Sparky electro-pop and dance were more dominant than folk at this year’s Bestival, but it’s a cheerful mish-mash where sensitive strumming acts are welcomed (as long as they’re not upset by a soft background thud of drum and bass, as King Creosote was). The Unthanks sang beautifully to a very appreciative crowd, accompanied by...
We’re stepping out of our comfort zone here, all of us. FFS is not used to attending gigs – no, wait, this is definitely a ‘concert’ – in venues like the magnificent 19th century Leeds Town Hall, and while the usually understated Unthanks might have expanded to a ten-piece recently they cannot be too...
If The Magic Numbers are a little too ‘shiny happy people’ for you, bassist Michele Stodart’s solo foray into country and blues territory is a far grittier prospect. We may be at the underpopulated, family-orientated Apple Cart festival (littler, more polite sister of previous day’s hipster festival, Field Day) but we could’ve stopped off...
During festival season in Edinburgh, anything goes. Oxford students ride stationary exercise bikes, leafleters dressed as Victorian gentlemen heckle passers-by and opera singers cover pop classics for loose change on street corners. Yet only meters beneath the chaos, in a dark, stony basement, Ben Howard saunters onstage looking refreshingly normal in jeans and a...
Central to the Royal Opera House’s opulent setting, three words oversee the gilded balconies and small red aisles. HOUSE OF RUFUS. They refer only in part to the similarly-titled nineteen-disc boxset Rufus Wainwright released earlier this month, but more than anything these words refer to the legacy that Wainwright has created for himself. That...
Sea of Bees, aka Julie Ann Bee, is a musical entity so adorable you want to cuddle her, but her haunting, elegiac melodies leave you in no doubt she's seen a bit of life - and boy has it hurt sometimes.
The ever-sweaty Brudenell Social Club played host to these knob-twiddling, bench-loving, bacon-lipped, monstrously talented Americans, and FFS had a good long look.
Seriously deft on the loop pedal, with the voice of a choirboy-turned-rockstar and a guitar that hasn’t left his side in years, it’s not hard to see why Ed Sheeran’s show at the Boileroom sold out in less than twenty-five minutes. It’s quite clear from the hours FFS spent in Sheeran’s presence that night...
Arcade Fire played a pleasing smattering of hits, the best for me being ‘Roccoco’ (lots of good ooh-ing from the crowd), ‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’, which made me a bit teary, ‘Haiti’, ‘Intervention’, ‘We Used To Wait’, ‘Keep The Car Running’ and ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’. The band have written so many good songs,...
“SPIN THE WHEEL!” No, we’re not in the audience for Wheel of Fortune, but the wheel is the key decision maker onstage with Yo La Tengo tonight. Needless to say, this tour is unlike any other, and even though the second half of the show sees the band playing a regular set, the first...
Recommended videos
your comments