Entries Categorized as 'Music reviews'

Live reviews published in Record Collector 2004 0nwards (small selection)

Date July 20, 2009

Delays
Southampton University
9 / 3 / 05
It’s lovely for the folk of Southampton to have a band to champion at last. Previously, they had to pretend to be proud of Craig David.
Warmed up by the gorgeous retro chic of Winchester’s Scarlet Soho, the crowd felt like one big family as the appropriate intro music of [...]

SXSW 2005

Date November 30, 1999

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 [...]

Mercury Rev – Bierkeller, Bristol

Date November 30, 1999

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 [...]

Athlete – Shepherds Bush Empire

Date November 30, 1999

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 song [...]

Jon Amor – Borderline, London

Date November 30, 1999

With the strength of interest in guitar rock at the moment, it’s a mystery why Jon Amor seems to have hit a plateau of popularity beyond which the public stubbornly refuses to move. Yet songs are pouring out of him like a jackpot from a fruit machine, and when the UK’s best live act hits [...]

Athlete – Shepherds Bush Empire, London

Date November 30, 1999

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 song [...]

PJ Harvey – Zodiac, Oxford

Date November 30, 1999

What would it be like? No one had any idea. Last time around, touring “Stories From The City”, Polly had assembled a pretty motley band which alienated many of her followers. Then, in Summer 2003, she hit the road with a classic 3-piece which really did the business. But now she’s gone and recorded an [...]

Grandaddy – Ancienne Belgique, Brussels

Date November 30, 1999

The aroma of joss sticks wafts out from the stage over the largely – um – relaxed audience. The set is adorned with stuffed crows sitting atop TV aerials. The weird pile of wheezing keyboards and effects gadgets which form Jason Lytle’s console sports a blackbird and a cat. The surreal backdrop cranks into action [...]

Spiritualized – Southampton University

Date November 30, 1999

This evening’s audience consisted mainly of extremely mature students who probably had finished their studies at least twenty years ago. I fear that today’s freshers have musical tastes which don’t include Spiritualized. But how happy all these gentlepersons were to discover beer at £1.60 a pint. “I’ll have a quadruple whisky”, said the guy next [...]

Flaming Lips – BIC, Bournemouth

Date November 30, 1999

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 [...]