Review: Bearded Theory festival birthday bash

Beard­ed The­o­ry Spring Gath­er­ing or “fes­ti­val” as it is usu­al­ly called, has reached an impor­tant mile­stone – its tenth birth­day. The hairy-faced con­trib­u­tor to the fes­ti­val world has grown and blos­somed, from bum fluff through design­er stub­ble to full beard. The cel­e­bra­tions opened on a per­fect sun­ny Thurs­day after­noon with a sur­pris­ing­ly large crowd, per­haps due to the line­up being stuffed…

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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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Review: Bearded Theory Friday/Saturday 2015

Beard­ed The­o­ry Fes­ti­val has got its mojo back. Not that it ever real­ly went away, it just went through a dip last year with the new site to adjust to, cou­pled with relent­less rain. But for 2015, the weath­er smiled down on Beard­ed The­o­ry, the fes­ti­val site was look­ing all new and improved and the con­fi­dence was back. Arriv­ing at Catton…

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Alabama 3 back in Brixton for a homecoming show

Alaba­ma 3 had plen­ty to cel­e­brate last Sat­ur­day night. The band were sched­uled to play the final gig of their 2014 tour back on their home turf in Brix­ton, at the Elec­tric. Then, for those of hardy con­sti­tu­tion, there’s the after par­ty at Brix­ton Jamm. For some rea­son, Alaba­ma 3 have always stayed slight­ly under the radar. Not…

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Alabama 3 acoustic at the Jazz Cafe

Like most height-chal­lenged peo­ple (5ft), I’ve always found stand­ing-only gigs a bit hit and miss. So the news that one of my favourite bands, the mighty Alaba­ma 3 are to do an Alaba­ma 3 acoustic, com­plete with rather ele­gant sound­ing three-course din­ner, is music to my ears. And so to the Jazz Cafe in Cam­den. Down­stairs is…

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Paradise Gardens festival at London Pleasure Gardens

Well this fes­ti­val sounds promis­ing! One of my favourite bands, the mighty Alaba­ma 3 are play­ing at Par­adise Gar­dens, a free Lon­don week­end fam­i­ly fes­ti­val with lots of enter­tain­ment for all ages. Up till this year, Par­adise Gar­dens Fes­ti­val has tak­en place at leafy Vic­to­ria Park in East Lon­don. This year, the fes­ti­val is the…

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