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ARCHIVED REVIEWS February 2009 Previews by Mike Davies Monday February 2 Fighting With Wire
A Derry alt-rock punk trio, they’ve been around in different configurations for some five years but finally seem to have settled on a line up to move them forward. As such, last year finally saw the release of debut album Man vs Monster parading their Fugazi, Weezer, Pixies and Soundgarden influences on the likes of Everyone Needs A Nemesis, My Armoury and Strength In Numbers. To tie in with the tour they’ve plucked Sugar (Smalltown America), one of the album’s more chorus friendly numbers, as the new single. 7.30pm. £5.87. Barfly
Tuesday February 3 Justin Townes Earle
Son of Steve, the voice may sometimes sound like dad but rather than drawled outlaw country rock with political bite the songs are mostly relationship based with the music firmly rooted in honky tonk, Western swing and the staple diet of the Grand Old Opry with readily apparent influences in Bob Bills, Ray Price, Hank Williams and, most especially, vintage Willie Nelson. He’s prolific too. Last year saw the release of The Good Life, a sterling debut that set out his stall with confidence and brio, cruising effortlessly through the jazzy swing of Hard Livin’, Hank-like honky tonk ironic waltzer The Good Life, Lone Pine Hill with dusty blues echoes of his Townes Van Zandt namesake, a reggae shaded South Georgia Sugar Babe, the Bakersfield flavours of What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome and the Willie colours in the steel keening Lonesome And You. All topped off with Who Am I To Say, a song about pills and booze that clearly nods to his father’s demons (which he had a good stab at experiencing too) as well as channelling his musical spirit. A year on, he arrives in town with the follow-up, Midnight At The Movies (Bloodshot) which may kick off with the unrepresentative title track’s world weary reverb-laced country lounge blues but otherwise gathers in another set of the timeless traditional country. Here’s the swing and whistling What I Mean To You, country blues They Killed John Henry with its tip of the hat to the evergreen standard, Black Eyed Suzy’s bluegrass shuffle, Halfway To Jackson’s harmonica blowing train rhythm rockabilly, the classic honky tonk of Poor Fool and a banjo plinking Dixieland styled Walk Out. Again the best cut harks to his family heritage on the reflective Mama’s Eyes while this time round he also throws in a cover, a mandolin driving version of Paul Westerberg’s Can’t Hardly Wait that suggests he’s no slouch at kicking up the dust in a live set as well as tugging the old time heart strings. With a future that should safely see him packing out major US country venues, the chance to catch him in such an intimate surround should definitely not be missed. 7.30pm. £10. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath Tuesday February 3 The Gaslight Anthem
Hailing from New Jersey and led by singer Brian Fallon, the four piece clearly have a big thing for fellow Jersey boy Springsteen. Living up to their name, new album The ’59 Sound (Side One Dummy) is bursting with swelling anthemic songs about blue collar American life but given a swaggering punkish energy in the manner of Hold Steady. Surging out of the traps with the paradoxical reflective sadness and bursting optimism that is Great Expectations, it shoots straight to the heart of everyman life with its soaring dreams, blunted hopes, desperate romances and the nuts and bolts of love, family, work, life and shouting at the moon. Death’s there on the title track as, riffs sparking, Fallon sings about car crashes and how ‘young boys, young girls ain’t supposed to die on a Saturday night, while cars, girls and highways stand tall for Old White Lincoln, the bittersweet wistful acoustic Here’s Looking At You Kid and triumphant closer The Backseat, songs that could easily have slipped between the covers of Born to Run. They even sing about meeting your girl and washing away your sins on the towering Meet Me By The River’s Edge. But its not mere slavish imitation, the band have their own heart and power to their nostalgia and retro imagery, making strong use of filmic references (a mention of Audrey Hepburn, a punchy number called Film Noir add to the tally), they have a song called Miles Davis & The Cool that warrants classic status, on High Lonesome Fallon sings about wishing he looked like Elvis while The Patient Ferris Wheel will have you wheeling round in circles punching the air. Best American rock album of the year so far, no question. Gig of the month, doubtless. 7.30pm. £10. O2 Academy 2 Tuesday February 3 This Town Needs Guns
First sighting of the year for Oxford’s guitar and piano led outfit who’ve been occasionally tagged as emo but are more in the math-rock tradition to judge by 26 Is Dancier Than 4 while the shifting time signatures and lengthy titles of If I Sit Still Maybe I’ll Get Out Of Here and It’s Not True Rufus, Don’t Listen To The Hat suggest strong prog rock inclinations. They’ll be digging out numbers from the recent Animals EP with rather shorter titles like Pig, Baboon and Chinchilla.7.30pm. £5. Barfly Wednesday February 4 Glasvegas
Heading up the NME Awards tour (and shortlisted for Best New Band/Album), the Glaswegians saw out 2008 as one of the year’s biggest new names with their self-titled debut album, boasting anthemic chart bothering singles Geraldine and Daddy’s Gone and other such blood stirring cocktails of The Proclaimers, Jesus & Mary Chain and Phil Spector as It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry and the Chris Isaak-like Lonesome Swan, as well as the swift Christmas themed mini album follow up A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) featuring the single Please Come Back Home. They’re lifting live favourite Flowers And Football tops from the debut for their first chart stab of the new year, and there’s no reason to think the impetus is likely to see the brakes applying anytime soon.
Joining them are this year’s contender for big new thing, White Lies, the London trio formerly known as Fear Of Flying having been swamped with critical acclaim for their chart topping debut album To Lose My Life (Fiction). It’s a massive, dark and majestic full of songs about self-harm, hospitals, funerals and suicide, but it’s hard not to label them this year’s Editors or Interpol. Not is it easy to avoid such obvious 80s influences as Bryan Ferry singing Echo & The Bunnymen (Death), Joy Division (To Lose My Life,) Depeche Mode (Farewell To The Fairground) and even, er, Ultravox (From The Stars) as well current names like Arcade Fire. Derivative perhaps, but there’s no getting away from the fact it’s a bloodrush of a sound with the likes of Fifty On Our Foreheads, the Scott Walker shaded Nothing To Give and the rumbling A Place To Hide likely to dominate the car stereo for some months to come. Keeping the dance floor moving, there’s support too from Friendly Fires who’ll be lifting the indie-funky Talking Head styled grooves of Skeleton Boy off their self-titled album for the occasion. And then there’s the one to watch slot, occupied here by Camberwell’s drum banging Florence Welch aka Florence and the Machine. a sort of indie folk-blues art pop Kate Nash with day-glo red hair, she’s already picked up the Brit Awards Critics Choice for 2009 on the strength of catchy busking pop debut single Kiss With A Fist and current tinkly yelping follow-up Dog Days Are Over.
