LIVE: MGMT – 26/09/2010

– APOLLO THEATRE, MANCHESTER – Midway through ‘The Handshake’ a beer sails through the air and hits the drummer on the head. He glances over his shoulder, sticks his middle finger up at the unattentive, bored audience and, like the consummate professional he is, finishes the track. After which he again sticks his middle finger […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Managing to ram so many people into such a small space you can see how The Vaselines got their name (wince). Just on the off chance that there was any call for yet another petroleum jelly related pun when discussing the Glaswegian outfit… The Vaselines, Eugene Kelly and Frances […]

LIVE: THE VASELINES – 23/09/2010

LIVE: WILLY MASON – 21/09/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The first time Willy Mason toured the UK, he was a fresh-faced 19 year-old from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Armed only with a guitar and a small rucksack of clothes, he slept on floors and sold roughly-mixed demos of stripped-down, Dylan-esque odes to politics, society and the love of a […]
– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – There’s a Ziggy Stardust moment at tonight’s concert, about half way through. Liam Frost – who seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself on stage -suddenly says, between songs: “this is the last time I’m going to be singing these songs and doing this for a while”. I pretty much spit […]

LIVE: LIAM FROST – 20/09/2010

LIVE: RAGHU DIXIT – 19/09/2010

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – As I wander through the half-filled, refurbished environs of The Band on the Wall, I gaze up at the Indian dropout, hippies onstage who seem to have been sent here through a time warp from the 1960s (via the 1980s). Decked in washed out, bleeding baggy clothes, string […]
‘Mona Lisa’ is the first single from Dinosaur Pile-up’s forthcoming debut album, Growing Pains.  The Leeds three-piece makes no qualms about their love of the Foo Fighters, and this single certainly makes a fitting tribute. From the get-go there’s a pervading US, 90s feel; the late 90s particularly, where grunge metamorphosed into jock-rock.  And like […]

SINGLE: Dinosaur Pile-Up – Mona Lisa

LIVE: JOANNA NEWSOM & ROY HARPER – 18/09/2010

– THE PALACE THEATRE, MANCHESTER – It’s hard to believe that the Saruman lookalike in the floral shirt in front of me is the same Roy Haper Led Zeppelin wrote a song for called ‘Hats Off to (Roy) Harper’, who sang on Pink Floyd’s ‘Have a Cigar’, and who reportedly inspired Kate Bush, Pete Townsend […]
– MOHO LIVE, MANCHESTER – While the probability of a full-blown glam revival is close to nil, the world will always clear a space in its diary for a balls-out good time. The difference with Reckless Love is that rather than simply exhuming crudeness, tonight’s party-loving Finns call on a wide range of 80s rock […]

LIVE: RECKLESS LOVE – 18/09/2010

LIVE: SKY LARKIN/DUTCH UNCLES/MILK MAID – 16/09/2010

– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – If the Night & Day was a boat it would have capsized by now, such is the weight of people at the back of the room scrambling to get out of the way of Milk Maid. Being hardy souls here at Silent Radio, though, we glide towards the […]
– ACADEMY 3, MANCHESTER – Black Mountain are about to blow my brain out the back of my head and then reassemble it differently, like some epiphanous trip that I will never understand. Afterwards I will see that they have the wisdom of the gods. For reasons unbeknown to me, the band skulk past the […]

LIVE: BLACK MOUNTAIN – 15/09/2010