LIVE REVIEW – JINJER: MANCHESTER RITZ – 29/01/2026

                              Metal has a great deal in common with pop – I’d say it’s the flipside of the same coin: the anti-pop. Where pop is meant to appeal, metal intentionally repels. Metal is discordant by design where pop seeks out the […]
As crowd surfers pop up left right and centre in my eyeline, heads bounce around and the floor rattles in synchronisation… I realise that Superheaven have maybe revived an overall abysmal day. The power of music, eh? Despite preferring their earlier stuff to their most recent album, Superheaven have still taken up a humongous amount […]

LIVE REVIEW – SUPERHEAVEN: MANCHESTER RITZ – 17/01/2026

LIVE REVIEW – SUNFLOWER BEAN: YES PINK ROOM – 11/12/2025

I’ve been a fan of NYC trio Sunflower Bean for a while now – since the release of their third album, ‘Headful of Sugar,’ in 2022, to be precise – but it’s their most recent material that has kept my eyes (and ears) fixed upon them. For one, there was last year’s ‘Shake’ EP, a […]
When Erykah Badu announced she was touring her ‘Mama’s Gun’ album, it was challenging to have any sort of self-control. After an unfortunate experience of her dropping out of the ‘X The tracks’ festival with no explanation, I was particularly thrilled about seeing her. I’ve only been to a select few venues in Manchester, and […]

LIVE REVIEW – ERYKAH BADU: MANCHESTER APOLLO – 26/10/2025

LIVE REVIEW – ALABAMA 3: MANCHESTER RITZ – 05/12/2025

“This one is for Keir Starmer” Larry Love states as the band launch into ‘Mansion on the Hill’. A song calling out the corrupt elites and the frontman of Alabama 3 has just directed it at the Prime Minister, clad in a silver suit and shades. Entertaining doesn’t begin to cover it. At the start […]
As Ellie Rowsell takes centre stage, megaphone in hand, my view is once again blocked by a man scurrying to the bar – a confused mind who thinks beer is more important than listening to one of the most alluring front-women of the 21st Century. I’m not ashamed to admit that hearing “Yuk Foo” live […]

LIVE REVIEW – WOLF ALICE: MANCHESTER ARENA – 28/11/2025

LIVE REVIEW – THE LAST DINNER PARTY: AVIVA STUDIOS – 26/11/2025

There’s something almost poetic about seeing The Last Dinner Party inside Aviva Studios, the cavernous, concrete warehouse that Factory International has turned into a kind of blank canvas for big, theatrical ideas. Tonight, the space feels less like an industrial arts hub and more like a forgotten churchyard: mossy rocks scattered across the stage, rusted-looking railings, fabric and ropes hanging […]
Getting into the O2 Victoria Warehouse was business as usual, bag search, body scan, ticket check then to find the nearest bar; only this time I wish I hadn’t. For a single drink it set me back nearly ten whole Great British pounds, physically hurting my soul and my bank. Do they know we are […]

LIVE REVIEW – ROYEL OTIS: VICTORIA WAREHOUSE – 28/11/2025

LIVE IN PICTURES – TTSSFU: THE WHITE HOTEL – 27/11/2025

As TTSSFU hit Salford’s White Hotel with their scuzzed up dream pop and dark basslines, Mat Coffey was down the front capturing the action. Here is the night in pictures, the last two shots being of support acts Lonnie Gunn and Maximillian Tanner respectively.
There are many ways people get excited for a gig, for some it may be that first step into the venue and seeing the stage, for others maybe waking up on the day knowing there is a gig that night, for me, however, it was when a pair of luminous foam earplugs were plonked in […]

LIVE REVIEW – MY BLOODY VALENTINE: AVIVA STUDIOS – 24/11/2025