With a set that includes the bluesy boned The Girl With One Eye and the shuffling folk beats of My Boy Builds Coffins, a voice that swoops between Kate Bush, Lily Allen and Patti Smith, and a reputation for an eccentric live set, she’s obviously bound for glory. 7pm, £15.26. O2 Academy Friday February 6 La Roux
Another BBC tipped one to watch, singer Elly Jackson and synth player Ben Langmaid channel the influences of Bowie, Prince, Eurythmics, and Yazoo into their own playful indie dance. They’re too derivative to be the next big thing, but debut single Quicksand (Kitsune) was a solid slice of catchy 80s synth pop with a hook chorus and nagging rhythm and the likes of the choppy high pitched In For The Kill and a Human League/Depeche flavoured Reflections Are Protection should ensure a few hits before the novelty fades. 8pm. £5. 444 Club, The Rainbow, Digbeth Saturday February 7 Teddy Thompson
Having seen Rufus Wainwright soar free of his father's shadow and become both critically feted and huge commercial success, Richard and Linda's offspring follows in his spangly footsteps with recent Top 10 album A Piece Of What You Need (Blue Thumb) . There's hints of dad there but more obvious reference points would be Orbison, Springsteen, McCartney and, on Jonathan's Book, the heady glories of Roddy Frame. Kick off single, In My Arms, is just fabulous, twangy Orbisonesque mid tempo rockabilly pop with a carnival feel and Doug Sahm organ and, were there any justice, would be a massive hit. But then the album leaks catchy tunes. The self-flagellating opening The Things I Do has that hood down, open road Springsteen strummed chugging feel, Where To Go From Here is a shuffling country waltz, One Of These Days a brass blasting Jerry Lee Lewis rocker, and both the cascading 60s country pop melody of Don't Know What I Was Thinking and the closing title track's marching beat call to embrace life make you want to dance down the street. Addressing despair and happiness with equal wit and humour, Thompson again proves a master lyricist and, on the mordantly sly Turning The Gun On Myself even conjures the great Randy Newman. "I need ten more years to get to good" he sings on the hand-slapping rock n roll gospel blues Can't Sing Straight. He's wrong, he's at great already.
Support comes from North Carolina singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, though whether her set finds her favouring the Emmylou and Patsy Cline moods of her debut or the more recent raunchier rock-soul and Stax flavours of Tambourine and last year’s Another Country will be a question to divide old and newer fans. 8pm. £13. B’ham Town Hall Saturday February 7 Animal Kingdom
A London based quartet alt-rock quartet with high voiced singer Richard Sauberlich and influences that take in Grandaddy, Andrew Bird, Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, their self-titled debut’s due later this year. So, this affords a useful advance taster with a set guaranteed to include the dreamy, clouds passing new single Chalk Stars, the dark folk twinges and beats of Computer Love and such titles as Good Morning Mr. Magpie, Silence Summons You and Into The Sea. 8pm. £. 444 club, The Rainbow Sunday February 8 Sharleen Spiteri
Having fronted Texas for some 20 years, the Glaswegian singer’s finally stepping into the solo spotlight, out on the road on the back of last year’s debut album, Melody (Mercury). The indications have always been there, but (co-writing with Texas’ Johnny McElhone) she’s finally been given the chance to let her 50s/60s pop influences out of the closet, most notably (and eat your heart out Duffy), Dusty Springfield whose influence is all over such numbers as All The Times I Cried and It Was You like a rash. She’s not the only signpost there though, there’s a huge element of Motown, a big splash of Nancy Sinatra and, on the title cut (which sounds like a lost Bond theme), a hefty dose of Bacharach. You could easily imagine Supremes-era Diana Ross sinking her teeth into some of the songs here (Day Tripping), and Spiteri’s in fine fettle, clearly relishing all that brass and soul as she belts into Stop I Don’t Love You Anymore and girl group pastiche Don’t Keep Me Waiting. The lyrics (spurred by the break-up of her long relationship) aren’t quite as sparkly and upbeat as the music, but the ebullience with which she socks them is more likely to have them dancing in the aisles than crying in the seats. 7.30pm. £27.50. Symphony Hall Sunday February 8 The King Blues
Drawing on such templates as The Clash and the rather lesser known but no less influential king Prawn, the London punk n reggae six piece released debut album, Under The Fog, a couple of years back, reissuing it last year after signing to Island. Trailed by last year’s violin laden single Let’s Hang The Landlord, they returned with sophomore collection, Save The World, Get The Girl, the Madness-like slow jogging title track of which now provides the tour tie-in single. The tour’s in partnership with The Big Issue, and anyone clutching a copy of the week’s edition gets in for free. 7pm. Free with Big Issue copy. Barfly Sunday February 8 Country Cookin’ Acoustic Review
The second of the year’s monthly nights of Alt-country, Americana, Folk, Roots and Bluegrass, hosted by and featuring Birmingham’s bluegrass wizard The Toy Hearts. Guests this time round include Jont, the London based vagabond folk singer-songwriter poet who’ll be spotlighting material from his Supernatural album for those of the Damien Rice/Tom Baxter persuasion. And, making an all too rare appearance, the excellent Charlie Dore. Still bets known for 1979 turntable hit, Pilot Of The Airwaves, having penned songs for the likes of Tina Turner and Celine Dion she’s about much more than that. Sadly, she’s not a frequent visitor to the recording studio and it’s been a long two years since her last release, Cuckoo Hill, an album that mingled the country-folk of something like When Bill Hicks Died or the McGarrigle-like Looking For My Own Lone Ranger with sultrier flavours such as the tabla rippling through the late night torch groove of Your Lover Called with its greasy Guy Barker sax break and the Eastern European mazurka hints flecking When We Fall. There’s no hints of anything new on the horizon, but if you’re luck’s in she may well be trying out a couple of works in progress tonight. 8pm. £7. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath Sunday February 8 Jake Flowers
