Live Review: Kite Festival – Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire 10.06.2022 – 12.06.2022
The kids are alright – they’ve got Glastonbury and Reading but where do you go if you want a grown up festival? To a field situated somewhere between Bicester and Oxford apparently! Kite Festival is the brand new summer bash where you’re more likely to experience a book reading than blokes barfing. A festival that …
Live Review: Wet Leg – Electric Ballroom, London 26.04.2022
Excuse me? That joke isn’t funny anymore, huh? Well, with a debut album hitting the top of the charts packed with infectious songs aplenty and sold out gigs throughout the country – Wet Leg are certainly still laughing. The newly crowned indie disco queens continue to capitalise on the instant hit status of Chaise Long. …
Live Review: Killing Joke – Eventim Apollo, London 09.04.2022
Be afraid. Two candles flicker at the back of the stage. Those flames can never burn brightly enough to pierce the darkness and break the sense of foreboding. It’s Hammersmith outside and pure Hammer horror inside the Apollo tonight. This climax to their ‘Honour the Fire’ tour is the band’s first wanderings for three years …
Live Review: The Beths – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London 04.04.2022
After being cooped up in Auckland for a couple of years it’s appropriate that The Beths give us a lesson in ornithology halfway through this gig. Keen to promote the less flamboyant fauna of their native New Zealand we hear all about the alpine parrot and how it should really be more loved. Bit like …
Live Review: Altered Images – 229 Great Portland Street, London 18.03.2022
Blame the internet. Time is warped. Everything is now….and everything then…is now too. Without the internet, the hunger and desire to see bands from “back in the day” may not exist outside the mind of some aspic-encrusted nostalgia radio geek. All hail the global jukebox. Nobody in 1983 said “I’m just popping out, I’ve got …
Live Review: Curved Air – The 100 Club, London 16.03.2022
The sun has never set for some of those veterans from the dawning of the age of Aquarius. The hippy dream may have died as many of those flower children became accountants and acquisitive members of a fresh elite – but the music, and some bands from that era, live on. Members have come and …
Live Review: Kosheen – The Garage, London 12.03.2022
Really, all that’s missing are the glow sticks. Kosheen started the party back in 2001 and it feels like they’re still sound-tracking that noughties all-nighter. Sian Evans commands Kosheen much like Florence drives her machine but with bass heavy repetitive grooves and anthemic hooks aplenty. Pounding and intense. Like a Seat Ibiza motor has just …
Live Review: Black Doldrums – The Victoria, London 10.03.2022
Shoegazing? Nope. I can assure you, nobody is looking at the floor tonight. Everyone is transfixed by the concentrated stare of Black Doldrums drummer Sophie Landers. The self-proclaimed goth and “noise conjurer” is a mesmerising sight. Pounding the sticks throughout the Dalston night with bandmate Kevin Gibbard on guitar and main vocal duties and band …
Live Review: Dana Gavanski – The Lexington, London 08.03.2022
I’m afraid the mosh-pit has been cancelled. To the uninitiated the London gig scene may seem hip, cool and above all – dominated by the young and open-minded. Tonight that misconception is laid bare. Here in the city I love, a city I consider to be the global capital of culture, diversity and youthful vibrancy …
Live Review: Big Thief – Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London 02.03.2022
Looking like they’ve lost their way searching for The Emerald City the four disparate characters on stage tonight are Big Thief. The Brooklyn-based band have actually just blown in from Bristol as they continue their epic European and North American tour. A global trek which, incidentally, is donating 1% of tour income to the climate …