Venue:

The Anvil Basingstoke

Date: 27/05/2022

Travelling to Basingstoke, M4 to Junction 11 then A33 straight in since you ask, and following yesterdays’ Abbatar chat I couldn’t help but wonder that it felt like a lifetime ago that Paul Young was considered a big enough star to open the Band Aid song while Abba weren’t even considered big enough for an invite. How things have changed in the intervening nearly 40 years. While ABBA’s Voyage extravaganza redefines the way live music is perceived and delivered, here in Basingstoke Paul Young is the support act to Go West in a highly adequate Anvil theatre. Much to ponder.

We took our seats as the lights dimmed. The band were ready, was that the original Fabulous Wealthy Tarts? Could it be? Then on to the stage came the still lithe, instantly recognisable figure of Paul Young. Now this part of the review could go one of two ways but I’m going to seek out the positive while only describing what Paul Young will know already. His voice is shot, it’s incredibly cruel but the songs, the warmth of the audience, his spirit and cheeky boy grin gets him » Continue Reading.

Venue:

O2 Arena London

Date: 22/05/2022

In January 2020 I bought tickets to see the Pet Shop Boys, one of the few bands I love who I have never seen, who were doing a greatest hits tour. We know what happened next. Two years on I have been nervous about gigs; even though things have reopened, I have not been going out. This was literally my first big night out since 2019.

And what a fucking night it was! The Pet Shop Boys don’t do gigs, they mount productions. Impressive visuals, multiple costume changes (including the big coat and the Boy hat during the encores) and all of the songs played tonight, (apart from four), are on their Pop/Art Best of. This was a band who, perhaps planned to do a straightforward, make some money, greatest hits tour who, but who, thanks to circumstances, ended up giving a celebration of life, joy and music. They played banger after banger, hit after hit, to a crowd starved of joy. It was beyond brilliant. I mean it ended with, Go West, It’s A Sin, West End Girls and Being Boring. Shock and awe or what?

The audience:

“You old ravers” said » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Arts Club, Liverpool

Date: 06/05/2022

The Delines make music that is low-key, quiet and dark. It’s liminal music – songs on the border where day meets night; land meets sea; where you can fall on the right side or the wrong side of the tracks. Take Little Earl, the opening song on the new album The Sea Drift, and of this concert. Earl is driving, propped up on a pillow, the first time he has done so after dark. His brother is bleeding in the back. We aren’t told but we presume it’s after a botched store robbery – in the passenger seat he has ‘a twelve pack of beer, three frozen pizzas and two lighters as souvenirs’. He’s panicking, looking for a hospital, getting lost. And that’s where we leave them, forever caught in this awful life-changing, maybe life-ending, moment. Willy Vlautin’s beautifully crafted songs give us scenes from a film noir, or moments in a short story by John Steinbeck or Alice Munro.

Songs like this, as performed by The Delines, are quietly devastating, and the sticky floor, standing venue that is The Arts Club maybe isn’t the best place for them. Not least because » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Concorde 2 Brighton

Date: 07/05/2022

The ticket said starts at 7.30pm which turned out to mean Tom will do a couple of acoustic numbers before the support act (Winter of ’79 which lacked the guitar attack of the original and Fifty, from 2013 which I wasn’t familiar with). So far, umm OK. When the 5 piece band took the stage, everything went up several gears and as I had hoped, a run through a Power in the Darkness heavy set followed including Grey Cortina, Up Against the Wall, War Baby, Still Loving You, Too Good To Be True, Martin, 2,4,6,8 Motorway, Glad to be Gay (well, it was Brighton after all) and Power in the Darkness. Some of the lyrics have been updated and Tom wore a Boris wig for the current spoken part in Power in the Darkness. Generally, the songs have worn well and the excellent band managed a pretty faithful reproduction of the sound of the album. Tom seemed a little breathless at times, Grey Cortina particularly was taxing and he said that Still Loving You had changed key as he could no longer reach the high notes.

The audience:

A few grizzled punks and » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Twickenham Exchange

Date: 01/05/2022

Gary Crowley and Nick Heyward are two of my favourite people. They’re just both so nice. They both give their fans (and one amateur writer) more than just the time of day. So the opportunity to see them both at The Exchange in Twickenham on Sunday for an evening of music and conversation was too good an opportunity to let pass especially as my first post covid outing.