Having made a splash last year with his Fireworks EP, the Shropshire singer-songwriter stakes his claim to 2009 with the launch night of new single Small World (Concrete), a short but perfectly formed finger-picked slice of rippling country-folk that again underscores those young Steve Forbert comparisons. With a set that will include as yet unissued gems like the bucolic folk of One Summer Gone and A Little More alongside proven live favourite Anyhow, it’s time to get in on the ground floor while you can. 7.30pm. £5. Little Civic Wednesday February 11 Nell Bryden
You’ve probably never heard of her, but you should make a note of the name because this throaty voiced New York based singer-songwriter’s starting to turn heads with her blend of Southern country, blues and jazz. Influenced by Nina Simone, Dylan, Grace Jones, Ryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt, her Second Time Around album variously touched stylistic bases with big band, 50s torch, soul and even Latin drawing comparisons to Peggy Lee, Lyle Lovett, Mari Wilson and Norah Jones alike, the raunchy kickass country title track becoming a regular on the Radio 2 playlist. She’s currently working on a studio follow-up, but in the interim this tour serves to preview Live From Iraq (157), drawn from the 15 shows she played for the troops last October. Taking its cue from Cash’s Folsom Prison album, it’s a no frills, raw and energetic affair that opens with the steaming train rhythm bluegrass breakdown of the Grateful Dead’s I Know You Rider and keep the musical mood firmly uptempo and bourbon swigging as she and her three piece band steam through self-penned numbers like What Does It Take? and Second Time Around alongside such staples as Elvis’ That’s All Right Mama, and Muddy Waters’ Forty Days And Forty Nights. Perhaps in keeping with the shows, the rock n roll stuff’s pretty basic and Bryden’s voice doesn’t really distinguish itself, but she fares a lot better when she takes the pace down for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s slow blues burner Tuesday’s Gone (and showcases her Joplin touches) and scorching covers of House Of The Rising Sun and Hellhound On My Trail. In the intimate confines of the Bar, the paint should peel nicely. 7.30pm. £8. O2 Academy 3 Wednesday February 11 Robyn Hitchcock
Currently featured performing in the wedding reception scene of Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, after the recent box set compilation the veteran psychedelic folk rocker reunites with the Venus 3, Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin, for new studio album Goodnight Oslo (Proper). They’ll not be along for the tour but there will be a full band, so you’ll be getting all the musical gristle as well as the quirkiness permeating the likes of retro bluesy soul swagger What You Is, sinewy lysergic pop Your Head Here, a folksy scuffling Dylanesque Hurry For The Sky, the drunkenly woozy dreaminess that is TLC and the surprisingly perky Beach Boys lollop Saturday Groovers and a handclappy Intricate Thing. There may even be horns there splash about over that sprightly soundtrack nugget, Up To Our Nex. However, as is the Hitchcock norm, pretty much nothing is immediately catchy, so it might be worth grabbing a copy of the album and steeping yourself in the intricacies of the guitar work and folk blues in Sixteen Years and the title track so you’re not overly concentrating if they catch you unprepared in the live set when they pop up inbetween those familiar favourites.
Special guest is Pennsylvanian songstress Catherine Feeney, last seen here a couple of years back promoting her Hurricane Glass debut album. With a husky voice and acoustic folksy rock style, she’s been compared to Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, Sheryl Crow and Suzanne Vega, but her introspective songs of romantic melancholy are more than the sum of her influences. Numbers like the tinkling sweetly sad early morning love song Mr Blue, the spiky Radar, and the bluesy Unsteady Ground have already won a following and this should provide a welcome live introduction to more recent fare such as the playful The Mighty Whale And Abraham and the do wop shaded He’s Like You Only Better.7.30pm. £13.50. Glee Club Wednesday February 11 Ra Ra Riot
Taking its title from a hometown bar, the Massachusetts sextet’s debut album The Rhumb Line (V2), marries new wave pop with orchestral sensibilities courtesy of cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller. Ghost Under Rocks channels New Order alongside Arcade Fire, St. Peter's Day Festival nods to anti-folk influences, new single Can You Tell is clearly enamoured of Morrissey’s 60s obsessions while a cover of Kate Bush’s Suspended In Gaffa suggests a touch of Sparks too. Touched by melancholy and sadness, but, as Dying Is Fine and Winter 05 illustrate, it’s also upbeat and life affirming with Oh, La a band manifesto about holding it together, overcoming adversity and moving on. 7.30pm. £6.50. Barfly Wednesday February 11 The Script
Blending hip hop styles with pop sensibilities to create a Celtic soul sound with rock dynamics, the Irish trio were one of last year’s major success stories. They look to keep the ball rolling now by lifting the glorious classic piano pop of Talk Me Down as the new single from their eponymous debut album. It’ll be sharing the set with the likes of the Maroon 5ish Before The Worst and the big music Breakeven, but hopefully the hectic touring schedule has left room for them to start working on follow ups too.
