Tag: review
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Ty Segall: Live at The Coronet, London.
Gentrification. “The process of renovating and improving something so that it conforms to middle-class taste”. Or “the process of making a person or activity more refined or polite”. Last night, the thankfully ungentrified Ty Segall and his ungentrified band played the equally ungentrified Elephant and Castle, at The Coronet, a South London Art Deco-styled venue…
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Car Seat Headrest Steps Up As Headliner: Live at The Forum
Car Seat Headrest announced themselves with something of a flourish last year, surfacing seemingly fully formed with one of the albums of 2016. It turned out that band leader Will Toledo had already released (at the still tender age of 23) a dozen solo albums on Bandcamp before pulling a band together and signing to…
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King’s X: The Return of The Ultimate Cult Band
King’s X, a three piece band from Texas, are hugely influential, have a large and loyal fan base, and last night played a show in London for the first time in six years. They are, perhaps the archetypical Cult Band. But how did they get here? (and I don’t mean “by bus”)… And do they…
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Steve Hackett Speaks Out About Refugee Crisis
We don’t always turn to the leading lights of progressive music for our daily dose of politics (see: Phil Collins 1997), so it was interesting to hear Steve Hackett’s thoughts on world events last night. This happened mid-way through his set at Southend’s Cliff’s Pavillion, introducing “Behind The Smoke”, the middle-eastern (think Led Zep’s “Kashmir”)…
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Blondie: Live At The Roundhouse – Review
In 1975, a British rock writer went to see an unsigned band called The Ramones at The Performance Studio as part of a report for the NME in on the burgeoning scene in New York’s CBGB club and the surrounding area. His piece, titled “1975: A Scuzz Odyssey” in the 8 November edition of NME…
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Kasabian Return With New Album and Rip-Roaring Live Show
Tonight is a Tuesday. Kasabian’s beloved Leicester City are being knocked out of the Champion’s League. It’s surely no coincidence that the band don’t take the stage of Kentish Town’s Forum until seconds after the final whistle… They might be forgiven for being deflated. But the energy from a large crowd in a small venue…
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Teenage Fanclub: Live at The Electric Ballroom
It is something of a mystery, akin to that of why men have nipples, as to quite why Teenage Fanclub have not set the world alight in quite the same way as some lesser bands. From the moment Raymond McGinley sold his fridge to pay for the recording costs of their debut single, surely great…
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Brian Wilson Brings Pet Sounds To Southend
It is fifty years since Brian Wilson famously set the young Paul McCartney’s hair on end with the release of Pet Sounds. It was a remarkable, almost impossible achievement – the musical equivalent of you or me writing a maths equation that might get Professor Stephen Hawkins to up his game. A sequence of music…
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Glastonbury News: Day One
It was a strange mood that pervaded across Glastonbury yesterday as the overnight referendum news sank in like a heavy boot into the mud. Even rumours of a secret Radiohead performance (still only rumours) weren’t enough to lift spirits. Sir Michael Eavis popped over to cut a ribbon on the Other Stage to open the…
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Iggy Pop Live at the Royal Albert Hall: Review of Pop’s Last Stand
Iggy Pop and Josh Homme at the Royal Albert Hall was a top-five-of-all-time kind of gig, and I’m struggling to think of the other four. The merger of Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme with Iggy Pop has produced a result better than anyone might have predicted. In 1995 Josh Homme’s first band, Kyuss,…
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Operation: Mindcrime – live at Chinnerys, Southend on Sea
The best concept album ever? There’s no contest. *plays the theme tune to Hong Kong Phooey* Is it “The Wall”? No. is it “Tommy”? No. Is it “Operation: Mindcrime” by the mild mannered Queensryche? “….Could be…” I realise that anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with a) Operation Mindcrime b) Queensryche or c) Eighties…
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Chaos and Beauty: The Story of Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev: Live At The Oval Space “Invention….does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.” Mary Shelley. “We just knew (chords) E to A. It was a maelstrom.” Jonathan Donahue, Mercury Rev, last night. It’s funny how the most chaotic of circumstances can give rise to the most beautiful of things.…
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David Gilmour – Live at the Royal Albert Hall
I know that bucket lists are supposed to contain bungee jumps, trips to Pacific Islands and conjugal visits with film stars, but for a good few thousand people last night, seeing David Gilmour play “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” pretty much topped all that. Last night was the second of five dates of David…
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The Strange Journey of Richard Hawley: All Saints, Morrissey and Robbie Williams
It has all been pretty much plain sailing for Richard Hawley, hasn’t it? Two Mercury Prize nominations, a string of gorgeous albums, cameo appearances with Arctic Monkeys, Elbow and Soul Savers…a life free of turbulence and incident? If only. That’s what you might think if you just heard the likes of “I Still Want…
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Sweet Billy Pilgrim At 93 Feet East: Review
It’s a crazy world we live in. For example, egotistical celebrities known for the craziest rants and most bizarre behaviour are filling our TV screens announcing they are running for President of the USA. Crazy. But that’s enough about Donald Trump. More baffling and crazy even than the behaviour of the likes of Trump, Kanye…
Every record tells a story 