Jul 12

Dolly Parton and the Glastonbury dog – back with its owners

Dol­ly Par­ton had offered to res­cue a dog found at Glas­ton­bury, dis­cov­ered cow­er­ing in a tent by the clean­er-uppers. The lurcher was too old to trav­el so would not have been able to be rehomed in the States – but the own­ers have now come for­ward to reclaim the poor crea­ture. I am a bit mys­ti­fied by…

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Hinterland
Jul 9

Review: Debut album Hinterland by The Bedroom Hour

March 31 2015: This review is for Hin­ter­land by The Bed­room Hour. I’ve been made aware that some peo­ple are expect­ing to read about new album Hin­ter­land by LoneLa­dy. So, The Bed­room Hour’s debut album, Hin­ter­land is final­ly here. The band were post­ing reg­u­lar updates on its progress and suc­cess­ful­ly crowd fund­ed to help with its release. I’m feel­ing that same…

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Arcade Fire
Jul 5

Review: BST Hyde Park Barclaycard, Arcade Fire

The hottest day of the year turned into a beau­ti­ful evening, and at Hyde Park, Arcade Fire gave a tru­ly inspired per­for­mance. No doubt the band were mak­ing sure that this, their last night of the suc­cess­ful Reflek­tor tour, would be one for us, and them, to remem­ber. Win But­ler was more engag­ing, and more humor­ous, than…

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Trentemoller
Jun 18

Trentemoller, bringing dark Danish sounds to Meltdown

There’s so much going on over the sum­mer at the South Bank ‑or South­bank Cen­tre,  as it’s now renamed. On this night alone there’s raw, dirty blues from The Amaz­ing Snake­heads and a come­back set from Edwyn Collins. I’m off to see Trentemøller. The last time I saw the Dan­ish elec­tro mul­ti instru­men­tal­ist was at 2am in…

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A sloe walk up Occupation lane 043
Jun 11

King of the Mountains: a music festival for the Tour de France

York­shire has nev­er been shy of blow­ing its own trum­pet. “God’s own coun­ty” (coun­try?) and all that, as its cit­i­zens nev­er tire of remind­ing us. So it was fair­ly inevitable that the first stage of the Tour de France hap­pen­ing on God’s own doorstep – Leeds to be more pre­cise – would her­ald an extravaganza…

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Dancer at Bearded Theory
May 28

Review : Beards, dreads and mud, Bearded Theory Festival 2014

 Every­thing looks spark­ly and fresh at Beard­ed The­o­ry’s new venue at Cat­ton Hall. The grass is lush, green and springy. The main stage stands at one end of the remark­ably flat new site, with a dance tent and the more inti­mate Tor­na­do Town tent just far enough away to be out of earshot, while a secret stage lies hidden…

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May 21

The best festivals for 2014 – an update

Here’s an update of some of my top fes­ti­val rec­om­mends for 2014 and as of the time of post­ing, still have tick­ets avail­able. These are all small to medi­um-sized gath­er­ings (no hour-long trudges to the are­na). All these fes­ti­vals have plen­ty of well thought-out activ­i­ties for chil­dren and a fair­ly broad age range of atten­dance, so whether…

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Phildel CD cover
May 9

Music news: Phildel and Metallica (but not together)

Phildel has just won Pop/Top 40 cat­e­go­ry for Moon­sea in the Inter­na­tion­al Song­writ­ing Com­pe­ti­tion where she was up against over 20,000 entries. A fan­tas­tic result from a mul­ti-tal­en­t­ed and extreme­ly hard­work­ing per­former. This pres­ti­gious songr­writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion was judged this year by such lumi­nar­ies as John May­all, Black Fran­cis (The Pix­ies), Robert Smith (The Cure),  Tom Waits and Imag­ine Drag­ons.This is…

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St James Church
May 2

Review: Kurt Vile at St James’s Church

St James’s Church, Pic­cadil­ly, it’s a beau­ti­ful jew­el of a church designed by Christo­pher Wren, and like sev­er­al Lon­don church­es, moon­lights as a music venue. Noth­ing of the Metal­li­ca vari­ety, obvi­ous­ly. We are here to see Kurt Vile do a solo set which is more in keep­ing. Despite its beau­ty, the church’s view­ing expe­ri­ence is only just adequate;…

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