Support comes from Gary Go, a bespectacled Wembley singer-songwriter in the classic piano ballad tradition with influences that would seem to embrace Chris Difford as much as Oasis. He’ll be previewing his self-titled debut album for Polydor, featuring the swelling pop of Open Arms, the Gallaghers-like So So and stadium friendly new single Wonderful. 7.30pm. £17.50. Wulfrun Hall Thursday February 12 Ray Lamontagne
After being forced into the glare of the spotlight when the reissued Trouble turned him into a star, and then taking an introspective step back with Till the Sun Turns Black, the reclusive, bearded singer-songwriter apparently felt it was time to "open up a little bit more" for this third album. Which, basically, meant drafting in strings, pianos, pedal steel and a lot more Stax and Motown brass to add extra flavours to his husky sweet vocals. He should open up more often, because Gossip On The Grain (14th Floor) contains some of his best work yet. Reminiscent of I've Been Loving You Too Long, the opening You Are the Best Thing lays out the mood, fat Memphis r&b horns setting the scene before Lamontagne weighs in sounding like an amalgam of Van, Sam and Otis. Let It Be Me picks up the baton for a slow country-soul waltz with Ray's honey-smoke tones showing Mr Blunt how it's done before strings and finger-picked ukulele introduce Sarah, a touching regret-stained reverie of reckless relationship-damaging youth that's both named for and about his wife. That it's followed by the brooding desert loneliness sound of I Still Care For You, says all that needs saying. Elsewhere, the album's an interesting confection of themes, images and styles. Winter Birds is a moving simple voice and guitar number built upon nature images as he sings of 'the fallow field that will heal no more' while, by contrast, Hey Me, Hey Mama is a mid-tempo Dixieland jugband chugger and Henry Nearly Killed Me (It's a Shame) a stomping train rhythm slice of handclapping, harp-wailing bluesy folk. And what to make of Meg White, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the White Stripes drummer that opens with Morricone whistle before launching into White-style kit pounding! But, if you think playful goes against the Lamontagne, ahem, grain and prefer him to be twisted in pain, remorse and regret, you'll be happy to hear the steel-stained A Falling Through and the spare title track with its mournful wind blowing through the chimes, lonely flute, strummed guitar and fable-framed images of sparrow, jackstraw and crow, see things out in suitably troubled mind. Should be a sterling show. 7.30pm. £19. Symphony Hall Thursday February 12 Colin Blunstone
Enjoying something of a revival in the wake of the focus on the reissue and tour of the Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle album, Blunstone seizes the opportunity to launch a new album (a mere 13 years in the planning), The Ghost Of You And Me (Ennismore) with his first solo tour in a decade That wispy honey-smoke voice, familiar from his classics Say You Don’t Mind and I Don’t Believe In Miracles, is in fine fettle that, it must be said he’s starting to sound a little like Chris DeBurgh, though mercifully without the bombastic melodrama overkill. His music may be unfashionable as far as the current mainstream’s concerned, but it’s a solid album, even if, as is his wont, he does tend to overdo the orchestral arrangements with several numbers, notably Now I Know I’ll Never Get Over You, the pizzicato plucked Any Other Way and (bearing a little Jimmy Webb influence) Beginning/Keep The Curtains Closed Today, just him and string quartet. They are, though, fine tracks while Follow (a shade Phil Collins perhaps), the mellow rock Dance With Life and the soaring title track all fully deserving to restore Blunstone to the all too brief success he enjoyed over 36 years ago. 8pm. £16. The Robin 2, Bilston Friday February 13 The Coast
The production on their Expatriate (Aporia) album is a bit clanky, giving many of the tracks a tinny, distorted sound, but the Canadian quartet still manage to let their fuzzy rock colours shine through. Their capabilities at radio friendly rock-pop are well displayed by No Secret Why and the drum clattering, spiked guitars Floodlights where they make the most of the Arcade Fire/Mary Chain touchstones. There’s a tendency to the buried vocals of shoe-gazing on more narcotic numbers like the chiming We’re The Ones and Killing Off Our Friends while the languid, stoned Song For Gypsy Rose Lee and Play Me The Apostle lean towards the druggier sways of the Velvets. But it’s likely that it’ll be squally sonics of Ceremony Guns and the bass throbbing The Moon Is Dead that will define the live experience. 8pm. £7. 444 Club, The Rainbow Friday February 13 Reel Big Fish
You’ll be well aware of the exuberantly goodtime California ska punk outfit who seem to release a new album every time you turn round. Suffice to say this time round they’ll be previewing their latest., Fame, Fortune And Fornication, finds them bringing their distinctive rude boy sound to covers that include ska classics like Monkey Man alongside more unlikely propositions as Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down and The Eagles’ The Long Run.
Support’s Random Hand, a Yorkshire four piece who serve an unlikely cocktail of ska and hardcore metal. They’ll be yowling and skanking through tracks from new album Inhale/Exhale (Rebel Alliance), the guttural I Human and head banging thrash Mass Producing Monsters and Eyeballs of War mixing it up with the brass lollopping ska drinking stomp Anger Management, a baggy trousers and politics British and the shouty ska/metal/jazz hybrid Devil’s Little Guinea Pig. You won’t know whether to do the moonstomp or the mosh.7pm. £13.70. O2 Academy Saturday February 14 Judas Priest
A mega metal package that features lumbering veterans Megadeth and thrashers Testament, this comes headlines by the Brummie boys, now firmly reunited with Rob Halford. So much for the good news. Unfortunately, rather than running through fan favourite hits such as The Ripper, Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight they’ll be putting the focus on Nostradamus (Epic),a double album concept metal epic about the 16th century French prophet who supposedly predicted every major world event for the next 500 odd years. As you might expect from titles like Pestilence and Plague, Death, Persecution, War, and Future of Mankind, it's a riff heavy, old school welter given lashings of orchestral bombast overkill to make the prospect of a teaming between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Iron Maiden seem positively muted by comparison. Naturally, there's the obligatory acoustic tracks like Sands of Time, Calm Before The Storm and Lost Love for a little light and shade, but otherwise you don’t have to be a seer to predict it's a relentless metal magnum opus with the lyrics everything you might have hoped or feared. In leather. 7.30pm. £37.50. LG Arena Saturday February 14 The Datsuns
When the New Zealand punks were touring Smoke & Mirrors, there was a feeling they’d driven themselves up a dead end alley with their recycling of the Stooges, Saints, Led Zep and Aerosmith songbooks. Clearly they weren’t bothered because the current follow up, Headstunts (Cooking Vinyl), is more of the same aggressive adrenalised blues charged riffery with loud ragged guitars and relentless drums. Except this time Your Bones adds a smidgen of punky Bowie swagger to the mix while High School Hoodlums is probably fonder of a Gary Glitter backing than it should be. Heavy hitters Ready Set Go!, Pity Pity Please and new single So Long will keep the mosh mob happy and Eye Of the Needle has a dash of psychedelic acid rock for the stoners, but ultimately, this is just forgettable sweat soundtrack noise. 7.30pm. £10. Barfly Saturday February 14 Baskery
