Hawley Roundhouse
Nov 9

Review: Richard Hawley at The Roundhouse

Richard Haw­ley is on his best form yet, and deliv­ers a storm­ing crowd-pleas­er set: dense gui­tar dri­ven sound com­bined with beau­ti­ful bal­lads. I imag­ine that many oth­ers in last night’s audi­ence at The Round­house had, like me, put the final episode of Down­ton Abbey on ‘Record’. I’m indeed thank­ful for such tech­no­log­i­cal won­ders, because I would­n’t have missed this incredible…

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india folk group
Nov 7

Review: Music of India at V&A Museum

The Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um is hold­ing a series of events to accom­pa­ny the huge India Fes­ti­val this autumn. Last night I attend­ed the Music of India con­cert, an event held in the sump­tu­ous Raphael Room, with a pro­gramme of two acts. The Rajasthani folk troupe, who closed the evening, also popped up in dif­fer­ent spots of the muse­um ear­li­er in…

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jane weaver at Oslo
Oct 23

Review: Jane Weaver at Oslo

Set against a mus­cu­lar, dri­ving bassline and wall of dense synth/guitar, Weaver’s voice adds a spacey, ethe­re­al light­ness, the two ele­ments bal­anc­ing each oth­er, cre­at­ing almost vis­i­ble layers. 

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DJ Kwah
Oct 14

Breath[e]:LESS live performance, Bradford and Liverpool

Breath[e]:LESS is a new kind of performance/gig expe­ri­ence, and danc­ing is very much allowed. It might be dif­fi­cult not to, as it’s set to infec­tious elec­tron­ic music by composer/producer DJ Kwah (above). The per­for­mance is the brain­child of Tes­sa Gordziejko, for­mer­ly Cre­ative Direc­tor for the York­shire cul­tur­al Olympiad, a direc­tor and pro­duc­er who has built a rep­u­ta­tion for innovative…

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Aidan Connell
Oct 5

Review: Aidan Connell, Grio album launch

For blues gui­tarist Aidan Con­nell, the launch of his debut album Grio may be an impor­tant occa­sion, but his music career has­n’t exact­ly been short on sem­i­nal moments. Sea­sick Steve hailed him as “the only rock ’n’ roller in town”; he’s played with ven­er­at­ed Cal­i­for­nia band Mazzy Star after Dave Roback took note of the tal­ent­ed young­ster, and praise…

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Sep 16

Ramsbottom festival 2015

There has been an emer­gence of a North­ern Pow­er­house of fes­ti­vals over the past few years, with Kendal Call­ing, a host of York­shire events – and one which has qui­et­ly made its way onto the cir­cuit – Rams­bot­tom Fes­ti­val. Being a Lan­cashire lass, I’m glad to see an event which gives a plat­form to so many established…

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grounds of Festival No 6
Sep 9

Review: Festival Number 6 2015

Fes­ti­val Num­ber 6 feels as if it has ful­ly got into its stride. It offers a dizzy­ing array of intel­li­gent­ly-curat­ed events, from bands and DJs to com­e­dy, night­time pro­ces­sions, work­shops and talks, plus some­thing this fes­ti­val has come to excel in – inter­views and inti­mate per­for­mances by a hand­ful of the main-stage artists.

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Kingshotts coffee
Aug 26

Running a festival business – four traders tell their stories

Do you have a busi­ness that you think would go down well at fes­ti­vals? I asked four such  entre­pre­neur­ial types, with ven­tures in T‑shirts, vin­tage tents, gourmet cof­fee and holis­tic mas­sage – about their expe­ri­ences as fes­ti­val traders. Is it a com­bi­na­tion of fun and prof­it, and are you guar­an­teed enough time out to catch a favourite band? One…

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Larry Love
Aug 4

Review: O’Connell & Love at the 100 Club, album launch

Minesweep­ing is Lar­ry Love’s new album, co-writ­ten with Bren­dan O’Con­nell. How unusu­al of Love to ded­i­cate an album to the prac­tice of mine removal, I thought (and the album does con­tain many sea­far­ing ref­er­ences). Inevitably Google led me to the more com­mon­place use of the word (not sure how I got to my age with­out know­ing this). Ah, now we’re on…

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