A one-line review of every gig I’ve been to in July 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?

Honest Work, Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 4 Jul – A GIG ON GENERAL ELECTION NIGHT? I had been doing the live blog during the day from 7am til 3pm, and figured the best way to avoid spending the evening doomscrolling on my sofa when it was meant to be election downtime was to go and see some live music. Honest Word was a good name for this band, pretty straight down the line rock in the mould of The Cult/Stones/Dogs D’Amour/Black Crowes etc.

Honest Work at the Shackwell Arms

Rats-Tails, Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 4 Jul – 12-string and slide guitar, a bit of woodwind, and a touch of dreamy Stevie Nicks-ish Fleetwood Mac. Very nice.

Rats Tails at the Shackwell Arms

Lacuna Common, Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 4 Jul – I didn’t see these as I was already heading back for the exit poll, and then I was back on the election live blog at 6am on the Friday.

Absolute Nothing, Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, 11 Jul – Bowie/Manics adjacent doomy goth with strong vocals and the unexpected choice of covering Bowie’s final single, Lazarus.

Absolute Nothing at Walthamstow Trades Hall

Flesh Tetris, Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, 11 Jul – Great energy and would make a good choice if you wanted to pick a wig-out weirdo Eurovision entry. One song was about donkey sex in Barcelona and another was titled “Jailbait Sexpest Infestation”. It was that kind of show.

Flesh Tetris at Walthamstow Trades Hall

Moth Slut, Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, 11 Jul – A witchy duo who got the crowd going with an excellent facsimile of how they might have sounded exactly the same if it was 1987. Very enjoyable, not sure about the name though.

Moth Slut at Walthamstow Trades Hall

So I bought a ticket to see Kylie at Hyde Park when she was the only thing announced on the bill, as I’ve never seen her before and it’s Kylie, right? Then I felt incredibly old when the rest of the bill was announced and I did not recognise a single name on it. So I just tried to treat it as a nice relaxed day out with cocktails, seeing some things I would never normally see, and enjoy Kylie at the end of it.

Altégo, Hyde Park, London, 13 Jul – It was the day before the Euro 2024 final and they opened with Three Lions and then it was thirty minutes of 90s/2000s stuff mashed up, and most of it such well known samples that even I recognised them. Got the crowd going but was kind of like Jive Bunny for the 2024 masses?

Fred Roberts, Hyde Park, London, 13 Jul – Pleasant enough Tik Tok-adjacent indie-pop with bonus Kylie t-shirt

Fred Roberts at Hyde Park, London

It was nice to be at this kind of event without trying to get to see all of the bands on all of the stages and having to plan everything like a military operation, so I must confess there were some sections where I just was happily wandering around with my noise-cancelling headphones on playing Pokémon Go like an absolute dweeb.

There were two girl bands on one of the small stages, both of whom were great fun. Say Now had a viral moment last year when they were called needanamebro, and they had a bit of an All Saints vibe to them.

Say Now at Hyde Park, London

Blusher are from Australia and had a more chaotic Bananarama energy – including suddenly deploying a loudhailer, and their song Accelerator is an absolute bop. Both of these bands also gave a very knowing wink to the likely age of the audience by either doing Kylie or Britney covers, and because it was on the tiny stage I got to speak to members of both bands afterwards to say how much I had enjoyed it.

Blusher at Hyde Park, London

Kylie, Hyde Park, London, 13 Jul – It was just banger after banger after banger and being surrounded by a lot of middle-aged women all singing along heartily to Tension – “Oh my God, touch me right there. Almost there, touch me right there” – was quite the experience.

It’s only goddam Kylie fuckin’ Minogue

I am still slightly regretting not investing £95 in a Kylie jumpsuit.

The Overproofs, Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, 14 Jul – Caught about 15 minutes of this fun ska/reggae outfit before a chaotic changeover to the big screen for the football where the men did not bring it home.

The Overproofs at Walthamstow Trades Hall, London

Expiry at the George Tavern, Stepney Green

Expiry, George Tavern, Stepney Green, 15 Jul – I benefitted from England’s steely-eyed penalties against Switzerland because this gig got moved to avoid the ensuing semi-final and so I could go. And just like watching football, sometimes you end up fixated on one player and I was fascinated watching the six-string bassist in this band, who sounded like the kind of jangly indie songwriting John Peel might have chucked a session at in 1986.

Expiry’s bassist at the George Tavern, Stepney Green

Modern Woman, George Tavern, Stepney Green, 15 Jul – I’ve seen them twice before, and really, really rate them, and they did not disappoint. Like a catherine-wheeling Birthday Party or Crime & The City Solution, plus, as I’ve mentioned before, part of their set-up is a table that contains about 1,057 instruments, many of which seemed to get played at the same time.

Modern Woman at the George Tavern, Stepney Green

Manic Street Preachers and then Suede, Alexandra Palace, London, 18 Jul – Of course I was at this, of course it was amazing, and of course I cried.

Alien Chicks, Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 22 Jul – Is prog-punk a genre? Very choppy and loud and shouty with a lot of time/speed changes.

Alien Chicks at the Shacklewell Arms, Dalston

Deep Tan, Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 22 Jul – I embarrassed myself the other week by bumping into the singer from Deep Tan, and saying “Oh, aren’t you the singer of $insert_band_name?” where $insert_band_name was not Deep Tan. I’ve seen them a few times now and always enjoy them, again like with Expiry earlier in the month, getting slightly obsessed with the bass-playing.

Deep Tan at the Shacklewell Arms, Dalston

Pet Shop Boys, Royal Opera House for One Squillion Pounds, 25 Jul – No bass player here. The eagle-eyed among you will spot that I have already seen this show at the O2 Arena, the Electric Ballroom in Camden, and at the M&S Arena in Liverpool and once on the tellybox from Glastonbury and once at the cinema, but it would have been churlish not to go and see it again at the Royal Opera House, even if I did have to re-mortgage my flat to pay for it.

It was a slightly different show, with a smattering of singles from their latest and 15th album Nonetheless – including Dancing Star, which is appropriately enough dedicated to and about Rudolf Nureyev. There was an extra dancing troupe for some songs compared to when I’d seen the tour before, it was a lovely (if labyrinthine) venue to see them in, with crystal clear loud sound and an enthusiastic audience, much more intimate than an arena.

Pet Shop Boys at the Royal Opera House, London

I did see them at the same venue in 2016, when they were promoting Super and time marches on. I find myself increasingly affected by the ability of bands I have loved for a long time to play classics hits with lip-synched original videos in the background. Pet Shop Boys did this for Rent, Heart and most of all West End Girls. 70-year-old Neil Tennant and 64-year-old Chris Lowe up on stage with 52-year-old Martin in the not-so-cheap seats, all of us maybe wondering about where the last four decades went. From Lake Geneva to the Finland station, how far have you been?

Pet Shop Boys performing West End Girls at the Royal Opera House, London