Sweden’s anser to The Dixie Chicks by way of The Be Good Tanyas, blonde Stockholm sisters Greta, Stella and Sunniva Bondesson play what they like to term ‘banjopunk and blues-grass’, employing banjo, guitar, upright bass and a foot-driven drum kit. They’re over there to promote Fall Among Thieves (Glitterhouse), a largely well received debut album that largely comprises songs about how it’s not much fun living in boring small towns or having relationships with feckless men. One Horse Down shows they can do bluesy stomp with the best of them, spraying some tasty bottleneck between the three part harmonies while Out-of-Towner, the lyrics of which consists solely of the line ‘I don't want to go to bed with a man from town’, and the furious banjo picking rockabilly Haunt You are similarly fiery floor thumpers . But it’s the quieter, more reflective numbers that show them to their best advantage, notably so on the Appalachian country of Oscar Jr Restaurant Bar, a song about playing your first gig, the twangy voiced menacing Dixie slide blues On A Day Like This, and wearily spooked album closer The Wise. That said, if the bluegrass banjo on Here To Pay My Dues is anything to go by, when they rip it up their flying fingers are going to leave you open mouthed in awe. 7pm. £7. O2 Academy 3 Monday February 16 Malcolm Holcombe
A new name, perhaps, but recent release Gamblin' House (Echo Mountain) is the North Carolina-born singer-songwriter's fourth album, playing out as something of a cross between John Prine (Baby Likes A Love Song, You Don't Come See Me Anymore) and, with that rasping voice, Tom Waits (Goodtimes, Evelyn). A simple acoustic setting bedrocks most of the numbers, with instrumentation that adds dobro, mandolin, fiddle and harmonica to Holcombe's fingerpicking, even adding mournful cello and viola to a croaky-voiced gypsy flavoured Blue Flame. Lyrically he balances darkness and light, the bluesy Seasick Steve-like title track evidencing the former with the lovely rippling Cynthia Margaret waving the flag for the latter, and the likes of My Ol' Radio, From Lovin' You and the dusty clip clopping speak-sing I'd Rather Have A Home taking up the middle ground with a mix of anger and tenderness. Holcombe's photo doesn't look like that of a 90 year old man, but that voice and soul surely can't belong to anyone younger! 8pm. £8. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath Tuesday February 17 Peter Broderick
A singer-songwriter/composer from Oregon and touring member of Danish outfit Efterklang, Broderick’s more at home in a scoring soundtracks for indie dramas than playing solo shows. But, since you’ve got to seel the CDs somehow, he’s out promoting Home (Bella Union), an album of hushed, ethereal beauty and songs loosely themed around the search to find roots. Opening with the multi-tracked vocals and field recordings of the ambient Games, he offers gently strummed Nick Drake sunny meadow folk (And It’s Alright), a little Paul Simon (With The Notes In My Ears), woozy mountain folk instrumental (Esbern Snares Glade 11, 2tv) and watery, contemplative Red House Painters style minimalist roots blues (Not At Home). It’s all very hushed and lo fi, so be careful not to drown the man out with the sound of your breathing. 7.30pm. £10. Tin Angel, Taylor John’s House, Coventry Tuesday February 17 The Blow Monkeys
Poster boys for 80s blue eyed soul and funk dance grooves, they hit big with 1986's Digging Your Scene but, save for It Doesn't Have To Be This Way the following year, never really persuaded the British public to take them to their heart. They called it a day in 1990 with Robert Howard aka Dr Robert - going on to work with Paul Weller and carve a low key solo career. However, the original four members reunited last year and, with financial funding from fans, put together comeback album Devil's Tavern (Blow Monkey Music) There is, as you'd imagine, a bit of that old jazzy soul, best exemplified by the sax swaggering I Don't Mind, Save Me (very Style Council) and the staccato swamp funky Only Joking. But, what makes it worth exploring for none Monkey devotees are the tracks that steer away from their old template. The opening The World Can Wait, for example, which, splicing West Coast vibe and spooked folk, sounds much more like a vintage Zombies number. Or there's the folk-country inflections to the shuffling Travellin' Soul, a gentle Scottish-Occidental lilted When Love's In Bloom, the 60s psychedelic pop of I Dream Of You and the urgent rhythmic drive of The Bullet Train, a number that along with Frontline, suggest our Bob may have been listening to a few Alabama 3 albums in the past year or so. Unlikely to see any major - or even middling - revival of fortunes, but certainly worth bending the ear. 8.30pm. £16. The Robin 2, Bilston Wednesday February 18 Hot Melts
Gearing up for the debut album release later this year, and getting in some gig practice prior to supporting Eagles of Death Metal, the Wirral power pop four piece hit the road, following up the punchy punk (I Wish I’d) Never Been In Love with new single Edith (Epitaph). An equally catchy slice of three minute punk party pop, it drives along on a nagging circular riff and a terrace anthem chorus hook that belts out ‘we don’t make a scene, we dont wanna turn the music down’. And, on this evidence, why would you want them to! 7.30pm. £6.50. O2 Academy 3 Wednesday February 18 The Walkmen
Spooked desert nights are mood for You & Me (Fierce Panda), the fourth album from Hamilton Leithauser who, strung out Dylan vocals underpinned by Matt Barrick's dry bones percussion, reflects on growing up and getting older, remembering free spirit days but looking for roots and security. Thus, the spare, plaintive Long Time Ahead Of Us wants more than a brief fling, On The Water’s moody psychedelic noir atmospherics have him pledging to ‘never leave you’ , the ragged waltzing Seven Years of Holidays (For Stretch) talks of spending too long living in a suitcase and, picked out on simple piano chords, slow march drums and lamenting brass Red Moon yearns “to be home by your side.” A sense of almost unbridled optimism glimmers out of the celebratory open-hearted In The New Year, so too on the muddied, drunkenly swaying Four Provinces. Even the raggy waltzing Dónde está la Playa may talk of walking away from a potential adulterous affair but, also about willingly embracing the daily battle that life throws at you. Unlikely to be the most energised or lyrically joy filled night, but certainly a quality musical experience. 7.30pm. £11.50. Barfly Wednesday February 18 Asobi Seksu
