Out of 2021 – Into 2022

I’m slightly more ahead of the game this year than last year, as this is my official follow-up to my ‘favourite things‘, favourite digital shows & favourite in-person shows posts; a round-up of 2021 and a glance ahead to 2022. The main thing dominating the blog in 2021 was motivation – or lack thereof. It’s […]

Stereophonics: Just Enough Education to Perform – 20th anniversary (Shepherd’s Bush Empire)

Stereophonics’ third album, Just Enough Education to Perform, was released on 11 April 2001 – and in August of the same year it found its way into my beginner’s CD collection. Therefore, when the announcement came that the band would be doing some relatively intimate shows in which they’d play the full album (an increasingly popular […]

Out of 2020 – Into 2021

I’ve ummed and ahhed over doing this sort of post, but (now the end of January is in sight) I’ve finally decided that I might as well follow up my ‘favourite things‘ post with a bit of a round-up – and some kind of look forward. One thing that I did manage was to get […]

2020: A few of my favourite things

I’m not going to have a go at anyone who has posted a list of their favourite things from 2020, or what they consider to be the best; we’re all dealing with the current situation in our own way, and for some people it’s easiest to carry on with as many ‘normal’ things as possible […]

#MindTheBand: Memorable gigs through time

As this week has ended up focusing mostly around albums (understandably, given the situation in which we find ourselves), I thought today was an opportune day to mix things up a bit. It’s #ThrowbackThursday – or #TBT – so what better moment to think back over my live gig experiences? Much of this dates […]

Kaiser Chiefs: Not Playing The Hits

One thing’s for certain: throughout this period of shutdown, Kaiser Chiefs have not been idle. If they haven’t been re-recording one of their most well-known songs with lockdown lyrics, they’ve been participating in listening parties and playing at Royal Albert Home. To top it all off, they’ve now performed a special gig which put the […]

The Wind + The Wave: livestream 1

I’ve been lucky enough to see The Wind + The Wave (Patty Lynn & Dwight Baker) in concert three times in just under a year: twice supporting Kelly Jones on his 2019 tour and once a few weeks ago, backed by a full band, supporting Stereophonics. They run their own podcast (The Dwight & Patty […]

Hurry up and wait…

One month ago today I was sat in a theatre for what I fully expected to be the last time for quite a while. SOLT had closed all of its theatres even as audiences were beginning to arrive; the United Kingdom government, when it eventually acknowledged we needed daily briefings, began doing them at any […]

The Script: Sunsets & Full Moons (O2 Arena)

Three Irishmen walk into the O2 Arena… No, this isn’t a setup for a terrible dad joke, but a description of my Saturday night! I’ve been trying to go to more gigs over the past couple of years, as music has been in my life a lot longer than theatre but I’ve managed to let […]

Seth Lakeman: A Pilgrim’s Tale (Southwark Cathedral)

Immigration continues to be a hot topic the world over, so it’s rather interesting to note that 2020 is the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower – an early example of Europeans migrating to America. It wasn’t as simple a process as you might have expected; a selection of the travellers had previously […]