Alabama Shakes Birmingham HMV Institute 11 May 2012 View: Squashed Alabama Shakes must be feeling strange right now. Just months after their UK debut in a London pub, here they found their show being upgraded from the Institute’s smallest room to its largest. With just the one Boys And Girls album and less than an [...]

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  This years’ NME tour is an entertaining set of contrasts but, with one notable exception, as derivative as hell. It was 2003′s equivalent of a package starring Smokie, Joy Division, The St Winifred’s School Choir and AC / DC. And oooh, how they’ll hate me for saying that. The Thrills are sadly-misnamed. Battling a [...]

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Isn’t it horrible when a band you view as your own personal property starts getting popular and you have to go and see them in barn-like conference centres? But the Flaming Lips, bless them, have been at it so bloody long and are just so plain loveable that you can forgive them and magnanimously allow [...]

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The Columbiahalle is in the old American sector of Berlin, just opposite the diplomatic and military buildings from where the Berlin airlift was launched. That’s why the Underground station next to it is called “Platz der Luftbrücke”. As we emerged from said station, anticipating a select and low-key evening with John Parish and his band, [...]

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In a country where Mercury Rev’s “The Dark Is Rising” has recently been adopted as the station ident of one of the leading TV channels, it’s perhaps not surprising that Doves are popular enough for their album “The Last Broadcast” to debut at number 1 in the charts and stay there. We Brits like a [...]

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Shivering at Stubbs on Wednesday evening, I was wondering whether the festival was peaking too soon, as the very first band on stage was so fantastic. The Hammond heaven of Detroit’s The Sights was like a 2005 take on The Nice. After guitarist Eddie Baranek had destroyed his own instrument, he disembowelled the Hammond as [...]

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Here’s a taste of the uniquely enjoyable madness that is South By Southwest. Every evening, all evening, at the Junction of Sixth and Trinity, a group of Christian evangelists try to convert the many thousands of sinners streaming past. As every building is shaking to the bone-shattering volume of punk bands, rock bands, metal bands, [...]

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Isn’t life cruel? No sooner have Grand Drive achieved their long-awaited critical breakthrough with “The Lights In This Town Are Too Many to Count”, than their drummer leaves them seriously in the lurch. They have to cancel their high profile showcases in favour of opening for Mercury Rev as an acoustic trio. Still, they are [...]

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If drums and wires rather than milk and honey in the Elysian fields is your idea of Heaven, then South By South West is the place for you. Comparisons are often made between SXSW and Glastonbury, but apart from evil toilet facilities, they don’t have much in common. In Austin, the 110 dollar wristband which [...]

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You know that feeling which overwhelms you occasionally, when whatever it is you’re experiencing is so perfect that you are desperate to preserve it in your memory forever? The words that come into your head are: “Oh, this is beautiful, I’ve got to soak it up”. So when Athlete display the genius to write a [...]

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