Taking their name from the Japanese phrase for playful sex, New York duo James Hanna and Yuki Chikudate flesh out the sound with drummer Larry Gorman and bassist Will Pavone to return with another dose of reverb drenched shoegazing for new album Hush (One Little Indian). Again switching between Yuki singing in English and Japanese (Mehnomae sounds itoxicating whatever it means), it’s more layered but also icier than its predecessors, soaring echoey vocals like sun sparkling on icicles while the guitars swirl in shimmering sonic clouds and, synths and effects pedals build a rush of acid-sweet noise. The My Bloody Valentine reference points aren’t totally diminished, but the uptempo skittering pop of single Me And Mary, Blind Little Rain’s Spectorish caverns, and a heart bursting Glacially all underline their own distinct identity while gorgeous slow build I Can’t See (on which Hanna takes lead vocals) earns them a free pass to the frazzled big ballad firmament. Well worth indulging in their musical foreplay. 7pm. £6. Barfly (Dragon Bar) Wednesday February 18 The View
After the scallypop, drunken staggers and chirpy acoustic strums of accents proud debut album Hats Off To The Buskers, the Dundee outfit’s sophomore release was duly awaited with eager anticipation. But what to make of Which Bitch? (1965), an aberrant flurry of furious rocking punk pop, chamber stringed ballads, vaudeville throwaways, busking bashers, Scot skankers and moshed up noise. There’s times when everything collides and competes for space in the overarching cluttered production when you wonder if whoever gave it the green light had lined up alternative employment. But then there’s like the Skids style Celt-Pop of Double Yellow Lines, steamrollering single 5 Rebbeccas, the country-veined with brass Covers (that features Paulo Nutini on vocals), the theatrical orchestral dramatics of Distant Doubloon and the ramshackle lollop of Give Back The Sun when you have to stand up and applaud the inspiration. On first hearing you might throw up your hands and cover ears in horror, but gradually you come to realise that this risky, don’t give a toss, chaotic tumble of boozed up indie may well be a work of genius. 7.30pm. £13. Wulfrun Hall Thursday February 19 The Lights
No early online samples have been yet released, so this is an early opportunity to check out Low Hundreds, the Brum quintet’s forthcoming new single as they prepare to made their claim in 2009’s new big thing stakes. Sharing the night with Beneva and Mesh-29, you’ll also be doing your bit for charideee as this is a fundraiser in aid of epilepsy action.7.30pm. Free/donation. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath Thursday February 19 Revere
A London based experimental art rock eight piece featuring three guitars, violin, cello, trumpet and harp, numbers like I Can’t Forgive Myself and Skin they embrace everything from gypsy to gospel, from post rock to kletzmer in a huge cinematic sound marked by passionate intensity. Drawing comparisons to Sigur Ros and Radiohead, they’re an as yet little known quantity but, sounding as though it could have come from sessions for The Bends, their epic seven minute The Escape Artist should ensure that situation changes pretty quickly. 7pm. £7. Barfly Friday February 20 Jonatha Brooke
One half of Bostonian folk rock duo The Story with Jennifer Kimball in the late 80s, the past decade’s seen Brooke carving an impressive solo career with a series of albums variously shaded with folk, jazz, blues and rock showcasing her songwriting and a twangy voice that falls somewhere between Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, and Suzanne Vega. She’ll doubtless by dipping into the extensive back catalogue for the set list, including material from 2007’s Careful What You Wish For, but the purpose of the tour is to promote The Works (Bad Dog), a new album in which, save for two self-penned numbers, follows in Billy Bragg’s steps and puts music to yet another batch of previously unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics. Working with musicians that include Joe Sample, Steve Gadd, and Keb Mo, nothing sounds like you’d imagine Guthrie singing them. You Ought To Be Satisfied Now is a jazzy funked slink with the rocking More True Lovers Than One takes its cue from Springsteen and My Sweet And Bitter Bowl is pure Vega. However, her soulful, jazz-folk arrangements are warmly appealing while the songs themselves stand tall. Madonna On The Curb is a marvellous tale of a homeless mother, poverty and a diamond sparkling in the gutter, a gospel slow waltzing My Battle reflects on mortality while All You Gotta Do Is Touch Me, the equally gospel My Flowers Grow Green (written from a female perspective), the simple acoustic Sweetest Angel and King Of My Love are a reminder that, while better known for his political and protest numbers, Guthrie was no slouch when it came to penning disarming songs too. 7.30pm. £8. Glee Club Saturday February 21 Vagabond
Newly signed to Geffen, the London five piece cite Sly and the Family Stone, Hall & Oates and Terence Trent D'Arby among their influences, so as you’d expect they make laid back blue eyed soul. I’ve Been Wanting You is uptempo keyboards driven contemporary soul pop but for the most, featuring throaty vocals, the groove of I Know A Girl, I Said Hello and Sweat Until The Morning is a relaxed mellow sensuality. Hopefully the forthcoming album won’t butter things up too much in the production, but it’ll be worth catching them early to make live and studio comparisons. 8pm. £5. Kasbah, Coventry Sunday February 22 Wild Beasts
Birthed in Kendal and based in Leeds, the indie four piece are an intriguingly quirky proposition, custom built for eclectic festivals. Taking a break from recording their secnd album, they’re out and about touting last year’s debut Limbo, Panto (Domino), an album that throws in fairground melodies, Hayden Thorpe’s soaring falsettos, plinketty barroom piano, Latin shuffles and sex themed lyrics that include lines about rubber raspberries, Bryclreem and chips with cheese. A cocktail of Stackridge and Noel Coward with songs that go by such titles Vigil For A Fuddy Duddy,Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants, She Purred, While I Grrred, Cheerio Chaps, Cheerio Goodbye, Sylvia A Melodrama and, sung by tenor voiced bassist Tom Fleming, the catchily oddball The Devil’s Crayon, it’s not going to be your usual sort of musical soiree. 8pm. £10. Tin Angel, Medieval Spon St, Coventry
Tuesday February 24 Kaiser Chiefs
Subscribing to the not broken don’t fix principle, the Kaisers’ third album, Off With Their Heads (B-Unique) serves up yet another collection of shouty, juddery bash pop doused with mobalong choruses, head nodding riffs and, as on the “what do you want for tea? I want crisps” and “it’s cool to know nothing” lines of Never Miss A Beat, both snarling put downs and celebrations of the kids on the street. However, it’s only really that, Good Days Bad Days and Addicted To Drugs that have the same hard to shift chorus hooks that plastered Ruby, Everyday I Love You Less And Less and I Predict A Riot over the airwaves until you were heartily sick of them but still couldn’t help singing along. Addicted also shows the bones of their 70s influences really starting to show through the skin, sounding at times a lot like 10cc (Life Is A Minestrone, to be specific), the slow stomp, Like It Too Much harks headily to Bowie splashed with ELO strings, You Want History is all early Elvis Costello with swirly synths, while you may also hear Mott The Hoople, the Stranglers and, on the chirpy fairground flavours of Always Like That, even Chicory Tip. A little by the numbers perhaps, but clearly also a case of giving the fans exactly what they want (though it’s hard to imagine that includes watery sensitive 60s pop ballad Remember You’re A Girl on which drummer vocally challenged drummer Nick Hodgson seems to be singing from the basement), which should keep them cresting the waves for another two years at least.
