Tuesday May 1

Findlay Brown

A warm up for the Latitude Festival, this package night’s headlined by  another new name looking for a nest in the sensitive singer-songwriter tree. Brown hails from around York and when not strumming the guitar, spins psychedelic and krautrock records as a London DJ. His own music is a whole lot different to that, though.

He cites Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Band and cult 60s folkie Jackson C Frank as references, but listening to debut album Separated By The Sea (Peace Frog) it would seem the more obvious influences are Tim Buckley and Simon & Garfunkel. Indeed, his slightly reedy vocals have a timbre very similar to Garfunkel’s.

Limned with pedal steel on occasional numbers, it’s an attractive proposition with its leafy acoustic 60s folk feel, songs steeped in images of the sea and water and lyrics that stem from a tempestuous relationship and his musings on masculine pride, rural upbringing and childhood. Understated throughout, often with just a bare acoustic guitar arrangement, there’s some lovely stuff here; from the spectral folk opener I Will through the turning wheel rhythms of the Greenwich Village bluesy But You Love Me, the strings brushed The Loneliness I Fear to the Everlys-like Come Home with its lonesome steel and the hand percussion driven Losing The Will To Survive that calls to mind shades of Matthews Southern Comfort. And if the rolling country lullaby flavours of Tonight Won’t Wait don’t make you want to spend an evening in his company you really have no soul.

Heavily evocative of Neil Young and Crazy Horse (vocalist Petter Ericson Stakee has that whine down perfect), Alberta Cross sound like they should have been born and bred in California but actually come from London’s East End. With Stakee partnered by co-writer Terry Wolfers, the quartet have been picking up glowing praise for their debut mini-album, The Thief & The Heartbreaker (Fiction), though, with tracks Low Man and I’ve Known For Long tending to amble along on a Southern folk-blues groove and lyrics about lonesome roads with no real sense of direction the reality is that it’s more about future promise than current classic.

Hard Breaks kicks up the tempo somewhat, but there’s no great variation over the seven tracks, however Stakee pours bruised emotion into his delivery and there’s an air of dusty authenticity coating the Harvest era rural folk blues of Lucy Rider, the rough edged scuffed Van Morrison meets The Band flavours to The Devil's All You Ever Had and the enigmatic title track standout. Worth keeping an eye on, just in case.

Finally there’s a welcome return for Australian siblings duo  Angus & Julia Stone once again spotlighting their brace of bluesily narcotic EPs, Heart Full Of Wine and Chocolates & Cigarettes, the latter of which  also provides current single Private Lawns, a late night jazz blues soaked affair with Julia prowling around a nicotine stained sax and drunk on Bourbon lurching rhythm. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Tuesday May 1

Jamie T

Channelling the spirit of Billy Bragg and The Streets, the lanky Wimbledon white rapper cum suburban folkie is back plugging Panic Prevention’s mix of reggae, lurching pop, electronica and, on Back In The Game, even hints of Bacharach influenced bossa nova lounge.

Lyrically, tracks like So Lonely Was The Ballad, If You Got The Money and the dub soaked Alicia Quays are rife with incisive observations on the depressing nature of modern life awash with drink, drugs, cigarettes, pub fights, sulky teens and dead end nights out, equally balanced between cynicism and compassion.

The strings laden Salvador, Operation and a Brian Wilson styled Pacemaker suggest he’s quite capable of producing the sort of classic melodic pop of which Radio 2 dreams are made, so it’ll be interesting to see in which direction he ultimately opts to lean.7.30pm. £11. Wulfrun Hall

Wednesday May 2

Maria McKee

Six solo albums down the line, McKee (now looking unsettlingly like Pauline Collins) has finally answered long time fans wishes and recorded her own version of A Good Heart, the song she wrote when she was eighteen and which gave Feargal Sharkey a massive No 1 hit. Rather inevitably, her treatment is a little gutsier (even with doo wop backing vocals), veined with the gospel influences that pop up elsewhere across Late December (Cooking Vinyl).

As ever, she likes to ring the changes, and this is a far more in your face outing than the rootsier sound of its Peddlin’ Dreams predecessor, No Other Way To Love You built around a Motown back beat, Too Many Heroes a cross between Bo Diddley boogie and folk ceilidh and One Eye To The Sky cranking up stadium anthemics as she vocally slides into Patti Smith operatics and spoken verses.

Indeed, there’s a fair amount of dramatic flavour here, the opening track a finger-clicking Broadway show tune with gospel groove and semi-spoken delivery, Destine a meeting between Queen, Brel and Edith Piaf before returning to Kurt Weill theatre influnces for Scene of the Affair while it’s easy to imagine Barbara Dickson or Elaine Paige getting to grips with My First Night Without You or Starving Pretty.

Quite what sort of show this is going to provide is anyone’s guess, but arriving with a band it’s reasonable to assume it’ll be considerably more rocky than her solo piano format. 8pm. £15. Glee Club

Wednesday May 2

Low vs Diamond

Not sure where the Low bit comes in, but Diamond is Howie Diamond, the afro haired drummer for this LA five piece who patently have an 80s thing for Roxy, Bowie, U2 and the Psychedelic Furs. Frontman Lucas Field does a good job of channelling Bryan Ferry by way of Ian McCulloch on songs that warp themselves around such subject matter as lost love, drug addiction and apathy. Having made their debut with Life After Love and its post punk guitar sweeps and melodic rush, they return for a second live bout in support of new single Heart Attack (Marrakesh), another suitably darkly lush swirl of  Roxyish pop that intimates they’re probably a fairly muscular live proposition too.7.30pm. £5.  Bar Aacdemy

Wednesday May 2

Loudon Wainwright III

His second date in as any weeks arrives with news that there’s actually a follow-up album to Here Come The Choppers winging its way in. Strange Weirdos (Concord) features music from and inspired by Knocked Up, writer/director Judd Apatow’s follow-up to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, in which he also has a cameo appearance.

Likely to give him the same sort of wide exposure Something About Mary did for Jonathan Richman, he’s put together a fine bunch if new songs, some like  You Can’t Fail Me Now, Naomi and the barrelhouse blues So Much To Do with a strong country flavour while elsewhere a cover of Mose Allison’s Feel So Good adopts a goodtime vaudeville blues stomp and both midlife crisis track Doin’ The Maths and Final Frontier find him working a blues rock seam. If he’s going to include anything in the set, chances are it’ll be the early morning wearied melancholy of the title track or, more likely, his homage to Hollywood, the accordion hued Grey in L.A., a  track featuring Richard Thompson on guitar. 7.30pm. £18.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Thursday May 3

Deep Purple

Still rocking strong despite  most of them having turned or nearing 60, while chart placing may not reflect matters they’re also still one of the biggest draws on the hard rock circuit. This latest flurry of gigs comes on the back of last year’s Rapture Of  The Deep album though it seems only the title track’s found a place in the set list. What you do get though includes an opening Pictures Of Home, Into The Fire, Fireball, Well Dressed Guitar and a potent When A Blind Man Cries alongside early vintage classics Strange Kind Of Woman, Fireball, Highway Star and, climaxing in obligatory fashion, Smoke On The Water before encores of Hush and Black Night.