Gary and Nick go way back. We’d find out just how far in the first part of the evening when the two of them sat chatting like the old friends they are with a few hundred of us in their virtual living room listening in. How far do they go back? To 1981 when Gary was one of the very few to attend  a very early Haircut 100 gig at The Embassy in London. His usual enthusiasm overflowed as he talked about that experience and the impact this band had on him. This set Nick up for what came next. Nick is such an engaging interviewee with almost too many stories to tell, all fascinating.

Stories like. .. Arriving at the NME offices and asking to » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Riverside Park, Brisbane

Date: 13/04/2022

As the resident Midnight Oil publicist I file my last concert review from this their final tour. Bones Hillman, their second and longest serving bassist Bones Hillman died last year and so after this tour there will be no more. They are in their late sixties and though they talk of more recordings I wonder whether things will fizzle out. but first some background. A surf punk band from Sydney’s northern beaches, they filled sweaty beer barns with highly energised music. A power house drummer, 2 angular complementary guitars and a fr4entic tall lean bald singer with actions suggestive of Joe Cocker learning kung fu. Sometimes he was so hyped up his words were gibberish. They made it big and as they did their songs became more political – overtly so. nuclear, environment, indigenous rights.Contrary to perception mostof the band were agitators not just Garrett. However it was lawyer Garrett who stood for the Nuclear Disarmament Party and then to the Labor Parrty where he rose to be a Minister ,with mixed results. They did a few benefit gigs over the journey and then toured a few ears ago . They were excellent. So » Continue Reading.

Venue:

United Palace New York, NY

Date: 16/04/2022

The 20th anniversary of their recognised masterpiece (made no. 4 in the Afterword’s best of 21st Century poll) Ticketholders were told 730 sharp and that there would be no interval. Oh and this was my first live concert in nearly 2 and a half years. A beautiful large theatre on Broadway way up at 175th St

The unusual openers were The Aizuri Quartet, a New York based string quartet. They were wonderful, playing some fairly experimental stuff in front of a large curtain, after about 25 minutes they stood up and took their bows before starting up again, playing an arrangement of parts of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as a sort of overture. This producing some whelps.and hollas from the relatively boisterous NY crowd (No Wilco crowd is ever too boisterous).

They departed the stage (but soon returned), Jeff Tweedy appearing from behind the curtain to tune the radio placed stage left, a dismebodied English voice repeating “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot …” familiar from the end of Poor Places on the album.

The curtain parted to reveal the whole band in place with the additions of a 3 piece horn section, plus the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne, Australi

Date: 14/01/2022

Kilb’s is about to embark on a tour of America and then, presumably, to a venue near you , so I figured that I should do a review albeit a while ago. This was a twice deferred tour due to the plague and when the go button was finally pressed omicron had hit town. So there was a general air of apprehension, it was a hot summer’s evening and the streets were bare. The venue was an old theatre,then a greek function centre and last time I had been there we sat at tables. This time there were rows of seats. Given the omicron thing I reckon about 30% were no shows which meant after interval we upgraded ourselves to dead middle second row, about 10 feet from Kilbey. So Kilbey fronting a Church covers band. How did it go? Pretty damn good though I reckon, despite the Rickenbacker 12 string he underplays the jingle jangle of Marty Wilson Pipers signature sound- to the detriment of the songs. He announced the band members and the bands they had been in as if to reinforce the fact that no one had heard of » Continue Reading.

Venue:

O2 Institute, Brum

Date: 04/03/2022

Hmmmm, well it was ok. Actually, better than that, it was fine. Or at least the band were, it being the audience I was less keen on. Maybe I was just being a grump, but I had forgotten the mismatch between the band and their image. Plus, I am possibly the epitome of a fair weather friend, knowing well only their eponymous debut, which this tour is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of, and last years triumphant Welcome to Coral Island, knowing little of the intervening. But I have always enjoyed their musical alchemies of choral vocals, lots of time signatures and a willingness to pick and mix from musical traditions far and wide: Eastern European folk music being one such. Indeed, so chaotic are the styles on that assured debut that I sort of pidgeonhole them into the territory of Dr Sardonicus era Spirit. I had coneveniently forgot their origins and appearance, at least back then, all scally Brit pop swagger and sway. Perfect timing meant I arrived at about 8.40, having surmised most headliners start at 9. Having pre-watered at the Halton Turner tap house, I was able to forego the » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Hairy Dog, Derby

