Status Quo are a much better band than people think
Some years ago a concert promoter called Alan Day explained to me how he had revived the touring fortunes of…
Ian McCulloch’s still got it
No one ever joined a rock band because they didn’t want to be recognised. Being adored matters to stars, sometimes…
What a great band Geese are
It’s a measure of Geese’s rise – their flight? – that, on Thursday night, the social media accounts of End…
Festivals are destroying London’s great parks
You could have been forgiven for mistaking Hackney for the site of an El Alamein reunion the other Sunday. Victoria…
The joy of Toto’s ‘Africa’
There comes a point in most bands’ lives at which their appeal has become too selective for them to sell…
The court music of the ruling class
It would be difficult to do certain shows in the courtyard of Somerset House. One can’t really host anything too…
Wet Leg have become a proper rock band
Everyone uses the word ‘indie’ to describe a style of music. And Pulp and Wet Leg are two bands that…
The slipperiness of Harry Styles
For the first time at a gig, I spent much of Harry Styles’s show thinking about the maths. He’s cunningly…
Meet the last original punk still playing punk
It’s 50 years since an assortment of scruffy youths from the leafy suburb of Bromley, the grimy streets of Finsbury…
The liberating delights of Aldous Harding
The first thing I did after getting home from the Barbican the other week was google ‘Aldous Harding neurodivergent’. It…
The appeal of doom, stoner and sludge metal
It was odd, walking around Camden Town during Desertfest – the annual weekend-long celebration of doom, stoner and sludge metal…
Rosalia’s O2 show was a landmark concert
If Olivia Dean is the girl next door, Rosalia is the girl next planet. Their shows in successive weeks at…
Big Thief is this generation’s R.E.M.
By the time Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief was born in 1991, Kim Gordon had already released seven albums with…
The joy of Belle and Sebastian
Do Belle and Sebastian have the most polite audience in pop? Normally when a pop singer leaves the stage to…
It’s time to redefine what we mean by classic rock
Classic rock used to be an American radio genre made up of bluesy guitar bands from the past. It spawned…
The alluring mess of CMAT
The last time I saw CMAT – Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – was in the middle of a grey afternoon at…
Flexible and imaginative: Wednesday at the Roundhouse reviewed
How is it that two things that are fundamentally the same can be completely different? Two bands, each harking back…
John Mulhaney at his best is unstoppable
John Mulaney appeared to be just another of those identical, slick, clean-cut, young comedians in suits until Covid. But all…
Electrifying: Annie & the Caldwells, at Ronnie Scott’s, reviewed
Annie & the Caldwells are a long-running family gospel ensemble from West Point, Mississippi – father and sons playing guitar,…
Why I will always have time for Bernard Butler
Bernard Butler has popped up a couple of times in this column, but not alone – once, with two fellow…
Johnny Rotten’s still got it
Robert Plant and John Lydon were fixed in the public mind at the age of 20. Plant, a golden-haired lad…
What links Jeffrey Dahmer to the Spice Girls?
The path that links the Spice Girls to Jeffrey Dahmer – necrophile mass murderer of at least 17 men –…
Thom Yorke reminds me of David Brent: Radiohead reviewed
There were times watching Radiohead’s first UK show for seven years when Ricky Gervais came to mind. As Thom Yorke…
The rise of psychedelia
On YouTube – and I urge you to look it up – there is a magnificent piece of footage from…
No band should play Ally Pally
The last time Gillian Welch and David Rawlings played in London it was a different world: the world of David…
