It’s a Friday night in Kings Cross. Downstairs, weekend revellers are getting busy to some quality dance beats, but we’re upstairs in the appropriately named ‘Snug’, complete with Christmas tree, having a singalong. “Jesus, won’t you come my way” sings the bearded guy on stage, and the small, select audience joins in at his invitation. [...]
The Slaughtered Lamb is one of the nicest little gig venues in London. A quick glance at the picture above might have you thinking that’s it’s some fearsome rock dive, but no. It’s more like watching a gig in a big living room - a particularly awesome kind of living room with a bar, lots [...]
This week, I intend to spend most of my lunchtimes at Pure Groove. They’ve got a gig on at 1:15pm every day, which is good news for me, even though I can’t really take full part in their Ale Festival, which is also running all this week. Yesterday was a pleasant time sitting listening to [...]
They know how to put on a show. ‘Course they do. They’ve been doing it for what seems like decades. In fact, some may argue, they’ve been doing the same show for the past ten years. Now, although that’s sort of true, each time they have new songs and new tricks. And even though you [...]
In the end the main difference is the scale. Camera Obscura put on a good show, but it’s hard not to compare this gig with the previous time I’ve seen the Glasgow band this year. That was back in March at The Lexington when they played their first gig after recording their latest album My [...]
This is the sound of a band growing up and getting better and better.
It’s the sound of a band who despite a quiet Monday gig on a slow London evening, give it their all.
It’s the sound of a band who know that classical training and expert musicianship may not count for much in today’s fickle [...]
Some things change, some things stay the same. Richard Hawley seems to have these in exactly the right proportions. His new album Truelove’s Gutter gets it exactly right. The familiar, late-night melancholic crooning that everyone knows from his previous five albums is present, correct and marvellous. But unlike previous long-player Lady’s Bridge which was basically [...]
David Thomas Broughton may be too leftfield to ever have mainstream success, but it’s clear that his star in in the ascendancy, in its own peculiar way. Tonight sees him playing to a packed ICA, easily the biggest London venue that he’s headlined under his own name. But don’t expect any concessions to populism to [...]
It was almost too good to be true. After ages wanting to see The Leisure Society and never quite managing, I was all ready to see them three times in six days. After their two excellent sets at End of the Road, I was looking forward to more sweeping chamber-folk in support of Alela Diane [...]
Dan Michaelson - Absentee frontman and all-round top dude - is about to embark on a tour of Britain. He released his first solo album earlier in the year, along with an assortment of pals going under the name of The Coastguards, and it’s a fine record. Now, after several months of supporting other people, [...]