Date: 26/02/2022

Expect the unexpected, thats the way to go. Not being familiar with Derby, the Hairy Dog is the sort of 300 capacity dark venue seen in most cities featuring posters of angry metal acts and aging punk outfits, but `70`s Doowop legends Darts?, surely not! But oh yes, heres Griff Fender still looking sharp and trying to maintain order, resplendent in peacock green is Rita Ray for whom time has appeared to have stopped still and then, the looming figure of the mighty Den Hegarty here to cause chaos just for you. After the instrumental opening its straight in to Come Back My Love to get the room shaking before diving into deep cuts Mainliner and Destination Love. Back to the hits with Its Raining and Duke of Earl and from the first album, Young Blood and Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart before Den disappears into the audience for I`m Mad/Framed/Cell Block No 9. To round off the evening we get The Boy From New York City and Daddy Cool before being the apt encore of Gotta Go Home.

The audience:

Younger than I expected. We ended down the front » Continue Reading.

Venue:

O2 Academy, B’ham

Date: 19/02/2022

It’s been a long time…… Yes, I’m one of those lightweights who ditched the band at about the same sort of time as did Mr Cornwell, despite having earlier held them dear to my heart, from the Roundhouse in ’77, thru’ Battersea Park a year later and on to dimly remembered days at Birmingham’s Odeon in the early 80s. I sort of never saw the point, but did check out Hugh in the early noughties. But, such was the buzz around latest album, Dark Forces, let alone the poignancy of Dave Greenfield’s passing that it would have been rude not to investigate. I have already given considered opinion around the excellence of that album, and it looks like me and the 3 and 3/4 thousand squeezed into the venue weren’t there under false circumstances. Arriving strategically late to try and avoid the inevitable queue to get in, and failing, it was in the next queue, the bar, that the support band played their hit. And, I have to admit, it was quite a blast to hear the ragged charm of Babylon’s Burning being sung, full pelt, by the capacity crowd, to the clear » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Under the Edge Arts, The Chipping, Wotton-under-Edge

Date: 12/02/2022

In the quirky space of this warm and charming repurposed old village school hall, Sarah played ‘The Tug Of The Moon’ for us at Wotton last night, and I was entranced. It was just one highlight in an evening packed full of fantastically original songs – all introduced with a charming anecdote to explain their provenance – and altogether the night was a beautifully measured performance. She threw in some perfectly chosen covers too; her rendition of the gorgeously gentle classic ‘Autumn Leaves’ for example was utterly mesmeric and transcendent; at the close of the song I heard myself whisper a quiet ‘Wow’ to myself.

She’s been compared vocally to Joni and Lana Del Ray on occasion, and I could hear those hints, certainly, though they don’t convince me of their weight. As comparisons go, what struck me most was that the venue organiser, introducing her at the start of the evening, also mentioned Natalie Merchant. I thought about that, and then she started singing. Yes, that’s in there too, maybe more than the others. But more than all this, much more importantly, is that Sarah has a » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow

Date: 27/01/2022

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall is a grand, inviting venue at the best of times, but the piped birdsong as we all milled around and got to our seats was an enchanting little touch, instantly setting the pastoral mood. A simple trick, and feels like something Pink Floyd might have done at the height of their experimental phase at the turn of the seventies.

