Found: the festival that feels like coming home
Dec 17
Review: Time Out Best of Rising Stars
Time Out continued their Rising Stars series with a bumper Xmas special ‘Best of Rising Stars’ – six acts with a foothold in the music industry who are being rewarded by seeing their talent and persistence start to pay off. Holding the Rising Stars series is a good move for The Jazz Cafe too, as it helps spread the word about the…
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Dec 10
Review: Django Django at The Roundhouse
There are two Django Djangos. There’s what you hear on their albums, a fat slam of addictive, uptempo, feel-good melody, laced with distinctive harmonies with a sweet-sour balance. Then there’s live Django, which is an altogether more dance-driven, stripped, souped up version of the above, with a rocket up its arse. Art house rockers Django Django are one of the bands…
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Dec 2
Blue Zoo, Matt Backer plus 80s clubnight
This Saturday 5th December is time to party 80s style. Blue Zoo are playing at Nambucca, near Archway at 8pm, with a set list which includes those hits Cry Boy Cry, Ivory Towers, I Shoot Sheep and more. Support acts are: Matt Backer who has played with bands including Rumer, ABC, Julian Lennon, Sister Sledge, Jamelia, Mark King,…
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Nov 25
The End Festival 2015 finale at Earl Haig Hall
A review of the final day of folk music in Crouch End’s Earl Haig Hall. Part of The End festival
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Nov 21
Nadine Khouri, Romeo Stodart, Bernard Butler: The End Festival
Not content with presenting us with a mere weekend of music, this year promoter Howard Monk and the team behind The End Festival, set in Crouch End, extended the event over 11 days. Heady and ambitious stuff. There’s no point pretending it’s all gone like clockwork but that’s not what The End is all about.…
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Nov 16
The End Festival 2015: opening weekend
The End Festival is at the half-way mark, and so far it’s been an enjoyable, if slightly chaotic, experience, with a daily roster of bands appearing at venues around Crouch End. Opening night at Earl Haig featured Icelandic outfit YLJA (they are appearing twice more over the festival’s duration) and are notable for their crystalline…
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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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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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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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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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