Gillan fans might also want to note that his solo career’s getting  overhauled with Edsel’s reissue of seven albums, among them Live At The Budokan, Mr Universe, Future Shock and Glory Road, along with a revamped tour edition of his Gillan’s Inn live album (Immergent) from his 2006 US tour. Mixing up Purple and solo material with performances that include No Laughing In heaven, Bluesy Blue Sea, Speed King, Smoke (obviously) and Dylan’s I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, it also features a bunch of special guest appearances from the likes of his current Purple cohorts, Tony Iommi, Joe Satriani, Jeff Healey and even Ronnie James Dio. That plus a bonus DVD with commentary, behind the scenes moments, making of footage and even a chance to mix your own version of Smoke! 7.30pm. £31.50. NEC

Thursday May 3

Maximo Park

Going from strength to strength, the Geordie boys seem to have had no problem surmounting the difficult second album syndrome. Romping off the starting block with the piston pumping staccato rhythms of Girls Who Play Guitars, Our Earthly Pleasures (Warp) delivers a steady supply of catchy, energetic, melody laden synth and guitar songs dealing with the downers of modern life, sung in Paul Smith’s distinctive Northern tones.

They might, at some stage, contemplate including more tracks that aren’t taken at the speed of a man trying to get to the pub before last orders, but for now  such numbers as Our Velocity, Books From Boxes, Russian Literature (Smith’s nothing if not a TLS regular), The Unshockable and  A Fortnight’s Time surge along in fine fettle, the band finding their anthemic feet with the more deliberate pacing of Sandblasted And Set Free.

They’re not doing anything particularly new and at times there’s a certain air of disdainful superiority in Smith’s lyrics, suggesting perhaps a solo career on the near horizon or perhaps a line-up revamp in keeping with his arty aspirations, but for now this is Park life lived to the full. 7.30pm. £13.50. Carling Academy

Friday May 4

Carrie Rodriguez

More usually seen touring with Chip Taylor, this finds the country singer-songwriter out on her own plugging Seven Angels on a Bicycle, a debut album offering bluesy hoe down Never Gonna Be Your Bride, the waltzing Border town attitude on I Don't Wanna Play House Anymore and sleazed blues rock groove slink with 50s French Movie.

 She's not got the strongest of voices, but she knows how to sock a number across, investing the ghost boned sensuality of Dirty Leather, the moody title track, a wistful Got Your Name On It and the haunting He Ain't Jesus, a song about an abusive relationship, with lived in character and real rich blood. Worth a look. 7.30pm. £9.50. Little Civic

Saturday May 5

Brett Anderson

The Tears project with Bernard Butler having apparently been shed, the former Suede frontman now embarks on a solo outing with his eponymous debut for Drowned In Sound. He’s come over all lush and introspective too, draping himself around a piano and string to croon things like the rain on dawn streets feel of One Lazy Morning, the loss soaked melancholy of Song For My Father and the self-pitying break up song To The Winter

The nasal voice remains much the same, albeit sounding older and wiser, but he does seem to have somewhat lost his lyrical spark, sometimes resorting to cliches and overblown emptiness.

There’s some engaging moments though; the gypsy folk slow waltzing bittersweet story song  The More We Possess The Less We Own Of  Ourselves, a dreamily gorgeous strings soaked Love Is Dead, the slow chugging ice pick rock edged Dust And Rain and a guitar chiming Ebony where he recalls the best of the Lilac Time, all promise to prove live highlights, though whether he’ll be in any mood to revisit past band moments remains to be seen. 6pm. £14. Wulfrun Hall

Saturday May 5

Cancer Bats

Hailing from Canada, these boys play a high octane fusion of skull crushing hardcore metal and piledriving Black Flag style punk, driven by blistering bass and coruscating guitar riffs guaranteed to have the mosh pit seething. They’re over here in the service of their Birthing The Giants (Hassle) album, a ferocious thunder through rage, death, disgust and defiance that throws any hint of subtlety out of the window from the opening notes. Maybe it’s because of the title, but Shillelagh has a hint of Thin Lizzy about it, otherwise the likes of Grenades, Pneumonia Hawk, Diamond Mine and new single French Immersion come at you full throttle, a  force apparently magnified further in their live sets. 7.30pm. £. Wulfrun Hall.

Sunday May 6

Frank Turner

Formerly front man with the now defunct punk crew Million Dead, Turner’s strapped on an acoustic guitar and reinvented himself as a latter-day Billy Bragg. He’s not got the same emotional depth or socio-political clout, but, as his Sleep Is For The Week album showed, he can at least put together some ok 21st century alt-folk songs. For the purposes of the tour, he’s lifted fan favourite The Real Damage (Xtra Mile) as a single, a jaunty busking ditty about a wasted weekend that comes accompanied by a clutch of previously unreleased tracks from the album sessions, including the rather good commitment-phobic love song Sea Legs. Nothing here’s going to bring down the government, revolutionise the world or have you re-examining your life and attitudes, but they may well inspire some rowdy lager-supping singalong moments. 7pm. £7. Bar Academy

Sunday May 6

Stephen Fretwell

It’s two years since the release of  Magpie with its accompanying new Dylan/Drake/Damien Rice comparisons, though perhaps Randy Newman and Van Morrison might have been a closer fit. A follow-up’s due in July while this short tour coincides with a ltd edition taster EP, Four Letter Words (Fiction), featuring a quartet of new songs, among them William Shatner’s Dog. Unfortunately, advance copies weren’t available, so there’s no idea what sort of mood he’s embraced this time around  but on previous form you’d be foolish not to nip down and find out. 8pm. £10. Glee Club

Monday May 7

Justin Nozuka

Born in New York, raised in Toronto, the 18-year old’s getting much attention for his debut album Holly (Outcaste), an acoustic cocktail of  blues, folk and soul that belie his somewhat tender years and should encourage comparisons to the likes of  Paul Simon and Josh Ritter. The voice needs deepening, but he certainly knows his way round a fretboard and has the ability to pen attention grabbing lyrics that cut with insight and emotion.

Down In A Cold Well explores isolation and unfulfilled life sung from the perspective of a guy stuck at the bottom of a, er, well, Supposed To Grow Old reflects on the end of what should have been a relationship for life, Mr Therapy Man’s another broken love affair fall out, Oh Momma derives from her raising the family after the marriage fell apart and Criminal sketches out an amusing scenario in which a young kid fantasies about going on the run after an act of thoughtless vandalism. His strongest moment though is Save Him, an imagined tale of domestic abuse heard through thin walls that seems likely to turn up the intensity when he plays live. 7pm. £6. Bar Academy

Monday  May 7

The Klaxons

The London nu rave trio return with their mash up  guitars, sirens and synths in support of Myths Of The Near Future (Rinse), an art rock tea party get together with Bowie, Brian Eno, PiL, Krautrock and 60s psychedelic wig outs. With lyrics that include references to sci fi and Aleister Crowley, there’s a spacey mood to the fore on As Above, So Below and Two Receivers with its rumbling drums, while to underline the diversity they cut it up techno style on Atlantis To Interzone, come over all 80s pop groove with Golden Skans and immerse themselves in sinister folk tribalism for the bass throbbing Isle of Her.