The comparison with early Pink Floyd is apt, because in their own way the Spell Songs folk collective are just as experimental and just as difficult to pigeonhole. I suppose they are more of a kind of supergroup than a collective, as each of the seven musicians (Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux and Seckou Keita) has had notable solo success, the Spell Songs project itself being seemingly an interesting little diversion for them all which has grown its own legs. In a live setting, their love of collaborating with each other is palpable. Centred around the animal and nature poems of Robert MacFarlane and the watercolours of Jackie Morris, they come as a readymade package, and everyone gets their turn to » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Forum

Date: 03/12/2021

The Hummingbird, no the Carling Academy, no the 02 Academy, no the Forum lives again. Its latest incarnation is heavily skewed to club culture. There are club nights, and after Mike Skinner opened the thing the jewel in their autumn lineup is surely Bicep. I’ve written about their first album here, and their second album Isles is on my list of albums of the year. Support was from an excellent DJ, whose name I cannot trace anywhere. But after perhaps one of the longer openers,as he was on for about an hour and a half, it was Bicep time. Their stage presence was in the great tradition of all electronic duos: walk on, stand behind keyboards, walk off. No rockin the decks or working the crowd. Just a couple of dancefloor engineers at work here. Visuals were shapes and colours, all very abstract and geometrical. They gave the eye something to focus on besides two men in t-shirts. But it was really all about the music: an hour of seamless mix followed by an encore featuring two tracks (Glue and Apricots) played in a more conventional manner. And what a great hour it was. Their » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

Date: 30/10/2021

An outstanding night with PSB in Aylesbury, my first time seeing them live. The setlist was a good mix from their four albums, with a slant towards my favourite, The Race for Space. The set, video screens and lighting were brilliantly controlled and the whole thing was a visual and aural delight. The band were having a great time, the “roadies as spacemen” were hilarious and the whole night was just brilliant.

The audience:

We were seated upstairs but the standing area downstairs was a sea of space nerds, people in Spitfire hats and lots of dancing.

It made me think..

What you might think would be a fairly staid, dry experience could not be further from the truth. They certainly “mak good show.”

Venue:

The Louisiana, Bristol

Date: 10/11/2021

Well, this was terrific. Long term KD watchers will know that her album from the beginning of the year bowled me over, and it’s still the best ambient indie folk jazz record of the year by a mile, but I did wonder how such a finely produced, intimate, record would translate live. Very well it turns out. She has five people in her backing band (the photo over there was quickly taken during a (seemingly) spontaneous solo encore) on second guitar, keys, drums, and bass plus a saxophonist, who also doubled up on flute, and was undoubtedly the MVP of the night. The whole soundscape was mesmerising, an enthralling mesh of ambience, texture and melody. None of the intricacies of the album were lost, and the constant build of the album’s cornerstone Hard Drive worked so well, with a brilliantly synchronised abrupt ending. I even did the cliche thing of standing there with my eyes shut for a minute, letting it all wash over me and take the day away.

13/10, would go again.

The audience:

Fabulous, to be honest. Probably about 75% masked, and amazingly quiet throughout the performances. I didn’t » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Birmingham Symphony Hall

Date: 30/10/2021

Possibly the artist I have seen live more than any other, Covid provided the longest gap I can recall between seeing one of his gigs. This gig was originally arranged to promote his autobiography Beeswing that i would imagine has been out long enough now to achieved the bulk of its sales. Still it’s a treat to see him live even though this was supposed to be Solo acoustic (more on this later) – I do prefer his electric outings especially in his trio tour with Michael Jerome and Taras Prodaniuk. The benefit of it being to promote Beeswing is we did get more of his earlier back catalogue. Wall of Death, Bright Lights, Walking the long miles home, Keep your distance. He would recite paragraphs before specific songs to explain how the song came about – so my favourite song Turning of the tide was preceded by his description of visiting a brothel in Hamburg when touring with Fairports. I am not normally a fan of one man and an acoustic guitar but this is the master we are talking about and many times last night he made the guitar sing – » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Symphony Hall, B’ham

Date: 02/10/2021

If I was a religious man I would say I had had a religious experience. I’m not, but I can sort of see the appeal. Sure, it’s the truth that Cave has always carried lashings of old time preacher man about his persona and in his lyrical bent, but never has it been writ this large, the whole ambience being a cross between a revivalist service and a medicine show, with Cave the shaman at the front, one step away from communing with serpents and talking in tongues. Elsewhere it was surely God, or maybe Moses, in the form of Warren Ellis, keeping a dementedly benign grip on the order of service, a wraith of hair and beard, thrashing away on his precariously knees balanced keyboard. At the back of the stage a lone figure, doubling (trebling?) on bass, percussion and assorted IT gizmos and gadgets, with, over to the right, behind Cave’s piano, stood the three implacably swaying figures who would provide deliciously righteous backing and additional vocals. The backdrop a single long black curtain. With sepulchral church organ swirling around the cavernous room, the mood was being set. With no support » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Playhouse, Edinburgh

