Live Review
Live: Sonic Jesus (Album Launch) & The Underground Youth – The Waiting Room, London 16.04.2015
I appreciate that people generally make the pilgrimage TO Ireland, but this was one divine intervention I was not going to miss for anything… Two years in the making and the day finally arrives for the official unveiling of the debut album by Sonic Jesus – ‘Neither Virtue Nor Anger’. (Full LP Review to follow). In a …
Live Review: East India Youth – Rise, Bristol, 10.04.2015
To people of a certain age in Bristol the mention of Imperial Records makes everyone slightly glassy eyed and wistful. It was a place to bump into friends and find new music thanks to a multitude of recommendations chalked on its walls. Its demise felt like another lurch forward in the gentrification of what used …
Live: Champs – Belgrave Music Hall – Leeds – 8th April 2015
We are big fans of Champs here at Backseat Mafia and loved their recent album ‘VAMALA’ which we reviewed here, one of a multitude of rave reviews for the Isle of Wight duo’s album of exquisitely crafted and gorgeously harmonised pop-folk songs. It really is an album of sheer beauty and if you haven’t yet added …
Live review: LoneLady at the Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
I lived in Manchester for the best part of two decades so it was an astonishing experience to be transported by LoneLady right back to Hulme’s crumbling brutalist terraces and forward to the modern Northern powerhouse the city now is. LoneLady – aka Julie Ann Campbell – has created a series of soundscapes that evoke …
Live Review: Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, Issues – Leeds O2 Academy, 3.4.15
Both Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens boast enthusiastic fanbases to say the least, the tour was sold out months in advance, tickets were even being sold for more than four times the amount of their original price in the few weeks leading up to the shows and the queue for the show in …
Live Review: Young Guns, Liverpool Arts Club, 6.4.15
On the final date of this leg of the Young Guns headline tour, Blitz Kids say their goodbyes as the main and only support band. Their set is a well-chosen collaboration of the biggest choruses in their back catalogue- and being a band who know how to write a big chorus, they have A LOT. …
Live Review: Circa Waves, The Leadmill, Sheffield, 10.4.2015
Circa Waves are the kind of new band it’s possible you could have totally missed, but it’s highly probable you’ve heard at least one of their summery, catchy songs being belted out on heavy rotation on Radio 1. Having been together only a couple of years and just releasing their debut album this April, it’s …
Live Review: San Cisco, The Dome Tufnell Park, London, 9th April 2015
San Cisco are a band you need to see live, but being the busy bees they are and the fact they hail from Fremantle in Western Australia, it’s difficult to track them down for a gig. They’re recently completed a successful tour of Europe which ended with a solitary UK appearance at The Dome, Tufnell …
Live Review: A Place to Bury Strangers – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds 03.04.2015 plus Gallery
This was one of those gigs that had you bristling you with anticipation. You know the type, the ones where you are not quite sure what is going to happen, but you sure as hell not only know somethings going to happen, you know it’s going to happen right in your face – literally. A …
Live Review: Catfish and The Bottlemen and Little Comets, O2 Academy Sheffield, 4.4.2015
Around Valentine’s Day last year, I was sent to the Leadmill to review two indie bands mid-way through their UK tour. Little did I know I would be reviewing those same two bands, together, as they tour once again in 2015 – just bigger venues this time. Catfish and the Bottlemen began as support for Little Comets, …