New single Gravity’s Rainbow is the one guaranteed to get the 21st century disco limbs twitching while a loose limbed bassline and swirly synth punked up reconstruction of Grace’s house hit It’s Not Over Yet should bring out those acid smiley faces. 7.30pm. £10.50. Carling Academy 2

Monday May 7

Mumm-Ra

You might surmise from influences that embrace  the Beta Band, Kinks, XTC and Sigur  Ros, the Bexhill On Sea’s outfit would favour slightly skewed tempo shifting rock.  However, Out Of The Question, was all bopping along jangly guitar pop euphoria with   follow-up What Would Steve Do? another big surge along stomper. Now comes She’s Got You High (Columbia), a jubilant summery cascade of jangling caffeine-rush guitars and circling, tinkling rhythms, laying the ground for what promises to be a scintillating debut album. 7.30pm. £7. Barfly

Tuesday May 8

Roger Waters

Recently reunited with his old Pink Floyd colleagues, Waters now revisits their past in solo fashion with a live performance of the entire Dark Side of the Moon album, a defining album in rock history,  from the opening Speak To Me through Great Gig In The Sky, Money and Us And Them to Brain Damage and Eclipse.  That’ll take up the whole of the second half, prior to which he’ll be working his way through a musical career snapshot with material drawn from The Wall, Wish You Were Here, The Final Cut and solo albums Amused To Death and The Pros and Cons Of Hitch Hiking, all with large-scale video projections, theatrical staging, special effects and a state-of-the-art quadraphonic sound system. Not overblown at all then. 7.30pm. £50. NEC

Tuesday May 8/Wednesday May 9/Friday May 11

Justin Timberlake

Given his ascending star as an actor with deservedly acclaimed performances in Alpha Dog and the upcoming Black Snake Moan, you’re lucky he’s found time to get on with the day job. Still, here he is, delivering a live take on his current mega-selling album of squelchy, sex-oozing hip hop, R&B and rap, Futuresex/LoveSounds (Zomba). Having scored a hat trick of No 2 hits with Like I Love You, Cry Me A River and Rock your Body from debut album Justified, last year saw him notch up his first UK No 1 with Sexyback from the new album, following up with My Love and What Goes Around and then returning to the top slot with a  special guest appearance on Timbaland’s Give It To Me.

So, about as hot as they come at the moment, then, with the breathy Michael Jackson-like Damn Girl, Eminem styled Chop Me Up, the dreamy boy bandisms of Losing My Way and heat hazing dance groove Summer Love all potential chart storming singles.

With a 14 piece band, dancers and an in the round stage setting, the live show (running some 2 ½ hours) promises to be a bit of a spectacular, with Mr T doing his own dance thing and even throwing in a medley featuring former N’Sync hit Gone. 7.30pm. £50-£35. NIA

Wednesday May 9

Bryan Adams

Back for his first tour in three years, but with no follow up to Room Service on the cards, this looks like being one of those greatest hits nights, a live trimmed down version of the Anthology album as he works his way through the FM rock, the stadium ballads and the occasional burst of rock n roll. So, take a check list and expect to hear Summer of 69, Run To You, Here I Am, The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You, hopefully This Side of Paradise and, inevitably, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You.

Opening up will be Colchester’s Sam Cooke soundalike James Hunter, giving the masses a chance to discover his People Gonna Talk (Rounder) debut album, leading a hip sliding groove through the likes of No Smoke Without Fire and a roustabout Talking ‘Bout My Love while showing off the mellower side on the casual sway of  All Through Cryin’ and Mollena. One to arrive early for. 7.30pm. £35. NEC

Wednesday May 9

The Vincent Black Shadow

Not to be confused with Vincent Black Shadow who, named after the motorbike, are a six piece hardcore psychedelic punk-acid rock outfit from Maryland and signed to Poptones, this bunch (distinguished by having The in front of the name) are a quartet from Vancouver, featuring Kirkham brothers Rob, Anthony and Chris and fronted by Debbie Harry soundalike Cassandra Ford. They'll be hawking out tracks from the upcoming Fear’s In The Water album, a decent enough fist of punchy indie pop rock that comes trailed by first single Metro, an infectious meet between euro cabaret, swamp rock boogie and CBGB’s punk pop. It’ll be interesting to see which one of the two wind up keeping the name.  7pm. £13.50. Carling Academy 2

Wednesday May 9

Los Lobos

A rare local visit and a return to form seems like a double celebration for the LA based Mexican outfit who probably still remain best known here for their cover of La Bamba and party time follow up Come On Let’s Go.  That was ten years ago and they’ve not had another UK hit, single or album, since. They have, however, been consistently turning out the albums, some better than others, and maintaining a solid live reputation. They do, though, sound re-energised with The Town and the City (Hollywood), their twelfth and most subtly political release with its warm Latino soulfulness and songs treating on the immigrant experience. Numbers like the swaggering Springsteen-ish blue collar rock of The Road to Gila Bend,a Band-like Little Things, the self-descriptive sway of the Spanish-sung Chuco’s Cumbia, the funky loose-limbed barrroom blues Two Dogs And A Bone and the blues-country burns of The Valley and The Town which provide the album’s bookends, rate among some of the best things they’ve recorded.

If you’re lucky they’ll be drawing heavily on the album tonight, peppered with oldies from past nuggets such as How Will The Wolf Survive. Just don’t embarrass them by shouting out for that Ritchie Valens cover!

Support’s provided by  JJ Grey & Mofro, an outfit steeped in swampy blues and Southern gospel funk and citing names like John Lee Hooker, Dr John, Otis Redding and Van Morrison among their influences. They’ve just released the Country Ghetto (Alligator) album, so you’ll be served up a healthy selection of front porch storytelling and tribulations, with the stomping Sly and the Family Stone groove of War, the gospel moodiness tale of poverty On Palastine and soul ballad The Sun Is Shining Down ones to particularly listen up for. 8pm. £19.50. Warwick Arts Centre

Wednesday May 9

Jake Stigers

Younger brother of soul-jazz man Curtis,  Stiger’s busy making an equal name for himself on the US east coast in much the same musical territory, though with perhaps more of a rock and blues roots edge.  Described as a cocktail of Mick Jagger, Bill Withers, Steve Miller and The Black Crowes, he arrives here to showcase the Do You Feel High album, advance samples in the shape of the swaggering title track, a bluesy End of the World, soulful falsetto ballad Marlena and the Southern blues rock  Flys On Your Skin boding well alongside earlier material like the Southern rock Long Road To Nowhere. Judging by his Live and Loud In The UK album his live sets are pretty fiery experiences too, so the chances of him playing venues as intimate as this next time he’s touring seem pretty slim. Catch him now. 9pm. £5. The Rainbow, Digbeth

Thursday May 10

Jesse Malin

With a voice that sounds like a strangled Springsteen circa Born To Run filtered through Neil Young's whine around Heart of Gold, Malin used to front D Generation before he gave up punk and hair extensions and reinvented himself as a New York singer-songwriter. These days he's a streetwise storyteller weaving Springsteenesque tales of the Big Apple's helpless romantics, losers, dreamers and survivors.

