LIVE: MAXIMO PARK – 19/05/2017

– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – “This is a song about waiting for something to happen in your town,” Paul Smith announces to the hot, heaving crowd before the opening bars of ‘Graffiti’ build and smash over an electrified crowd. After also selling out the Albert Hall in 2015 with their A Certain Trigger tenth anniversary tour, […]

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – It’s a beaming Friday night and I’m goose-stepping through the Northern Quarter’s recent proliferation of makeshift outdoor drinking spaces, giddy as a kipper for the launch party of Jane Weaver’s outstanding new LP, Modern Kosmology. Adding to the excitement is a recent personal revelation that Band on the […]

LIVE: JANE WEAVER – 19/05/2017

LIVE: FOLLAKZOID / SILVER VIALS – 18/05/2017

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Tonight, its back to the Soup Kitchen basement for another stunning line up from the joint minds of The Beauty Witch and Grey Lantern. Opening we have Silver Vials, a trio from Manchester who use basic elements to create intense, drone laden space rock. ‘Vultures’ uses krautrock influences in its […]

– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Metronomy are a band that I’ve been slightly offhand with since their fourth album Love Letters; but, they’re in the Albert Hall tonight touring last year’s effort Summer ’08. The new album sees Metronomy take a more rhythmic, danceable, electronic route, a là LCD Soundsystem. Ironically, it’s since then they’ve […]

LIVE: METRONOMY – 17/05/2017

LIVE: JAPANDROIDS – 04/05/2017

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Some bands find their earlier years to be their most challenging, striving for recognition with unspectacular debuts, later hitting the big time with a breakthrough album (Prince, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Blur etc.). Many more make an astounding debut, then sink without a trace after the dreaded second album […]

– THE EAGLE INN, SALFORD – The Eagle Inn might be Manchester/Salford’s most informal gig venue. Tonight, the landlady rings a bell when it’s time for the first act to take the stage, and the hundred or so folks in the building grab their drinks and head to the back room where the magic happens. […]

LIVE: MEURSAULT – 11/05/2017

LIVE: KISHI BASHI – 12/05/2017

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – I heard recently about how on the day Craig Finn had the surreal experience of his band opening for the Stones at Slane Castle, he never even got to meet Jagger, Richards and the others. But tonight not only have our opening and main acts met before, they are travelling […]

– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – When Lowly released their single ‘Deer Eyes’ in September last year it was clear they were a band worth getting excited about. The sheer quality of ‘Deer Eyes’ couldn’t, however, prepare even the most devoted Lowly fan for how good their debut album would be. Heba, which came out earlier this […]

LIVE: LOWLY – 12/05/2017

LIVE: THE CRIBS / SLØTFACE / GOD DAMN – 12/05/2017

– ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – “C’mon, pretend we’re from Wakefield” implores Thom Edward, God Damn‘s persuasive frontman, referencing the hometown of tonight’s headliners to the thin early evening throng, who despite their modest numbers, are entirely in his thrall. He and his two bandmates are full-blooded performers, infected with limitless gusto, but the music is perfunctory. […]

Since his early records, the works of Mac DeMarco have felt consistent with fuzzy wistfulness, a non-embarrassing clarity of writing that can plausibly resonate with all (love, worry, cigarettes, mums). It lulls and flows, often without the prickly critical eye that might appeal to his largely millennial audience in present political times. Any moderately committed […]