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…
One-line gig reviews for January and February 2026
This month featuring, among others: Suede x 2, The Umlauts, Maxïmo Park and Kaiser Chiefs, plus a bit of theatre from Inside No. 9 and the Double R Club – and the moment I was absolutely done with The Wolfgang…
A one-line review of every gig I’ve been to in December 2025
This month featuring, among others, Stereolab, The Last Dinner Party, and not quite Blur. A Certain Ratio: Tribeca and ACR:NYC 1980, Trades Hall, Walthamstow, 1 December – A double bill of films which will be the closest I ever get to seeing…