The Fine Art of Self Destruction proved an auspicious calling card a couple of years ago, and now he's back with an equally impressive follow-up Glitter In The Gutter (One Little Indian), offering further widescreen guitar rock laced with hooks and big choruses.  He even gets Bruce to duet on the Young-like Broken Radio while Ryan Adams' guitar is once more all over the place.

He's not dropping as many names as last time around (though mid tempo ballad Love Streams references Lenny Bruce), but his themes remain much the same with songs about hanging on to your sense of self, defiant youth, reflections on growing up, surviving the daily grind and changes, finding love and, as the title says, those diamonds in the gutter.

Save for a Neil Young like Bastards Of Young, it's all self-penned material, hitting rousing guitar punk pop whirlwinds with In The Modern World, Little Star and Prisoners of Paradise,  striking Springsteen poses with the anthemic Black Haired Girl and filtering in hints of Mink DeVille with Lucinda and NY Nights. The view from this gutter looks particularly good. 7.30pm. £8.50. Carling Academy 2

Thursday May 10

Sunshine Underground

Having made a splash with debut album Raise The Alarm and its PiL buzzy inclinations, . the Leeds crew hit the gig circuit in aid of  one final single, the thrumming scratchy guitar live favourite Borders, before starting work on that difficult follow up. 7.30pm. £10. Wulfrun Hall

Friday May 11

Stone Foundation

Despite releasing three EPs and an album, the locally based five piece (with added brass section) remain somewhat of a little discovered name, a cause o much consternation among those who’ve experienced their live sets and recorded output. Hopefully awareness might spread a little wider with the arrival of their second full length album, In Our Time (The Turning Point), a 14 track collection of southern country tinged rock n soul that underlines such acknowledged influences as The Band, Jackie Lomax, Frankie Miller, The Byrds, Van Morrison, Springsteen, Graham Parker and Neil Young.

If you need instant persuasion, then bend an ear to In Our Time, a class act number that recalls the vintage days of Elvis Costello with added Northern soul, but there’s plenty of  equally conversion prompting moments packed into this package. 5th October opens with a guitar riff that pulls together Blue Oyster Cult and Mark Knopfler before heading into 60s psychedelic phasing and a swaggering talk-sing vocal from Neil Jones, and then they top that with the Peter Green Fleetwood Mac in the Young Rascals everglades moods of We’ll Be Flying with its jazzy keyboards and fat brass.

And so it goes, chipping out minor classic after minor classic; the late night and too many beers and broken hearts barroom piano swaying Goldmine, the Counting Crows go Memphis of Seven Days,  and acoustic guitar ballad If You’re Looking For A Way Out with its aching harmonica. And, if that weren’t sufficient to conicnce, how about a resonant Signed Valentine that reimagines Steve Winwood fronting Southside Johnny with Nick Sandall playing twangy Chris Isaak guitar, the Small Faces soulful Autumn’s Child, a jangly Dylanesque summery pop So Begins The Conversation or the closing six minute slow burning soul power ballad that is Last Goodbye where Ian Wilson Arnold’s Hammond smoulders behind Jones giving it the sort of emotion-churning raw soul of Chris Farlowe, Otis Redding, and Wilson Pickett.

If they were in America, they’d be huge, with sold out signs slapped across the concert hall doors. Consider yourself fortunate, you can grab them for less than a fiver and get close enough to taste the sweat. 10pm. £4. Bar Academy (+ Glee Club, Thu May 17, 8pm, £7)

Friday May 11

Jack Savoretti

Anglo-Italian with a husky voice and a lifetime of experiences in his young years, all served up in emotion quivering songs accompanied on acoustic guitar, please welcome this year’s. Paulo Nutini.

If you can forgive Apologies borrowing rather obviously from Wonderful Tonight and Without’s excessive use of  the soulful Verve influence,  debut album Between The Minds (De Angelis) is a rather fine, easy on the ear set of relationship and self-examining songs. Dreamers should slip down a treat with James Morrison audiences,  while numbers such as No One’s Aware, Dr Frankenstein, the folksily strummed Once Upon A Street, and Killing Man will find favour among fans of Messrs Blunt, Ashcroft, Kitt, Drake and so forth. Dylanites might also warm to Soldier’s Eyes. He only slightly blows it by straining the voice to get angsty on Chemical Courage, but that shouldn’t stop him warming the cockles of impressionable twentysomething girls in the months to come. 8pm. £7.50. Glee Club

Friday May 11

Wheatus

Their star having fallen somewhat since Teenage Dirtbag was all over the airwaves like a rash and dumped when the second album stiffed, they’re trying to claw their way back with the self-released Too Soon Monsoon (Montauk Mantis). Unfortunately, they appear to be lost in a musical fog, often harking back to the tired days of  AOR with that adenoidal vocal put to the service of meandering, formless numbers like Something Good, In The Melody, grindingly dull dirge The Truth I Tell Myself  and the, oh dear, twin towers referencing  Hometown. They will, of course, be including their classic hit, but it might be advisable not to include it too early if they want people to hang about until the end of the set. 7pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

Friday May 11

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

What a strange voice she has, an androgynous whispery rasp that seems to jumble shades of Melanie, Marianne Faithful, Grace Slick, and Janis Joplin in a melting pot of churning emotions while her band, featuring former Whiskeytown alumni  Phil Wandscher, channel vintage Crazy Horse and feature guest appearances by jazz keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, and avant garde violinist Eyvind Kang.

 Together they make a powerful vehicle for Like, Love, Lost & The Open Halls of the Soul (Fargo) with its dark country soul songs of isolation, loss, regret, fraying nerves and fragile hopes of love and connection.   

Listen to the tremulous desperation of The Air Is Thin with its swelling brass refrain suggesting an alt-country Peter Gabriel, the ache of Eisenhower Moon and its mournful Midnight Cowboy harmonica, the emotional desolation of  Aftermath where she sounds like Janis Ian after three nervous breakdowns, or the bluesy barroom gospel waltzer The Open Halls of the Soul. Then  try to resist returning to them again  like an opium addict to his pipe, discovering new subtleties of lyric and musical phrasing with each curl of smoke. Well worth the petrol money. 7.30pm. £8. Tin Angel, Coventry

Saturday May 12

Mr Hudson & The Library

He’s got white hair, wears jacket, waistcoat, cravat and trilby, has a musical affection for early David Bowie, Sinatra and Noel Coward and they did a tour of libraries. Gimmick you think, and you’d not be far wrong.