Support’s provided by weedy electro-boffin dance pop nerd Esser who, after winning favour with previous singles, the bubbling marching beat Headlock and piano mazurka hand clapper Satisfied, throws it all away with thoroughly dull 70s synth funk drone Work it Out (Transgressive). 7.30pm. £26. NIA Wednesday February 25 Emmy The Great
Having spent the last year slowly building word of mouth for her winsome folk pop , Emma Lee Moss finally makes good on the online demos with the release of debut album, First Love (Close Harbour). Sure there’s echoes of Laura Marling, but Moss is musically less intense and more vocally girlish while her lyrics are very bit as witty, literate and disarming. The opening Absentee, a gently swaying song about a funeral and one of several to include religious imagery, gets the ball rolling in fine form, the songs that follow detailing relationships and scenarios easily identifiable by her female following. 24 has her complaining about a shiftless boyfriend who spends his time watching Jack Bauer (“man on the screen, he has done more in a minute than you have achieved in your entire life.”), tinkling swayer We Almost Had A Baby speaks for itself, the title track reflects how an ill-starred relationship soured listening to Cohen’s Hallelujah because her ex insisted on playing it to indicate his soulful isolation. Then there’s Dylan, “a diss” on a pretentious former schoolfriend, while MIA’s account of a fatal car crash and the deceptively airy Easter Parade graveyard reflections both concern death, possibly the same one. As you’ll guess, with prevalent themes of loss, absence and distances between, there’s dark clouds behind much of the music’s silver linings, the closing airy City Song, for example, masking what appears to a metaphorical story of a young mother leaving her baby. It could, perhaps, do with a little more light and shade and, live, there’s a danger of Moss’ voice being drowned out by people ordering drinks at the bar, but, while she’s yet to earn the soubriquet of her nom de music, she is undoubtedly Emmy the Rather Good.
Support comes from London indie five piece exlovers, following up last year’s warm fuzzed, chiming guitar sunny pop single Silhouette with next month’s Photobooth (Chess Club), a rather watery piece of anonymous folk pop that shows none of the promise enshrined in the Elliot Smithisms of the intricate acoustic simplicity of Clouds. 7.30pm. £7.50. Glee Club Thursday February 26 Rise Against
The vegetarian Illinois hardcore quartet make their first UK visit since the release of last year’s Appeal To Reason album. So plenty of chance to get the skull around the speakers as they thunder through the frenzied likes of Collapse, Re-Education (Through Labour), Kotov Syndrome, Entertainment and more stadium anthem styled numbers such as the acoustic Hero of War, From Heads Unworthy and sky-vaulting mid-tempo ballad new single Audience Of One (DGC). 7.30pm. £15. O2 Academy Thursday February 26 General Fiasco
A welcome return by the Derry pop punk trio, giving a further road test to material destined for the debut album with a set list likely to feature Dancing With Girls, Ever So Shy, I Like It When You're Naked, recent single Rebel Get By and upcoming follow-up, the sparks flying Undertonesy Something Sometime. 7.30pm. £6. O2 Academy 3 Thursday February 26 Fight Like Apes
Listing Siouxie and the Banshees, Devo, Roxy Music and Pavement among their influences, the guitar free, synth-led Dublin quartet arrive to suggest that’s a bit of a red herring with snotty debut album Fight Like Apes And The Mystery of the Golden Medallion (Model Citizen). Featuring yelpingly demented past single Jake Summers, the initially more sedate but ultimately savage follow up Tie Me Up With Jackets, it’s a playful, invective spouting, shouty, petulant and angry teen strop of an album. Opening with Something Global, a slab of the bubbling power pop with a nail through its cheeks, it romps its appealingly obnoxious ways through such riot grrrll nuggets as Lend Me Your Face, drum thumping Do You Karate?, Recyclable Ass, a kamikaze Snore Bore Whore and the marvellously titled kiss off I’m Beginning To Think You Prefer Beverly Hills 90210 To Me. Sure to be all over the place and untidy live, which only goes to add to the appeal.
By way of music and mood contrast, guests are Underground Railroad, Parisian trio who speak spooked, rumbling alt folk, last year’s Sticks And Stones album roving from the skeletal madrigal like Dirty Glow through NYC ) Money Money)’s Velvet meets Suicide freak out, dark guitar striding suicide song Kill Me Now, the brooding Pixies-ish title track and grumbling closer Idealise. They arrive now with Pick The Ghost (One Little Indian), a five track EP of left over session tracks from the album, neurotic shouter Breakfast, a Nico-esque Homeless Town, sonic storm Lots Of Cars and live favourites Monday Morning and the mantra-like Pick The Ghost ample proof that it was only lack of space and not lack of quality that left them off. 7.30pm. £6. Barfly Thursday February 26 Sergeant Buzfuz
Not actually a gig by the full complement of the South London psych-folk six piece, rather a solo show by local lad singer Joe Murphy, but still likely to serve as a plug for the band’s latest, High Slang (Blang). A bit of a departure from your usual indie albums, this is basically a history of the papacy, songs about London cabbies, getting aled, Kay Malone, and maternity spaceships, told with accordion, fiddle and dulcimer accompaniment across a musical gamut of psych folk, country, beats and electronica. A bit Syd Barrett, a bit Joe Strummer, a bit Levellers, and a bit Kinks, it’s just want you need if you never knew “John XII he kept two thousand horses, fed them wine” or that “Gregory the Dwarf made princes kiss his feet”. It’s not easy to get into, but after a while things like dervish stomper Cockney Rebel, the dulcimer plucked Names For Girls, ramshackle God To Holloway, and the witty Rebellion With Fries prove to have an endearing ramshackle charm. Even so, In The Back of My Cab’s notion that Tom Cruise would hail a London taxi is rather wishful thinking. 8pm. £5. TheVictoria, John Bright St,Bham Thursday February 26 The Commitments
