least – thirty years backwards to the mid-nineties.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart haven’t been away for that long – six years. So it’s possibly a continuation after a hiatus rather than the full getting back together deal. The band, original drummer apart, are all present and correct.

Frontman and songwriter Kip Burman, now I am guessing in his early forties, is revisiting on this tour the POBPAH self-titled debut, now sixteen years old. The songs are, as the band’s name and the b & w photo on the cover of two teenage girls suggest, centred on teenage love, first crushes, the weekend, and other distinctly youthful themes. » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Heswall Hall

Date: 22/11/2025

Hue and Cry don’t get a lot of attention here (or maybe even love?) and I’ve never been sure why. Possibly because they straddled a line between some fairly breezy early pop hits (Looking for Linda, for example) and an intellectual bent lyrically that some may not appreciate and have seen as pretentious. In other artists that combination seems to go down well but not always in this case, unfairly, in my view. Nothing wrong for me in wrapping socially conscious lyrics inside breezy pop tunes! Pat Kane also maybe didn’t sell himself particularly well at all times which I’m sure would have rubbed some people up the wrong way.

Clearly, they can’t sell out the bigger venues these days but even so the brothers coming to Wirral’s Heswall Hall (where? I hear you wonder) was a shock. It’s a small venue which normally houses tribute acts so seeing H&C booked in got to me too late – fully sold out. It’s a venue that holds around 200 maximum and the cabaret style seating probably reduced that further. Not cheap either at £37 a ticket – I know that’s not expensive these days but hell, » Continue Reading.

Venue:

O2 Arena – London

Date: 21/11/2025

This show was the climax of a fairly short (cold!) visit back home, I was lucky to get a ticket for their first UK show in more than 8 years. I had last seen them on the Moon Shaped Pool tour in Montreal 2018. this was my 8th Radiohead gig overall and, suprisingly, my first one in their home country (Did see them twice in Wales though many years ago) I had avoided all spoilers, apart from catching a glimpse of the opening track for their first gig back. I did know they would be appearing “in the round” on a 360 degree stage, hopefully making the vast O2 arena feel a little more intimate.

The stage setup was pretty amazing, before the show what could be seen was a round stage which appeared to be surrounded by a semi-transparent cage on which images were appearing as the ambient music blasted through the arena. They came on stage and launched into Planet Telex whilst in the “cage” with images of Thom Yorke and the rest of the band projected on to the screens. Reminded me a bit of The Wall with » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Date: 10/11/2025

For her 89th birthday treat, I took my mum to see Simon Rattle’s homecoming at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall with his latest band. It’s more than fifty years since the BRSO visited Liverpool and, of course, a young Simon was there witnessing a rendition of Beethoven’s 9th that has stayed with him all his life.

They begin with Schumann’s 2nd Symphony, written when he was on the cusp of a major breakdown. There is a darkness in its heart but, nevertheless, it is beautifully melodic, flows with grace and concludes with hopeful, romantic gestures to his wife. It is by no means a miserable listen. The BRSO are careful to avoid a heavy touch during the sombre parts and being too soft in the lighter ones. It is a tricky symphony to judge well. Rattle and the musicians find the perfect pitch.

Heavy reinforcements are deployed for the complete Firebird by Stravinsky. His score for Serge Diaghilev’s ballet made him a star two years before The Rite Of Spring. He liked a big orchestra. In the end, there are around 120 souls on the stage, including three harps, five percussionists, several large » Continue Reading.