New Music Reviews
Britney Spears, O2 ArenaSaturday, 29 October 2011
It’s a long time since I laughed during a show as much as I did in this one. And not, I hasten to add, in a snarky, narky, sarky way, but simply because it was fun. In another illustration of just how deeply competitive the business of the arena pop show has become, Britney Spears’s Femme Fatale tour is a formidable song-and-dance spectacle, with a full complement of dancers and hydraulics and epic visuals, and one that also features some damn fine music. Read more...
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An Audience With Barry Manilow, ITV1Friday, 28 October 2011
This wasn’t going to offer any surprises. Bernadette Nolan, Lulu and Stacey Solomon would deliver the questions they’d rehearsed. Manilow would respond, then deliver the relevant song. He’s a charmer, and you’d have to be made of lead not to be lifted by some of his songs. But he didn’t need this audience and format. The interaction added nothing. His fantasticness doesn't need restating. Read more... |
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Usher Hall, EdinburghFriday, 28 October 2011
Noel Gallagher is hardly renowned for his willingness to stand on the precipice and leap into the unknown. A songwriter happy to work well within his own limitations, he has embarked upon his solo career (don’t be fooled by the “High Flying Birds” shtick; this is a star-plus-hired-hands job) with due caution. Read more... |
Tinariwen, KokoThursday, 27 October 2011
An aura of mystique surrounds Tinariwen. The members of this group’s shifting line-up are from the Tuareg people, nomadic Berbers of the North African desert regions, and several have taken part in armed Tuareg rebellions in the past. Read more... |
WHY?, Duke of York's Picture House, BrightonWednesday, 26 October 2011
Ah, the Duke of York’s Picture House, the oldest consistently operating purpose-built cinema in the country. It’s a beautiful venue, just over a century old, and almost too comfortable. It’s been jazzed up a few times over the decades and, tonight, bathed in red light, wears its history with lazy insouciance, merging it with the current interior design’s burlesque Art Deco spin. Read more... |
George Michael, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 26 October 2011
With the scheduled start time of last night's gig long gone and George Michael nowhere in sight, scurrilous jokes, gossip and unfounded rumours were floating around the Royal Albert Hall. We won't reprint them here but, needless to say, funny ciggies and Hampstead Heath were being mentioned. Read more... |
Bon Iver, Hammersmith ApolloMonday, 24 October 2011
Not only could Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon not have planned the success of his first album; if he’d known he probably wouldn’t have wanted it. The fragile bucolic sound he produced in his Wisconsin cabin became so iconic it must have been impossible to know where to go. After the next record came out some complained that it sounded just like the first album only played on a Casio keyboard. Read more... |
Glen Campbell, Royal Festival HallSunday, 23 October 2011
The anticipation of Glen Campbell’s valedictory concerts has gone far beyond the goodbye to his music. It’s involved a reflection on his entire life. The sugar-throated cowboy with film-star looks and ballads as epic as daybreak in Arkansas has lived life like a great American novel. One of 12 children of a sharecropper, he went on to play the guitar with The Beach Boys, act with John Wayne, marry four times, and count Ronald Reagan as his friend. Read more... |
Feist, London PalladiumTuesday, 18 October 2011
A good measure of the passion felt for an act is how much of their crowd dresses like them. And though Leslie Feist is hardly Lady Gaga in the image stakes, it's gratifying that even in a rush to get to our seats I'm able to count at least five “Feist fringes” on audience members that I pass. It's a subtle tribute to a subtle artist, one who has come to major success without fanfare or grandstanding and attracts a discerning and knowledgeable fanbase. Read more... |
Fatoumata Diawara, Jazz CaféFriday, 14 October 2011
When I first saw this Malian singer-songwriter a few months ago at a showcase gig in a grimly carpeted basement bar in Clerkenwell it was hard to imagine a less appropriate space for such a regally beautiful woman to be found in. Yet within a couple of mantra-like songs she had conjured her own ambience, causing the tardy space to become irrelevant, at least until the last notes died away. Read more... |
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