One-line gig reviews for August 2026
This month featuring, among others: my over-excited Gary Numan nostalgia, Nik Kershaw’s possibly menopause-inducing audience, potentially generational talent Love Spells at the lovely but endangered Moth Club and Jarvis Cocker teasing the end of Pulp. Marc Almond, Crystal Palace Bowl,…
Come and see my electronica ghost stories live!
It has been a while since the last m-orchestra shows, but I shall be breaking my 2026 duck at Ye Olde Rose & Crown Theatre Pub on Hoe Street in Walthamstow over the August Bank Holiday weekend, as part of…
One-line gig reviews for July 2026
Gosh. I went to a lot of gigs in July, including a three-day residency at Alexandra Palace wearing all the hats that annoy my partner with impunity, a gull supervising a legend in Margate, and Kylie Minogue showing up with…
A one-line review of everything I saw on my Once In a Lifetime day at Latitude 2026
I was struck by a sudden fear of never seeing David Byrne play songs by Talking Heads again, and so made an ill-advised last-minute Twickets purchase to go to the Latitude Festival for the day on the Friday. It was…
The ghost in the spam folder: Remembering Mark Smith
A strange thing happened to me a little while ago. I was waiting for a verification code for a 2FA login, and it hadn’t arrived, so by chance I looked in the spam folder of my work email. About ten…
One-line gig reviews for June 2026
I know, I know — it is mid-July and I am fashionably late with June’s gig reviews, but it turns out when you spend the entire month running around venues across the country, it takes a moment to recover. This…
One-line gig reviews for May 2026
In this month’s round-up: Why sitting in the front row for Milton Jones is a high-risk health hazard, the unexpected joy of reconnecting with Super Furry Animals in a brutally sweltering O2 Academy Brixton, and how a post-pub wait for…
Oh Vienna! My first Eurovision adventure
My view from Vienna of Eurovision 2026 – where technical brilliance and a beautiful city met the ugly reality of 21st-century geopolitics. I’ve spent the last few days in Vienna where I was attending the Grand Final of the Eurovision…
One-line gig reviews for (mostly) April 2026
This month featuring: a wodge of 80s nostalgia, a trip to Manchester to see one of my very favourites, and a last minute chance to see one of the rarest shows in town. Princess Julia, Electric Ballroom, Camden, 7 Apr – It…
One-line gig reviews for March 2026
This month wasn’t about big-ticket gigs so much as a run of slightly odd nights out – you probably aren’t expecting gig reviews that reference accidentally going on a yoga retreat, the phrase “I fucked his sister”, being “prissy about…