Indeed, debut album A Tale Of Two Cities (Mercury) even opens with an electro pop beats cover of evergreen On The Street Where You Live while that whole cabaret vibe informs tracks like the vaguely tango rhythm Brave The Cold, doodling cod jazz lounge piano ballad Everything Happens To Me and the sub Brel Ask The DJ.

Then there’s the sub Sting white reggae of  Bread + Roses  and Too Late, Too Late, the pallid hip hop of One Specific Thing where he poses as Mike Skinner drained of all life or the anaemic middle of the road of Upon The Heath. 

Occasionally, as on the English contemporary folk 2x2 with its sketch of urban alienation, things rise above the drearily bland but really this is just pleasantly inoffensive background music for wine bars that nobody frequents any more. 7pm. £8.50. Carling Academy 2

Saturday May 12

P.J .Wright & Dave Pegg

A veteran session guitarist and frontman with folk rock outfit Little Johnny England,   a couple of years back Wright made his solo debut with Hedge of Sound. He returns now in the company of fellow Dylan Project member and Fairport alumni Pegg with Galileo’s Apology (Matty Groves), a second slice of English folk flavours that mixes up social (Bread and Circuses), economic (Everything’s Made In China) and religious (Galileo’s Apology) politics with songs about cricket (Linseed Memories), Sandy Denny (Song For Sandy) and Lonnie Donegan (Mark Knopfler’s Donegan’s Gone), interspersed with the occasional instrumental.

Relaxed and effortless, there’s some good stuff here, not the least covers of Denny’s Bushed and Briars, the Band’s King Harvest and a bluesy folk version of It Doesn’t Matter Anymore. They even give a rather nifty twin acoustic guitar treatment to the old Chantays surf-rock instrumental Pipeline which promises to be a bit of a highlight if it turns up in what promises to be a couple of accomplished and wide roving sets.

Fairport devotees might also like to take note that Talking Elephant have reissued a couple of the band’s hard to find live albums; 1996’s  acoustic Old New Borrowed And Blue with Pegg, Allcock, Sanders and Nicol on numbers such as The Deserter, The Hiring Fair, Genesis Hall and Loudon Wainwright III’s The Swimming Song; and the 1992 25th Anniversary Concert double disc featuring band classics like Crazy Man Michael, Si To Dois Partir, Adieu, Adieu, Tam Lin and Million Dollar Bash with guests that include Richard Thompson, Ralph McTell, Ashley Hutchings, Julianne Regan and, on Dylan’s Girl From The North Country,  Robert Plant. 8pm. £10. Red Lion, Kings Heath

Sunday May 13

Help She Can’t Swim

The Brighton based indie screechers have been around now for four years, making their debut with Fashionista Super Dance Troupe back in 2004 and following up with a scattering of limited edition EPs. Now they hit the slog circuit with second album The Death of Nightlife (Fantastic Plastic), but really seem to have little on offer to distinguish themselves other than urgent hammering punky songs with machine gun fuzzing guitar, Tom denney’s shouts and keyboard player singer Leesey Francis’s flat vocals. They do deviate from the heads down attack here and there, Pass The Hat Around, Idle Chatter, Never The Right Time For Us (their pop moment) and Midnight Garden  throwing quiet bits into the otherwise mostly identikit welter of Hospital Drama etc that sounds as though it would have been more at home amid the pogoing crowds of  the old Roxy alongside all those aspirant third division new wave wannabes. 7pm. £6. Bar Academy

Monday May 14/Wednesday May 16

Meatloaf

A somewhat belated arrival to promote last year’s addition to the Bat Out Of Hell canon, The Monster Is Loose (Mercury), it’s a little hard to get too excited about this since not only is there an excess of  meat and potato heavy metal amid the album’s overwrought Wagnerian bombast but Mr Loaf’s stentorian vocal isn’t the beast it was back in the days of Paradise By The Dashboard Light and You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth.

Old glories are rehashed to soundalike but lesser effect on It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, Alive, What About Love and The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be (with Oscar winning Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson), the gap between now and then emphasised by a disappointingly pale rework of Bad For Good that isn’t a patch on the Jim Steinman original.

Doubtless, the live show will be suitably camped up with mock operatic drama and a set list that works its way back and through the whole Bat saga, contrasting the plodding stodge of  If It Ain’t Broke Break It with the inspired camp of Dead Ringer For Love, Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad and I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), but you can’t escape feeling that it’s time the bat went into hibernation for good. 7.30pm. £37.50. NEC

Monday May 14

The Reverend & The Makers.

An uninspiring name isn’t really compensated for by the music, competent but workmanlike electro funk with roots in old school garage soul and memories of Happy Mondays, packaged into Heavyweight Champion Of The World (Wall of Sound), the debut single by six foot plus Sheffield soundsystem guru Jon McClure. Like the accompanying 18-30, it’s decent enough disco dance floor fodder for those frightened by Franz Ferdinand but you’d be much better off seeking out Birmingham’s own Players to give the limbs a workout. 8pm. £6. Barfly

Monday May 14

Wire Daisies

Hailing from Cornwall and fronted by Treana Morris, the four piece have been steadily building a name for themselves since the release of Just Another Day, supporting Robbie Williams and playing the Montreux Jazz Festival. They take a step further up the ladder with their eponymous follow up album (EMI Angel), sounding like a  combination of Blondie, The Pretenders and (especially on Time Will Tell and Roll Over) Katrina & The Waves. Strutting through staple guitar rock on Wake Up and Tongue Tied, soaring into the Bangles skies of new single Rocket Girl, scuffing beats for Move Over  and mining Stevie Nicks ballad territory with Let Me Love You and the acoustic Leaving So Soon. At the end of the day, they’re probably a bit too pubby to make a major breakout, but they sound like they deliver a solid live set. 7.30pm. £7. Bar Academy

Monday May 14

65 Days of Static

Post-rock electronica and prog  that conjures shades  of Mogwai, Aphex Twin and Radiohead in out there instrumentals, they’re here in service of  The Destruction of Small Ideas (Monotreme), a new album that sees them expanding their musical palate with the fragile Don't Go Down To Sorrow, the strings and piano constructed Music Is Music As Devices Are Kisses Is Everything, Primer with its pattering rain dappled piano and electronics and sudden guitar storms and the fierce A Failsafe evoking memories of their The Fall of Math debut before erupting into a frenzied drum battle. With showcases of other new numbers such as the marvellously titled The Distant & Mechanised Glow of Eastern European Dance Parties and  The Conspiracy of Seeds alongside past favourites like the metal of Await Rescue and the apocalyptic Radio Protector, it should be something of an aural experience. 7pm. £8. Carling Academy 2

