Live Review
Live: Dirty Three- Dark Mofo Festival
Dirty Three were recently called ‘one of the world’s greatest living bands’. It’s simply true. It was 1pm on a Sunday over the Dark Mofo weekend, the first of two gigs in one day for the band. I pondered, given their duties later on, whether the band would hold back, keep their powder dry, for …
Live: Dark Mofo Festival – Costume
Like some new romantic looking for the tv sound, Adam Ouston (under the nom de plume Costume) could have been straight out of London’s infamous Blitz Club in the eighties. Architecturally impossible hair, layered makeup, glittering outfits, strobing lights and angular backing dancers in a mist of dry ice – all the ingredients were there. …
Live: Best Kept Secret Festival, NETHERLANDS – 31 May – 2 June 2019
The Best Kept Secret festival in Hilvarenbeek is an absolute pearler, and believe me I’ve been to a few. From the life-affirming, (Glastonbury in the ’80s) to the life-threatening, (Treworgy Tree Fayre ’89 – two dead, two hundred arrested and a dead sheep in the water supply). Constructed around a lake in a forest, the …
Live: Dark Mofo Festival – Sharon Van Etten
In the creaky, weary, glorious old Odeon Theatre in Hobart, Tasmania, Sharon van Etten made an explosive, incandescent start to the one of the most brilliant festivals in the world today. Her voice, incredible on record, is extraordinary live: ranging from operatic, soaring highs in ‘No-one’s Easy to Love’ to growling exhortations in ‘Seventeen’ where …
Say Psych: Preview: Astral Festival, Bristol
Astral Festival (FKA Bristol Psych Fest), presented by Stolen Body Records, is back for it’s 6th year on 6th July 2019. Over the past six years the festival has grown from a 50 capacity room to a day long event over three of Bristol’s best venues, SWX, The Lanes and Rough Trade. After last year’s …
LIVE: SLAM DUNK FESTIVAL NORTH- 25/5/19
Words by Emma Louise and Cal Ripley Slam Dunk North has undergone some changes this year. After enjoying four years occupying Leeds’ City Centre, it has now followed in the footsteps of its Southern counterpart, and this year took place in a field instead- at Temple Newsam Park. Though there were some pros to the …
Say Psych: Live Review: The Nude Party @ Soup Kitchen, Manchester 20.05.2019
The Nude Party are a six piece from North Carolina, who have drawn attention due to their fusion of neo-psychedelia, folk and country in a heady mixture that leaves fans dancing, in awe and compelled all at the same time. Tonight they grace Manchester’s Soup Kitchen courtesy of local promoters Strange Days who know a …
Live Review: Richard Hawley/Studio Electrophonique – The Picturedrome, Holmfirth. 04/05/2019
Me and the musical Prince of Sheffield Richard Hawley have history. Sadly, history that he’s blissfully unaware of. Back in 1989, or it could have been 1988, slightly drunk on cheap cans of Skol, Richard Hawley thanked me after I said ‘nice job’ or some suchlike pleasantry after seeing his band of the time Treebound …
Live Review: Electric Soft Parade/Julien Bouchard – Flat Sessions, Fallais, Belgium. 03/05/2018
A former cow shed in the Belgian countryside isn’t every band’s idea of a dream booking, but with London venues closing in their droves, savvy artists now need to look further afield (ouch!), and they could do a lot worse than chez Calo and Murielle in the pastoral village of Fallais. From modest beginnings, these …
Live: Fontaines D.C. at Gorilla, Manchester on 13 April 2019
Fontaines D.C. have just finished their first major tour across Europe, a tour that essentially was off the back of a couple of outrageously good singles last year and at pessimistically smaller venues. It was sold out everywhere. The Gorilla in Manchester, sold out this night, has a capacity of up to 700 punters. In …