Review: Earl Slick Station to Station

At the 02 Isling­ton, Bowie’s long-stand­ing gui­tarist Earl Slick and his assem­bled cast of musi­cians per­formed their fourth night of what so far has been a huge­ly suc­cess­ful run of his mini tour of Sta­tion to Sta­tion. The band includ­ed Steve Nor­man from Span­dau Bal­let on gui­tar, sax­o­phone and per­cus­sion (I saw Steve with Holy Holy in 2014). Also on gui­tar was Luis…

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Ray Davies at Hornsey Town Hall

TICKETS NOW SOLD OUT After months of plan­ning, Ray Davies is to appear at the Hornsey Town Hall June 26th 2016. Putting The Kinks’ front­man back in his old stamp­ing ground has been the wish of many res­i­dents, vis­i­tors and music lovers for years. And with Hornsey Town Hall left aban­doned by Haringey Coun­cil for many years, that wish for Ray…

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Review: The Besnard Lakes, London

The Besnard Lakes closed the UK leg of their tour with a tri­umphant, beau­ti­ful and emo­tion­al per­for­mance at The Assem­bly Hall, Isling­ton. The space was per­fect for The Besnard Lakes. It’s a medi­um-sized venue with a grand feel, and that Besnard sound swirled around and filled the space, the mir­ror­ball on the ceil­ing look­ing like an escapee from their last album cover,…

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Review: Broken Witt Rebels at The Water Rats

There’s a real buzz, a sense of antic­i­pa­tion in the lead-up to the Bro­ken Witt Rebels head­ing on stage at The Water Rats. The audi­ence are crowd­ing to the front and there’s a bank of pho­tog­ra­phers jostling for posi­tion. It’s great to observe this young band mak­ing such head­way. I spend more time than I should watch­ing bands per­form their socks off – musi­cians who so…

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Eight reasons to love Bearded Theory festival

1  It’s the per­fect fes­ti­val sea­son open­er  three (and a bit) days of music with a choice of stages and two new ones for 2016,  plus the infa­mous dance tent. And there’s plen­ty more going on besides. Tick­ets are only just over £100 and Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val is, as usu­al, on the way to sell­ing out, so don’t wait too long. 2  Magical…

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Pitt Cue at Devonshire Square

In order to eat at the for­mer site of Pitt Cue restau­rant just off Carn­a­by Street, din­ers had to queue in the street, some­times for hours. The reward was a cov­et­ed place down­stairs in the 5‑table poky cel­lar space, or perched at the cosy bar upstairs. The rea­son peo­ple were pre­pared to wait was due…

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Green and pleasant: the ultimate festival guide 2016

If you’re a fes­ti­val fan, by now you’re dream­ing of a green field, ban­ners wav­ing in the breeze, the sound of a band on the main stage… yes, fes­ti­val sea­son is near­ly upon us again, and here is my Ulti­mate Fes­ti­val Guide. Most have been per­son­al­ly tried and test­ed, some on a year­ly basis – plus there’s…

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Review: James at Scala

James show­cased their new album Girl at the End of the World at Scala, Kings Cross. We’re hop­ing we’ll hear one or two old favourites scat­tered here and there, but this show is real­ly the launch of the new album and the first time they’ll be play­ing the mate­r­i­al in front of an audi­ence. Tim Booth comes on…

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Do you own the dance floor? This Hacienda fan does

One Haçien­da devo­tee and DJ loved the place so much, he bought a bit of the dance­floor. And a flat exact­ly where the famous Man­ches­ter club’s DJ booth was sit­u­at­ed. The film Do You Own the Dançe­floor? went on release in June 2015. It’s an affec­tion­ate, some­times hilar­i­ous, and decid­ed­ly good-natured account of the sell-off…

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