Monday May 14

The Maccabees

The Brighton art rock outfit’s first two singles, the Pulp-like First Love and About Your Dress, and advance tasters of  X-Ray, Lego and Precious Time suggested they might be a bit of a one trick pony with nervy guitars, urgent vocals and flurried chorus. Unfortunately, the In Colour (Fiction) album reveals that to be precisely the case, offering little variation on the basic formula with even slow paced opener Good Old Bill throwing in the towel and reverting to type by the end of the track. They do have some interesting lyrical moments that live up to the Jarvis Cocker and Ray Davies references (Latchmere is all about wave machine in their local swimming pool) and, individually, the hook riddled likes of Tissue Shoulders, O.A.V.I.P., and Happy Faces are naggingly attractive rompers. But you can only take so many similar sounding exuberant jangles at one go before feeling the need to switch off and find something with more shadings. The closing acoustic Toothpaste Kisses, with its calypso lilt, shows they can vary the diet if they feel like it; if they want to hang around they should do it more often. 7.30pm. £8. Wulfrun Hall

Tuesday May 15

The Lemonheads

It’s getting on for ten years since, spiralling towards crack and drink fuelled self-destruction and overly enamoured with the Britpop explosion, Evan Dando called time on arguably the most exciting American pop-punk guitar band of  the day.

So, it’s good that, cleaned up and happily married, he’s resurrected the band, to record the self-titled comeback album (Vagrant).A fine melodic country flavoured guitar pop album, it sounds as though it could have been made back in their heyday, romping through infectiously catchy nuggets like Black Gown, the mid-tempo single Become The Enemy, the rolling In Passing and the buoyantly upbeat summery sparks of  Let’s Just laugh and Poughskeepie.  And, for fans of country murder songs, there’s tongue in cheek waltzer Baby’s Home, where a guy ponders shooting his cheating wife and pounding her lover’s head with a stone.

He sounds more world weary, but Dando’s soft voice hasn’t lost its appealing laconic flavour and while this  may not be in the same league as the classic  It’s A Shame About Ray,  there’s a lot more going for it than mere 90s nostalgia. Though with Dando apparently happy to chuck a lot of the old material into the live set, you’ll be happy to know you get that too. 7.30pm. £16. Carling Academy 2

Tuesday May 15

Hafdis Huld

A rescheduled appearance by  the Icelandic songstress who, contrary to expectations arising from her origins, feeds debut solo album Dirty Paper Cup (Red Grape) on a diet of 60s English folk (Plastic Halo), mediaeval troubadour pop (Hometown Hero), bluegrass n Eastern (Diamonds On My Belly) and vaudeville (a jaunty rework of Lou Reed’s Who Loves The Sun). It’s a magically spooked noise, that’s deservedly attracting a growing following.8pm. £6. Glee Club

Wednesday May 16

Duke Special

The vagabond soul Irishman returns for his second headlining tour of the year, impetus somewhat stalled by recent single, Freewheel, the poor man’s Robbie Williams ballad from the otherwise fine Songs From The Deep Forest album. However, the man as the voice and as Brixton Leaves, Ballad Of A Broken Man, new single Last Night I Nearly Died and This Could Be My Last Day, don’t be surprised to one day find him among the Tony nominations for a Broadway musical. 7.30pm. £9. Carling Academy 2

Thursday May 17

Mika

If the ubiquitously catchy Grace Kelly didn’t eventually make you want to throw the radio out of the window, you’ll be delighted to know debut album, Life In Cartoon Motion (Casablanca) offers a further ten infectious/annoying bubbles of high camp falsetto pop that variously summons up thoughts of Leo Sayer, Sylvester (current single Love Today), and, on the kiddie boogie Lollipop even Shirley Ellis of The Clapping Song  fame given a tropical Scissor Sisters makeover.

Relax rips off  the I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight intro before giving way to Giorgio Moroder Bee Gees disco pop, Any Other World pretends to be a strings drenched Pet Shop Boys ballad,  Penny Lane wannabe Billy Brown offers a gay Gilbert O’Sullivan lollopper with brass and so forth. Oh, an just to keep the Queen references in mind, Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) is what  Fat Bottomed Girls might have been if it had been written by, er, Steps.

A hidden track where he turns into a choirboy backed by simple piano will probably have those who’ve stayed the course collapsing in hysterics.

Quite how serious the chap takes all this only he can say, but right now he’s got pop music in the palm of his hand. 7.30pm. £12.50. Carling Academy

Thursday May 17

Kris Drever

The son of Wolfstone member Ivan, Scottish multi-instrumentalist Drever  started singing and playing in the Orkneys when he was just 13, moving to become a fixture on the Edinburgh folk scene by the time he was 17 as well as touring with the likes of Kate Rusby, for whose band he supplies guitar.

He’s currently plugging his solo debut with Black Water, a stunning acoustic collection of songs that features guest appearances from Rusby, Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble and  Eddi Reader. Rich, and heartfelt, it ranges from traditional numbers like Patrick Spence, Green Grow The Laurel and Braw Sailin' On The Sea to contemporary social themed contributions such as Boo Hewardine’s Harvest Gypsies, Phil Gaston’s haunting Navigator and title track lament Steel & Stone (Black Water). Outstanding. 8pm. £7. Glee Club

Thursday May 17

Shady Bard

They’ve had something of a low key build up over the past year, but the time’s now ripe for Birmingham’s environmentally friendly alt-folk five piece to burst into the national consciousness with their debut album From The Ground Up (Static Caravan), for which this gig is a local launch.

With instrumentation that includes French horn, glockenspiel, violin, cello and e-bow as well as your regular acoustic guitars and drums, and featuring shared vocals between Lawrence Becko and Jasmin Hollingum, they weave a wonderful, achingly world weary campfire melancholy that variously prompts thought of the Super Furries, Arab Strap, the more sublime moments of Radiohead, Sparklehorse, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Tim Buckley.

Gathering together tracks from their previous EPs, the album’s a glorious, tranquil listen, at times so fragile and delicate you can hear the wind whisper between the notes  of something like Memory Tree, Summer Came When We Were Falling Out and the shimmering Fires (its phrasing oddly evocative of the Incredible String Band).

At others it builds to the sort of lysergic fuzzed storm that blows through Treeology, the warm brass enfolded Winter Coats, and the windswept landscapes of the title track. Best of all though is the transcendentally soul-tingling, frost-lined Penguins which rivals the very best of Sigur Ros.

Hewing lyrics from ecological themes and images of nature, matching melodies to the seasons and the weather, and built upon a deep, honest emotional core that reverberates through every song, Shady Bard are a band for the ages, music for eternity. 8pm. £4. Tin Angel, Coventry

Friday May 18

The Mission

It seems that old goths never die, they just become dark emo mongers. Formed by Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams back in 1985, the Mish established a reputation as one of the world’s best live bands as well as one for a hard lifestyle that took regular toll on the lineup, notching up such hits as Wasteland, Tower of Strength, Butterfly On A Wheel and Hands Across The Ocean along the way. Going into cold storage in 1996, they re-emerged five years later with the AurA album marking a return to their old swagger after a flirtation with dance music.