Some 18 years after Alan Parker’s film of Roddy Doyle’s bestseller about the Dublin r&b band, many of the original cast are still riding high and making music. Andrew Strong’s got three solo albums and a greatest hits under his belt, Frames singer Glen Hansard won an Oscar last year for his work on Once, Maria Doyle Kennedy’s just released a new album, and Robert Arkin’s a composer and Adrea Corr is, of course, part of The Corrs. Meanwhile guitarist Kenneth McCluskey and drummer Dick Massey still form part of the line up of the spin-off touring outfit, with Claire Malone and Karen Coleman joining Joe Walsh (no, not that one) on vocals as they belt out a solid, hot, brassed up and sweaty brew of r&b and soul. Expect all the numbers featured in the film (Chain Of fools, Mustang Sally, Nowhere To Run, etc) and other classics from the vaults of Stax and Atlantic. 8pm. £17. The Robin 2, Bilston. Thursday February 26/Friday February 27 Killers
“Are we human or are we dancers,” asks Brandon Flowers on Human, arguably one of the best pop singles of the past 10 years. With the release of last year’s Day & Age (Vertigo), the band truly came of age, an album full of surging melodies rippling with shades of Pet Shop Boys, Bowie and Roxy Music. Dripping glorious pop on Spaceman, snaking through INXS funk on Joy Ride, swaying to bossa nova colours for I Can’t Stay, stomping to a marching beat with This Is Your Life (complete with African style chant intro) and vaulting to the heavens on the big dramatics of Neon Tiger and A Dustland Fairytale, it marks their elevation to rock’s stratosphere. “There's a majesty at my doorstep,” they sing on Goodnight, Travel Well. And indeed there is on yours too. 7.30pm. £32.50. LG Arena
Friday February 26
Vetiver
Something of a low key gig this, though not as under the radar as the release of new album Tight Knit (Sun Pop) which seems to have been more of a closely guarded secret than the amount Lloyds Bank is paying in bonuses. Titles include Rolling Sea, Through the Front Door, Another Reason to Go and At Forest Edge, and while, with no review copy available, it’s impossible to say what to expect, judging by free download Everyday’s acoustic Harpers Bizarre-like jug band summery folk, it’s unlikely to mark any huge stylistic deviations. If luck’s in, he may also be persuaded to showcase the recent More Of The Past (Fat Cat) EP of covers from his favourite artists. A glorious plunge into 60s pop, the man's clearly got a marvellously obscure record collection, opening with the tumbling jangly guitar pop of See You Tonight, a joyously upbeat number that recalls The McCoys, and including early Everlys song Hey Doll Baby, a jug band treatment of the traditional Before The Sun Goes Down and a bluegrass rework of Grin’s Just To Have You that even Nils Lofgren devotees might not recognise. He shares the evening with local crew The Winter League, a six or thereabouts outfit featuring assorted members of Shady Bard who make appropriately frosty sounding strung out soundscapes of songs that, on titles such as O Fading Light O Gull O Sea, Fridge Mountain and instrumental The March of The Winter League might be termed an English folk answer to Sigur Ros. . 8pm. £10. Hare & Hounds Saturday February 27 Vinny Peculiar
There’ll be a band tour with Blue Poppies of Ambrosia in May, but this is a good chance to catch the lad in solo form as he showcases material from his upcoming new album Sometimes I Feel Like A King. The follow up to Goodbye My Angry Friend, if the plaintive title track’s any indication with its world weary tale of rising above the fog of depression and melancholia then it could well be his finest hour. The only other advance sample to go on, Uniform, a more Billy Bragg-like punk pop stomper about conformity, further whets the appetite. With titles that include Nurse Of The Year, To Hell With Fashion and an apparently country tinged Actions Speak Louder to go alongside established live favourites like Man About the House, Lazy Bohemians and London Train, this should be a bit of an intimate corker. 7.30pm. £5. Hare & Hounds Saturday February 28 Ane Brun
You may not recognise the name but chances are you may be aware of the, ahem, Norwegian freak-folk songstress without realising it. In a nice touch of post modern irony, Channel 4 used her spare icy rumbling blues folk Lullaby For Grown-Ups as the trail to their recent horror season while her piano backed tremulous cover of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors provided the soundtrack to Sky’s High Definition TV campaign. That had a touch of the Kate Bush about it, and you may hear other hints across this, her fifth album but only the first to find its way to UK shores Born Ane Brunvoll, she draws on the influence of her jazz singer mother (check The Treehouse Song) as well as what, to go by The Puzzle, would seem to be a cocktail of traditional English folk and Leonard Cohen, string arrangements providing regular settings for her soulful cold winter air vibrato that, at times, conjures a bizarre marriage of Bjork and Dolly Parton. Aside from one other cover, a spare acoustic version of Alphaville’s Big In Japan, it’s all self-penned material, showing her as adept a writer as she is intoxicating a voice. The mood and tempo rarely rises about a hushed, moody minimalism in the manner of Bon Iver, but it’s hard to resist being beguiled and mesmerised by numbers like the seismically fragile The Fall, spectral waltzer Armour with its violin and nervy piano, Gillian’s touching tribute to Ms Welch, the folky McGarrigles-like backwoods inflections behind Round Table Conference or the dappled, hymnal loveliness of Raise My Head where she sounds like a one woman Be Good Tanyas. “I’ll linger with pleasure”, she sings on the log cabin melancholy song of the same title. You will too.
Formerly sideman to Carina Round before forming Sonara, support comes from Wulfrunian singer-songwriter Dan Whitehouse plugging Balloon, the first of three self-released EPs he’s planning for the year. He’s been likened to Damien Rice, but you might also find his very English hushed voice making you think of Nick Drake, the young Al Stewart, and Thom Yorke, the songs embracing folksily acoustic and surgingly dramatic. Indeed the tremendously anthemic Somewhere I Don't Want To Go does both, soaring from quiet intro to vaulting crescendos while Lost The Fight features pulsing scratchy electronics and frayed nerve cabaret piano figure and Needles, Pins and All Sharp Things is fragile bedsit reflectiveness. Another slow building anthemic number, There Is No End In Sight suggests the Eurocentric experimental elements of Scott Walker may also weigh on his current influences, It’s Good To Getaway hints at the sort of jazz shaded folk-rock borderlines explored by Joe Jackson and Carousel takes a dreamy journey down the Blue Nile of big music. All in all, this could be the opening salvo of a world conquering year. 7pm. £5. O2 Academy 3
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