Eventim Apollo
Veronica Lee
Many of the audience for An Evening with Noel Fielding were still in nappies when the comic first plied his trade as one half of The Mighty Boosh with Julian Barrett, which started life on the Edinburgh Fringe in the late 1990s and quickly became a cult hit.But since Howard Moon and Vince Noir have been put into mothballs, Noel Fielding has forged a career as an actor (The IT Crowd), television host (Never Mind the Buzzcocks), and the creator of several outlandish characters in various solo TV projects, most recently Luxury Comedy.In his new show – Fielding's first major live outing as a Read more ...
bruce.dessau
There was a point about two-thirds of the way through last night's gig when someone lobbed something onto the stage in front of Mick Hucknall. It was not clear exactly what it was due to the sea of dancing mums in front of me, but my strong suspicion is that it was something made of lace and worn below the waist judging by Hucknall's bemused declaration: "That's Tom Jones's department."The funny thing is that Tom Jones had been on my mind a lot during Hucknall's set, and not just after the low-flying knickers. Last year Jones came to Hammersmith as part of a Blues Festival but his devoted Read more ...
Russ Coffey
At the end of 2007 Led Zep’s reunion concert took “hottest ticket in town” to melting point. Everyone now knows 20 million fans chased 18,000 seats at the O2. What we hear less about is, given previous disastrous reunion efforts, how hard the pressure was on. And yet they pulled it off. Five years later people have still been asking for a tour. Earlier this week, however, the band categorically stated they’ve called it a day. Instead they’re releasing a film of their last concert. Last night, at Hammersmith Apollo, Celebration Day got its British premiere.After 20 minutes' delay, the Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Now I think I've seen it all. After a storming two-hour set Ultravox returned to the stage for a celebratory twin-pronged past-meets-present encore of "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" and "Contact". At the very end, during a touching, soft-spoken moment, a female fan in an animal mask clambered onstage and appeared to drop a bowl of greeny-yellow gunk, possibly custard, on Midge Ure's head. The woman was bundled off and a towel cleaned up the dapper vocalist, but the crude incident was in breathtakingly stark contrast to the glistening gig that had preceded it.Ultravox was always an intriguing Read more ...
Russ Coffey
In the summer of ’86, The Cult’s Ian Astbury invited The Mission on tour with them. Mission main man, Wayne Hussey, had recently fled the role of guitarist in The Sisters of Mercy to lead his own band. Goth fans had high hopes for them. Some thought they would eventually become bigger than the Cult. Over the next few years, though, both career paths defied expectations.The Cult became a stadium-metal act, and The Mission gradually drifted into making good albums that few listened to. But the Cult’s success was not to last. A row in 1995 saw them go their separate ways. Doldrums and solo Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It seems almost a lifetime since Tom Jones was a man in very tight clothes who did well in the clubs of Las Vegas. After the fallow years, his 1988 cover of Prince’s “Kiss” kick-started a tongue-in-cheek rehabilitation period that lasted a decade, right up to the unforgettable “whoowauh!” of “Sex Bomb”. But what happened next surprised everyone. Jones started to relearn his craft. And now, after the last two decidedly post-ironic albums, the question remains, has “Jones the Voice” really become a genuinely credible artist?The organisers of the 2012 Blues Fest series certainly felt so. And Read more ...
Russ Coffey
This may be the Thick as a Brick 2 tour, but it’s also the 44th year of Ian Anderson’s performing career, mainly as Jethro Tull's front man. In that role he's variously been a bluesman, a rocker and a folkie.1972's Thick as a Brick was dubbed a "progressive rock satire". Tongue-in-cheek as it might have been, it was also 100 percent prog. Yet, like much of Tull’s back catalogue, it continues to influence a new generation. The question the crowd at Hammersmith were asking last night was this: at 64, could Anderson still pull it off?The answer in part is given by the new album. Here Anderson Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Unlike his old buddy, Phil Collins, who now claims to be considered the “Antichrist of Music”, public consensus on Sting seems elusive. His popularity in the States has never wavered, but back home, it’s difficult to tell if the "tantric" one is generally considered to be something better or worse than a guilty pleasure. Last night, however, Sting was not suffering from any self-doubt. Nor lack of stamina. It was two and a quarter hours of flat-out “back to basics”. Or "Back to Bass", as he’s called this tour.The stage was bare save for a drum kit, some cables and five mic stands. It was Read more ...
ash.smyth
I spent a fair chunk of last Sunday evening at Douglas Adams' 60th birthday party. This was a bit of a curve ball, not only because I'd never met the author of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - but also because he's been dead for nearly 11 years. But there he was, all the same, selling out the Hammersmith Apollo with a little help from Stephen Fry, Clive James, Jon Culshaw, a couple of thousand nerds in dressing gowns, and a posse of dancing rhinoceroses.The Supreme Hitch-Hiker, author of a five-part trilogy (now six-) and creator of Dirk Gently, was by all acounts a classic Read more ...
Veronica Lee
In an age when comics are doing shows with theatrical content or presented with a degree of technological sophistication, and they appear on stage expensively coiffed and suited, it's refreshing to spend an evening in Sarah Millican's company, whose show at times feels like we're having a chat over the garden wall. It's also pleasing that someone who just a few years ago was a jobbing club comic is now enjoying the sort of success her talent so richly deserves. I saw her latest show, Thoroughly Modern Millican, at the huge Hammersmith Apollo but I suspect that arena gigs can't be far behind, Read more ...
Russ Coffey
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. So when support act Kathleen Edwards announced last night that Bon Iver was “going to blow your panties off”, I was, frankly, sceptical. Boy, was I wrong.I doubt there’s ever been an album that’s evolved so Read more ...
matilda.battersby
Fresh from a fortnight of disappointments, Adele showed she was back on top form in London this evening. Having missed out on the Mercury Music Prize and cancelled a string of dates on her nationwide tour suffering from a chest infection, today heralded better things for the Tottenham-born warbler after she was nominated for three MTV music awards. Not that a bit of sadness is a bad thing for this pair of lungs, mind. Her albums 21 and 19, sung lustily in an emotively crackling contralto, has earned the 23-year-old a reputation for depth and maturity well beyond her years.Explaining that she’ Read more ...