Date: 25/09/2021

Some context is in order, I think. Seconds Out, by Genesis (a live double album, as was the fashion), was my first proper album (I’m excluding Follow, Follow Rangers). I was given it – at my own request – for Christmas 1977, when I was 15. I’m not entirely sure why – I was mildly obsessed with hifi equipment at the time (we had none) and I’d read a review in a hifi magazine that had caught my interest, I think. I was astonished by the music; it was like nothing else I’d ever heard. My previous experience of music was either Top of the Pops, Radio1 or what my parents listened to (The Clancy Brothers, mainly). But this was something else entirely. It was at turns melancholy and exhilarating, constantly twisting and changing. And the lyrics! Creatures that dissolved in their own tears, urban lambs, angels standing in the sun. It was a world about as far away from a council estate in central Scotland as could be imagined. And maybe that was why I fell for it quite so hard. I pieced my experience of music backwards and forwards from there » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Maverick Festival, Easton Farm Park, Suffolk

Date: 03/09/2021

Well, this was a delight! Straying out of my more familiar folkie fields, I doffed my stetson and shined my boots and became a cowboy! Maverick describes itself as unashamedly americana, and has been broncing its buck since around 2008, I gather, winning awards and attracting niche audiences all along the way. Small, very small, which maxes out at 2.5k, and in the delightful settings of a children’s farm park, so all the stages are in old barns, suitably decked out in vintage Louis L’Amour chic. Playing to a faithful audience, those playing are a mix of those for whom country isn’t a bad word, so a fairly niche selection, and those who support and provide a seemingly vibrant scene in clubs and bars, hidden in plain sight from most of the rest of us. I guess there would normally be more yanks than this year could find, but it showed even yee-has from Yorkshire could pass muster. The niche names this year included Jon Langford, My Darling Clementine, Los Pistoleros and Hank Wangford, as well as the just about to be huge, Dean Owens. Again, courtesy covid, there were » Continue Reading.

Venue:

Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath, B’ham

Date: 20/08/2021

Second milestone as Covid becomes the normal: first outdoor festival a fortnight ago and this first indoor gig. Long time coming, mind, with at least two earlier postponements over the last year and a half, so much so that I bought my ticket twice, a year apart, forgetting the earlier purchase. Luckily @stevet took up the offer of a freebie, and, given the new regs, we were in the right place as the door opened to grab prime front row seats.

Not a firm of dour Scottish solicitors, Drever, McCusker and Woomble are what might be called an indie-folk supergroup, reprising their sole album, 2008’s ‘Before the Ruin’. Who they? Kris Drever is the guitarist and singer of Lau, John McCusker the fiddle maestro currently earning his main crust with Mark Knopfler and Roddy Woomble the singer with Idlewild, and the writer of gloriously maudlin and morose fare. This was, to all intents and purposes, their first gig since Cov Zero, with any warm-up jinxed by their nine hour drive down from Edinburgh. Kicking straight off with four songs from Before the Ruin, it was apparent » Continue Reading.

Venue:

The Oval

Date: 08/08/2021

I love cricket, all forms. Have done for as long as I can remember. So when the new Hundred tournament came along and I’d read all the naysayers and all the spin and all the hype I decided despite some reservations to book some tickets for last nights game. The Oval Invincibles vs The Trent Rockets two franchises that didn’t exist a few months ago but featuring Jason Roy and Alex Hales respectively two of England’s most thrilling batters. Let’s try out this new version of my favourite sport designed to bring in a new crowd, get kids involved and promote the women’s game. All noble concepts. This is not the place to dissect all the noise surrounding The Hundred so on to the day itself…..

It rained, of course it rained. The women’s game was due to start at 3 pm. It didn’t start at all. My son and I decided we would travel into to London for 6pm in the hope that the rain held off long enough for some play in the men’s game. This is also not the place to discuss why the women’s game was cancelled to allow the » Continue Reading.