A one-line review of every gig I’ve been to in October 2024

This monthly series is probably more for my benefit than yours, but maybe your interest will be piqued by one of the reviews. Maybe you’ll scroll straight past. Maybe you’ll unsubscribe thinking what did I see in this blog in the first place? You can find all of my one-line gig reviews here.

Enjoyable Listens, The Jericho, Oxford, 1 Oct – Not quite sure how to describe this, half-way between stand-up and a music act. Repartee? I only caught the last couple of bits but it was indeed enjoyable.

[Enjoyable Listens at The Jericho, Oxford]

Desperate Journalist, The Jericho, Oxford, 1 Oct – Insert here my usual moan from previous reviews that they are “the most under-rated band of the last few years”, “the best kept indie secret in the UK” and “criminally under-rated”. They should and deserve to be massive and be playing much larger venues.

[Desperate Journalist at The Jericho, Oxford]

Miranda Lee Richards, O2 Forum, Kentish Town, 3 Oct – Country-ish singer-songwriter stuff that was nice enough but didn’t wow me.

[Miranda Lee Richards at Kentish Town]

The Dandy Warhols, O2 Forum, Kentish Town, 3 Oct – Much like the Charlatans, every time I see them, I come away thinking “Wow, I like this band much more than I remember, even the stuff I didn’t recognise sounds good, I should listen to their albums more often, and they are great live” and then I forget and get surprised again a couple of years later. An absolutely brilliant racket from them.

[Dandy Warhols at Kentish Town]

Miki Berenyi Trio, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 4 Oct – I’ve mentioned before, when I see Miki Berenyi, I’m the one weirdo in the audience who knows the Piroshka stuff better than I remember Lush.

[Miki Berenyi Trio at Shepherd’s Bush]

Wedding Present, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 4 Oct – In the nicest way possible the audience were very The League of Bald-Headed Men. Despite the high average age of the crowd Dave Gedge and company still whipped up a moshpit with a run through the whole of the Bizarro album, plus some other choice tunes.

[The Wedding Present at Shepherd’s Bush]

Nik Kershaw, Cambridge Junction, Cambridge, 8 Oct – Bless Nik Kershaw, who is incredibly self-effacing, and who effectively (apart from the encore) sacked off everything he’s written and recorded in the last forty years by touring the two hit albums Human Racing and The Riddle which both came out in 1984, when I was 12/13, and it turned out I was still word prefect on them. Really lovely evening, peppered with lines like “This is a song I chose to write about a city I’d never visited. What a twat”, and “Who wants to hear something that reached No 26 in the singles charts in 1985?”

[Nik Kershaw at Cambridge Junction]

Grok, Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, 13 Oct – This was a live semi-improvised soundtrack to a screening of the silent John S Robertson directed 1920 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and I was rather more taken with the music, which was sort of Explosions In The Sky / Godspeed You! Black Emperor / Mogwai post-space-rock adjacent, than the film itself.

[Grok at Walthamstow Trades Hall]

The Last Dinner Party, Corn Exchange, Cambridge, 14 Oct – As I may have mentioned before, I do feel personally attacked by someone coming up with the premise “So it’s five posh women who look like haunted Victorian dolls in lingerie making music that sounds like Sparks” to extract cash specifically from me, but here we all are. They absolutely killed it, stagecraft is amazing, Abigail’s voice incredible, and it is always brilliant to see bands at this stage of their career where they basically play the whole of a cracking debut album, three unreleased tracks that are presumably the singles off the next one, and one rando cover version.

[No pics cos I already felt enough of a weirdo creepy loner solo older man at TLDP without whipping my phone out for snapshots]

The Last Dinner Party, Eventim Apollo, London, 17 Oct – When TLDP first announced their tour, I couldn’t go to the London date, hence heading to Cambridge. But when they released extra tickets for the extra London date, I figured I would have either enjoyed them enough earlier in the week that I would want to see them again, or that it would be easy enough to shift the ticket nearer the time. Obviously I went again.

Melanie Baker, Assembly Hall, Islington, 18 Oct – Fairly straight-down-the-line indie singer-songwriter stuff but greatly enhanced by the fact that she was really personable between songs and her band were clearly having an ABSOLUTE BLAST playing live. Marred a bit by two blokes in front of me yammering all the way through it – as Maxïmo Park nearly said: “We used to talk over girls who play guitars etc etc”.

[Melanie Baker’s band having a blast (left) during her (right) set]

Maxïmo Park, Assembly Hall, Islington, 18 Oct – An odd one this. They came out when I was living in Greece and so not going to gigs much, and I remember liking their first two albums but not really noticing them in the many years since. Recent single Quiz Show Clue popped up on my Spotify and I loved it, and thought, I should go and see them. And then no offence lads, I was dumbfounded they had sold out two nights at Islington Assembly Hall after all this time, and went from not having thought about them for years to obsessively hitting refresh on Twickets until I could get in. I thought I might have seen them on a festival bill back in the day, but maybe not, as I was expecting a taut monochrome three-piece and instead got the charismatic showmanship of Paul Smith. Absolutely loved it, I should have been going to their gigs for years, and imagine I will now go to many, many more.

[The constantly moving Paul Smith of Maxïmo Park at Assembly Hall, Islington]

Purrses, The Windmill, Brixton, 24 Oct – They sounded like they had unearthed a cache of 1981 demos by Pylon or Lene Lovich, which is no bad thing in my book, and had one particularly great slowburn downtempo number of a track with some searing guitar all through it.

[Purrses at the Windmill, Brixton]

Red Ivory, The Windmill, Brixton, 24 Oct – So it is not just police officers, I’ve now got to the point where bands look like they are all aged 12 and would struggle to get served in a pub. I initially thought they sounded like a rockier Throwing Muses, but then it gradually got weirder and more prog, and was a very commendable noise.

[Red Ivory, possibly bunking off school, at the Windmill, Brixton]

Modern Woman, The Windmill, Brixton, 24 Oct – I love this band so much though every time I see them I feel like they’ve added either an extra member or another 17 instruments. It is kind of weird twisted narrative stuff that reminds me of the Birthday Party and early Nick Cave except with female vocals that veer between frantic and angelic.

[Modern Woman at the Windmill, Brixton]

Night In Athens, Buzz Kill, Belgrado, PC World, Death Drive and Cold Cave, O2 Forum, Kentish Town, 27 Oct – Sadly this got cancelled cos it looked like a cracking way to spend a Sunday afternoon and evening.

Chelsea Wolfe, Koko, Camden, 29 Oct – I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve had tickets to see her, but the first time events didn’t conspire against me actually attending. I was slightly worried in advanced it might be a bit flat and laptop-driven but her band had real power to bring home the dynamics on her recent songs, and her voice was great. Also people who talk all the way through gigs that have lots of quiet bits need to be kicked repeatedly in the b■■■■cks until they f■■■ o■■ and d■■.

[Chelsea Wolfe at Koko, Camden]

Find all of my one-line gig reviews, not all of which include complaints about talking, here.