Just Mustard

LIVE: JUST MUSTARD – 25/10/2021

– Castle Hotel, Manchester – I’d forgotten, after all this time, just how intimate the back room at The Castle is, and what a wonderfully evocative room it is too. It’s like being in someone’s front room, albeit a front room with a stage. It also has a slight vicarage vibe about it, with its […]
– Albert Hall, Manchester – The band are playing so softly, the loudest thing you can hear during the introduction of opening song ‘Song In Seven’ are drummer Gwion Llewelyn’s cymbals. The vocals come in after a few moments and take the crown of the loudest sound source, but everything remains gentle. Not that any […]
Villagers

LIVE: VILLAGERS – 15/10/2021

Do Nothing

LIVE: DO NOTHING – 13/10/2021

– YES Pink Room, Manchester – Nothing says ‘ready for action’ like a frontman strolling on stage a good two minutes after his bandmates clutching two cans of Guinness. Chris Bailey, singer in Nottingham band Do Nothing, cuts a suave presence: nicely fitted suit, a couple of buttons undone on his crisp white shirt, hair […]
– RNCM, Manchester – Let’s get it out of the way up front. Yes, this is my first ‘proper’ post-covid-restrictions gig back in a full capacity venue (Squid at a sparsely populated, socially distanced Stoller Hall in Summer does not count), and yes it feels absolutely thrilling to be sharing a communal experience with actual […]
Rival Consoles

LIVE: RIVAL CONSOLES – 10/10/2021

Maximo Park

LIVE: MAXIMO PARK / PEANESS – 10/10/2021

– Ritz, Manchester – In support of their seventh studio album ‘Nature Always Wins’, released earlier this year, Maximo Park are tonight playing at Manchester’s Ritz. I seem to have lost track of the band’s album releases somewhere along the way, pretty sure I haven’t heard all of them despite being a fan when they […]
– Academy 2, Manchester – Back in 2015, Black Honey headlined the first gig I reviewed in my thirties. They were playing a free show, to only a handful of people, at Manchester’s Castle Hotel. In the six years since they’ve hugely grown their fanbase, a prediction it was not hard to make in my […]
Black Honey Live at Manchester Academy 2

LIVE: BLACK HONEY / PHOEBE GREEN / ARXX – 08/10/2021

Isle of Wight Festival 2021

I FIRST SAW THEM AT ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL 2021

I like going to music festivals very much. Not a particularly controversial statement I know, but after twenty-seven months without attending one, I’m pleased I made a last minute decision to travel to the Isle of Wight Festival 2021. The event felt a lot like other large festivals I’ve been to over the years, more […]
My first gig in eighteen months may have been in a socially distanced seated event, but blimey did it feel great to watch a live performance again. Every two years Manchester International Festival rolls around, and brings with it a feast of unique gigs, but none of us could have predicted just how unusual these […]

LIVE REVIEW: DAMON ALBARN – MANCHESTER CENTRAL: MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

LIVE: THE SEVEN BRAVE TRACTOR DRIVERS – 31/01/2020

-THE MET, BURY- There are only four of them. Not seven, as was previously stated. Also, they don’t even drive tractors. Like, what is going on here? Anyway, The Seven Brave Tractor Drivers performed at The Met in Bury on 31st January 2020. In short, it was a really good gig, organised by Bury Cancer […]
– Yes Basement, Manchester – Humint: The opening act helps to congregate the room without windows with the post-punk-post-hardcore approach of being a mechanism that doesn’t quite work yet still works, the reverse stutter that is the drumming being the pedestal that makes this band the more rhythmically interesting of the 2 performers. Chordal descents […]

LIVE: SPECIAL INTEREST – 10/03/2020