Although Adams has again departed, Hussey continues to lead from the front, heading out on the road now to promote new album God Is A Bullet (Cooking Vinyl) which finds them collaborating with former member Simon Hinckler and All About Eve’s Tim Bricheno and Julianne Regan. It’s pretty much business as usual musically speaking, returning to the old swagger and even sporting gothy dark titles like Belladonna, Absolution and To Love And To Kill With The Very Same Hand while brooding first single Still Deep Waters sounds all very sepulchral  and hollow, includes an intoning chant intro and compares love to heroin addiction.

It’s a big, confident album, full of coiled musical tension, from the almost U2 flavours of Keep It In The Family, through the funereal swaying Aquarius And Gemini to the melodramatic churning metal in Hdshrinkerea, the chiming darkness of Draped in Red and  the gloriously soaring In Silhouette which should have parents of My Chemical Romance fans writhing in ecstasy.

Considerably more relevant and contemporary - musically and lyrically - than you might think for a band now in its 22nd year, they deserve far more than being pegged on the goth nostalgia circuit. 7.30pm. £15. Wulfrun Hall

Saturday May 19

Willy Mason

Two years back outstanding debut album, Where The Humans Eat, announced the Martha’s Vineyards native as one of the finest new singer-songwriters on the roots folk scene, his dust croaked world seasoned voice conjuring comparisons to Guy Clarke, Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Bruce Cockburn and earning him the inevitable new Dylan tag

The same reference points echo throughout the follow-up, If The Ocean Gets Rough (Virgin), an equally strong but more polished collection of sparely arranged acoustic songs drawn from personal experiences, family relationships, political views and tales of broken lives and America’s mainstream rednecks.

 The opening Gotta Keep Walking leans towards those Cockburn colours while The World That I Wanted, an affecting song about his alcoholic, neglectful late father, shows the Clarke touches. Interestingly, the influence of Eric Clapton also surfaces here, notably on the folk bluesy We Can Be Strong and the gentle, plucked strings I Can’t Sleep while you might find yourself humming Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams as the title track wafts out of the speakers.

 But the album’s more than a list of comparisons. Listen to Save Myself, a jaunty little number that reveals itself as a cutting comment about Bush’s domestic policies that serves as a thematic companion piece to the last album’s Oxygen. Or then again try the slow, mournful blues of the magnificent Simple Town with its ambivalent examination of small town  life or the Oh Brother gospel flavours of When The River Moves On and the hobo rolling train chugging The End of the Race.

Arguably, he leaves the best to last with the slow building, guitar thrumming, piano based, tom tom climaxing When The Leaves Have A Fallen, a melancholic hymn about the destruction of nature and its apocalyptic implications. Both downcast realist and hopeful romantic, Mason forges a sad beauty  you’d be foolish to spurn. 7pm. £9.50. Carling Academy 2

Sat May 19

Thirteen Senses

Having released debut album The Invitation a couple of years back to talks of the new Coldplay, the Cornish crew’s follow-up Contact (Vertigo) reinforces the comparisons while adding Snow Patrol to the mix and the title track strongly calling to mind Athlete. It’s all soaringly lush, dripping melodic swirls and big screen soundscapes, slightly louder than before with more guitar emphasis, and you have to admit that All The Love In Your hands with its New Year’s Day-ish intro, the swayalong Call Someone, Spirals’ anthemic swirls and the brooding A Lot Of Silence Here (which surely clones parts of Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia) probably wouldn't have you racing to turn off the radio.

But, when you get down to it, while they’re perfectly capable, there’s nothing original here, nothing you’ve not heard by the bands they’re seeking to emulate, and nothing you’d go out of your way to spend time with if there were better options next door.

They do, however, come with a support act that makes the gig more worthwhile. 19 year old Amy Macdonald’s being tipped as one of the next big things out of Glasgow with her feisty, guitar driven amalgam of Celtic tinged folk and indie. It’s hard to ignore thoughts of Dolores O’Riordan or KT Tunstall here and there (The Cranberries particularly ripe on Mr Rock And Roll) while at times she sounds like a less deep voiced Tanita Tikaram.

None of these are bad reference points, and debut single Poison Prince (Vertigo), a song about musicians throwing away their talent on drugs, rattles along with almost mazurka rhythm that seems likely to prove a live highlight. Her debut album, This Is The Life, is due in July, and she’ll be showcasing tasters here, among them the tinkling, rhythmically rippling, swellingly anthemic Run that gives the headliners a run for their money in the Snow Patrol stakes. She’s not as good as Thea Gilmore, but chances are that she’s going to prove twice as commercially successful. 7pm. £11. Bar Academy

Sunday May 20

Steve Howe Trio

Before Yes and Asia fanatics get too excited, it should be pointed out that this little foray finds Howe in markedly different frame of musical mind from their prog and poodle pomp. With son Dylan on drums and  Ross Stanley on Hammond organ, the menu here is very much jazz and blues, citing names such as Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Tal Farlow as prime influences. There’ll doubtless be some solo guitar noodling too in a set of Howe originals, a smattering of genre covers and, if your heart can stand it, some Yes classics reworked for the trio format. 7.30pm. £17.50. Glee Club

Sunday May 20

Saxon

Not ashamed to wear poodle perms or spandex in his mid-50s or appear on a reality tv music show for washed up has beens, Biff Byford’s remained true to his second division metal outfit since they first appeared back in the late 70s. At their peak with the five albums released between 1980-1984, they then fell from mainstream rock favour but continued to maintain a cult following and release core fanbase pleasing albums.

Things are unlikely to find them back in the spotlight with their 18th album, The Inner Sanctum (SPV), but they can feel pleased with themselves for turning out another collection of solid classic metal riffs, guitar duels, misspelled lyrics and songs about rock n roll (I’ve Got To Rock To Stay Alive), life at full tilt (Need For Speed), apocalyptic armies (Atila The Hun) and never giving up (Ashes To Ashes).  Hell, State of Grace even features chanting monks. You could headbang to worse. 7.30pm. £16. W’hampton Civic Hall

Monday May 21

Loney Dear

Otherwise known as Swedish multi instrumentalist Emil Svanangen, here’s another dose of  shimmering, low fi folksy pop likely to go down well with admirers of Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian and their ilk. Although he’s been around for three previous albums, it’s only with the latest, Lonely Noir (Regal), that he’s getting exposure over here, this gig coming as a showcase after some rather glowing reviews.

