In these times of demands for instant musical gratification, and single track downloads apparently supplanting the album, success sometimes comes to those bands that demand more than just a fleeting listen. Austria’s Mind.In.A.Box are one such band.
I’ve been following Blindness for a while now, and having picked up their debut EP a long while ago now (and promptly putting it in my best of 2010), seen them live once last year, I’m now making more of a concerted effort to see them live again – and this was the first opportunity […]
During 2011 I saw an awful lot of live sets. At a rough count, around about 125 (including supports and festivals) – and I saw a few bands more than once, in particular Front 242, who I saw four times in four different countries. Like the albums list, a few that might have made it […]
There are times when I wonder exactly how and why the support bands are picked for a live show, and this was most certainly one of those. On occasions, an eclectic bill can work, surprise and enthrall a crowd, other times it just becomes a real frustration. We missed Global Citizen this time around (mainly […]
So for one final flourish this year, in a year where I have attended more gigs and seen more bands than I have done in a long, long time, I headed outside of the UK once again, this time for a weekend visit to Antwerp for the two-day, tenth-anniversary of BIMFest. Despite a grim and […]
It has been a while since I travelled this far for a gig in the UK. Let me explain: I love Front 242. And given the news that old friends of mine in Je$us Loves Amerika were announced as the support act for this Glasgow show, it was not a difficult decision to head north […]
I’m all for an interesting multi-band line-up when it comes to going to a gig. I love discovering a new band in a support slot, and then going and tracking down their recorded material. It is, after all, what support slots are there for – to give newer, or up-and-coming bands, a push. But when […]
I got into The Twilight Sad thanks to a chance link from my girlfriend, who having read about them suggested they might be “up my street”. She wasn’t wrong, either, and a couple of years later, I finally got my chance on Monday night to see whether they lived up to their live reputation, and […]
A bit of a late start for me on this one – my third gig attended in a week – and as a result I missed the first two support bands, and indeed only just got into the venue in time to see most of the Global Citizen set. I’ve heard a few positive things […]
Another week, another gig. I’m currently in the middle of a long run of shows to attend, that lasts until somewhere in mid-December. Indeed this year (2011) I’ve seen more bands in one year than I have in a long time. I’ve seen some poor shows, some OK shows, and some very good ones – […]
So, the looking backward in 2011 continues. I’ve said enough about that already, right? Let us talk about the headline band instead then, eh? Well, I also have to confess that I totally missed support band RSJ – but then, apparently they’ve been around for a while, and I’ve never come across them before. Maybe […]
After their first two albums and an EP, and seeing a live show that was so loud and intense that it felt like the back wall was going to be blown at points, W.A.S.T.E. are back to sear your eardrums once again. And you have to wonder exactly what they can do next: almost like […]
It has been a while since the last ADR album – I reviewed the gloriously chaotic mash-up of styles that was The Giants From Far Away a couple of months short of three years ago now, and have been looking forward to new material for some time.
In quite fabulous timing for this review, there was an intriguing article in the Guardian’s music section yesterday entitled When Bands Fall Off Cliffs. Ostensibly about how some bands find massive success and then the next release sees their fanbase simply fall away – and there were some pretty sobering and unexpected examples in the […]
2011 will go down as the year of nostalgia more than any other, I suspect. I’ve lost count of how many returning bands, re-issues, retrospectives and the like that I’ve seen…and while it probably isn’t doing a great deal for the future of the music industry, going on the numbers it must be helping the […]
When Left Spine Down first burst on the scene – the first track I heard was the blistering U Can’t Stop The Bomb, as I recall, and it was certainly among the best tracks of 2008 – they seemed like an awesome idea. Like someone had finally, after some years of trying, understood the idea […]
I seem to be playing catchup with a number of bands nowadays. Insofar as having missed them live in the past, I’m now taking every opportunity possible to see some of my favourite bands, even as they edge into perhaps the later stages of their career.
Mika Goedrijk’s This Morn’ Omina have been plugging something of a lonely trail for many years now – fifteen, in fact. And with them now being long-time members of the Ant-Zen roster, it has to be said that even there they stand out. While many acts on the label are often harsh, noisy acts – […]
There is hype, and there is genuine excitement about some bands. And it is fair to say that it is often difficult to tell which is which without making the effort to find out for yourself.
Like so many Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls fans, I’m no stranger to seeing her live – this was my fifth time (one Dresden Dolls show, two full AFP shows, and two “ninja” gigs), with a sixth time coming on Monday in the unusual settings of the British Library. But all of the previous shows I’ve seen, […]
