Live Review
Live Review: Ian Hunter and The Rant Band – The Plug, Sheffield, 29.10.2017
One of the great joys of music is being unable to introduce your friends to acts they didn’t know they liked. While I have been an Ian Hunter fan for a couple of decades now, ever since I heard “All the Young Dudes” on the radio in college, and have explored his back catalogue and …
Live: Einstürzende Neubauten – Dark Mofo Festival , Hobart, Tasmania, 17 June 2017
The last time I saw Blixa Bargeld, the lead singer of Einstürzende Neubauten (literal translation “Falling New Buildings), he was moonlighting with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He was a gaunt, terrifying presence on stage with a piercing, eviscerating stare and dressed in a rubber butcher’s apron and battering, not playing, guitar. Here in …
Say Psych: Live Review: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard & H. Hawkline – Albert Hall, Manchester, 14.06.2017
Australians King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have garnered an enviable reputation for their superb live performances and insanely catchy music which traverses several genres to ensure they have an ever increasing fan base. Having played Manchester on several occasions to ever increasing in size venues, tonight Now Wave and Strange Days have teamed up …
Live: Mogwai – Dark Mofo Festival, Hobart Tasmania, 10 June 2017
There was a full moon, it was bitingly cold, there was siren-singing over loudspeakers at dusk with weird lights on the horizon across Hobart, the town at the edge of the southern world. The streets were filled with roaming packs moving from one art installation to another, amassing at the indulgent medieval Winter Feast and …
The Besnard Lakes LIVE @ Brudenell Social Club 26.05.17
The Besnard Lakes are out on tour, as they usually are when not immersed in flora and fauna finding inspiration, or conjuring songcraft in their hometown of Montreal, Canada to add to their canon. Theirs is an expansive aural and visual experience, inclusive of myriad influences and styles. A hedonistic concoction of sweet and bitter …
LIVE: Slam Dunk Festival North, Millenium Square, Leeds, 28/5/2017
Ever since moving the Leeds date of Slam Dunk Festival to Millenium Square and the surrounding area, the festival organisers have set the bar high. This year is set to be no different, featuring some of the crowning jewels of the rock, pop punk and metal scene. Taking to the main stage in an unexpectedly …
Live Review: The Cribs – Leeds First Direct Arena 20/05/2017
What’s better than a hometown band playing a hometown arena show? Pulled Apart By Horses dominate the stage early on. With I Punched A Lion In The Throat having the biggest impact early on, the anarchic punk rock vibes pack a huge punch. There isn’t a huge crowd down yet but the few numbers that …
Swans – Plug, Sheffield 21.05.2017
So this is it for the current incarnation of Swans. Back in 2010 they rode into a world that was replete with some quite dreary Americana and blew it apart. (OK, I’m talking about my world, but you know…) Not without irony, given Michael Gira’s role with Angels of Light and Young God records. My …
Maarja Nuut – Rich Mix, London 16.05.2017
To label Maarja Nuut an Estonian folk singer and fiddler would be to hugely understate what she does and might even miss the point entirely. There’s no doubt the tunes and bluntly dark folk tales of her homeland are at the heart of her performance but there’s all manner of other musical layers, especially when accompanied …
Live Review: The Underground Lovers, Northcote Social Club 12.05.17 Plus Gallery
Deep in the heartland of the (apparently) hipsterville suburb of Northcote in Melbourne and the hometown of the Underground Lovers: there couldn’t be a better place to witness the launch of the band’s second phase second album, “Staring at You Staring at Me” (reviewed by Backseat Mafia here). From the very start, it felt like …