It won’t get you working up a sweat, but it’s all very summery stuff, occasionally calling to mind Brian Wilson (Saturday Waits) and even Paul Simon (I Am John, and the handclappy Hard Days 1.2.3.4), skipping along in three minute bursts as the songs gradually build in instrumentation. Carrying A Stone offers a fine example of his jangly pop sensibilities, And I Won’t Cause Anything At All ripples along with mild dance beats while No One Can Win (which sounds a bit like The Great Pretender) comes on like a big Roy Orbison or show tune ballad, pared back to a simple, underblown arrangement with clarinet. Harmonium pops up for I Am The Odd One, Sinister In A State of Hope plays around with a drone pulsing undercurrent and  I will Call You Lover Again does that swaying on the spot thing of Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens, adding small flourishes of individual colour  to what might otherwise be a somewhat samey palette. How it works live, whether with backing tapes or road musicians, remains to be seen, but you’ll doubtless be wanting to raise a bottle of Crocodile in celebration. 8pm. £7.50. Glee Club

Monday May 21

Manic Street Preachers

Re-energised and refocused after their solo albums, Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield have reassembled the Manics and now take to the road in support of Send Away The Tigers (Columbia), an album that positively revels in big, stadium swelling anthems in its evocation of their finest glories. Indeed, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, a duet with Nina Perrson of The Cardigans,  actually borrows the lyrics from You Stole The Sun From my Heart.

A familiar melding of the political (the punky chugging Imperial Bodybags is unambiguous enough) and the personal into massive tunes, it kicks off with the title track’s reference to the Iraq war and misguided notions of liberation served with a self-styled Guns n Roses attack. They seem happy to celebrate their influences,  cheerfully noting that Underdogs nods to Alice Cooper and the Stooges while Rendition owes a debt to The Skids and The Clash and I Am Just A Patsy even cites Boston.

They’ve clearly raided the chorus cupboard for this one, The Second Great Depression’s rolling waves, the soaring air punching orchestral majesty of Autumn Song, the power chords of Queen-like ballad belter Winter Lovers with its guitar god solo and the arms linked swaying Indian Summer all guaranteed to have the congregations singing along in euphoria.

With a set likely to feature a sizeable wedge of new material along with the evergreens being given a new lick of paint, and maybe even their hidden track cover of Working Class Hero, this surely has to be regarded as a warm up leg for an arena tour later in the year. 7.30pm. £25. W’hampton Civic Hall

Tuesday May 22

The Who

Back on the road with what’s probably going to be the final tour, surviving members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are joined by Zak Starkey on drums, Pino Palladino on bass, ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick on keyboards, and Simon Townshend on guitar for a bit of a greatest hits night. They’ll be working their way through the past with the likes of  I Can't Explain, Substitute, swathes of Who's Next, Quadrophenia and Tommy (Pinball Wizard, naturally) but also hopefully a couple of samples from Endless Wire, their first studio album in 24 years and featuring the classic sounding Black Widow’s Eyes, the military marching  beat title track and mini opera Wire & Glass. Still as powerful and bombastic as ever, even if Townshend’s windmilling antics and split leg leaps might be a little toned down these days, if you’ve never seen them in action then it’s well worth taking this last opportunity just so you know what it felt like. 7.30pm. £45. NIA

Tuesday May 22

The Draytones

An Anglo-Argentinean trio with a love of classic 60s British pop even the trad-jazz of the 50s,  debut album Forever On (1965 Records) makes no bones about musically referencing The Beatles (Time), garage pop bands like The Swinging Blue Jeans (new single Keep Loving Me) and The Kinks (Four Years). Indeed, anyone who’s ever sat at home pondering what Ray Davies might have done had he been able to team up with George Formby should probably lend an ear to Out Of This World.

Elsewhere the tinkling lullaby pop of Not Alone picks up the urchin Mersey pop baton of the LA’s while the plinckety Chas n Dave eel pie sway of Trafalgar Square was clearly dressed by one of the Carnaby Street retro brigade. Cute, but make sure you’re wearing the drainpipes if you want to feel at home.

Sharing a feel for the period is opener Liverpool’s Candie Payne (sister to assorted Zutons and Stands) whose own debut, I Wish I Could Have Loved You More (Deltasonic), imagines Mari Wilson fronting Portishead playing organ driven Merseybeat r&b and pop arranged by John Barry for a 60s spy movie.

 There’s more than a hint of Dusty Springfield here and there, albeit not as deep, husky and rich, the music widescreen and seductive as she snakes her hips (surely in mini skirt and leather boots) across such tracks as All I Need To Hear, the backbeat dance bobber Take Me, northern soul clatterer By Tomorrow, a Bond theme sounding In The Morning and the fabulous A Different You which channels Cilla, Lulu and Gene Pitney. Get the mascara, beehive and bangs on and enjoy. 7.30pm. £6. Bar Academy

Tuesday May 22

Nouvelle Vague

Hayseed Dixie turn heavy rock into bluegrass, and this bunch go all Antonio Carlos Jobin on nuggets from the classic electro/goth days of  the 80s and 70s punk.  A fairly fluid ensemble built around French multi-instrumentalists Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, their eponymous debut album roped in a multicultural assortment of female vocalists to give the likes of Love Will Tear Us Apart, This Is Not A Love Song and Guns of Brixton. a  bossa nova seeing to.

Then came Bande Apart, extending musical borders to embrace influences from Cuba and Jamaica,  smouldering their way through reimaginings of such numbers as The Killing Moon (sounding like a ghostly sea shanty),  Dancing With Myself (a soft shoe shuffle), Don't Go (scratchy and bluesy) and an Afro-Carnival romp through The Buzzcocks's Ever Fallen In Love  while steel pan drums ripple through their accordion washed interpretation of Visage's Fade To Gray.

They’ll be doing these and doubtless other cabaret reinterpretations tonight, hopefully including a chance to lap up their hard to find version of Come On Eileen. They may be a novelty but they’re a very danceable one. 8pm. £12. Glee Club

Tuesday May 22

Slim Francis

There’s no one actually called Francis in the Williamsburg trio, Slim or otherwise, but led by  Aric Carroll with bassist Andrew Hall and former Jeff Buckley drummer Matt Johnson, they play soulful rock in the vein of Van Morrison, Wilco, Petty and even Curtis Mayfield. With four albums under their belt, they’re over here playing the small venue circuit to spread the word with their debut UK release Love Life Part One (Dig Nitty), presumably trawled from 2005’s Love Life and the other albums. Given the warm, soulful laid-back dusty Americana of numbers such as Sail Away, The Night Is Breaking, a bluesy Hiding So Long or Once More With Feeling and the more rocking You Can Make A Man, this is a band you’ll find it hard not to fall in love with. 8pm. £4. The Roadhouse, Stirchley

Tuesday May 22

The Twang

Having stormed the place with feverishly anticipated debut Wide Awake the Birmingham quintet step up with their sophomore release, getting over a relationship number Either Way (b-Unique) marking a musical shift in stylings. If the first single’s surging guitar storms The Alarm, this, with its spoken verses and chiming guitars chorus comes on like an unlikely meeting between The Streets and The Byrds. It should comfortably spiral them into the Top 5, and with the Love It When I Feel Like This album waiting in the wings, their ascendency into the major leagues seems pretty much assure