Tag Archive | live music
Jah Wobble and the Modern Jazz Ensemble
Headed off to the Capstone on Friday evening to see Jah Wobble in his latest incarnation, fronting his Modern Jazz Ensemble. I don’t know if there’s something lacking in the Capstone’s marketing, but the house was only half full to see a legend of modern British music. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this […]
Patti Smith in Manchester: spirit in the night
The rock’n’roll spirit soared and raged last Friday night in Manchester, as if thirty years had not passed and reduced the flame to a flickering ember. The reason? One of the few artists left with any credibility from the time when rock and poetry fused was in town, a battered survivor still raising a […]
Richard Thompson: windswept in New Brighton
I parked the car only a few hundred yards from the Floral Pavilion on the river front at New Brighton last night, but it might just as well have been a mile. Pummelled by gusts of wind off the Irish Sea, the rain was incessant. By the time I reached the foyer, I was drenched, […]
Evelyn Glennie at DaDaFest: feel the noise
Sound! That’s the only way to describe last night’s event at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. The crowning event of this year’s DaDaFest, An Evening With Evelyn Glennie featured performers from both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics. DaDaFest is an innovative disability arts organisation based in Liverpool that, through the annual […]
John Surman solo: landscapes in sound
On stage the velvet-clothed table was illuminated in one discreet shaft of light, burnishing the instruments arrayed there: soprano and baritone saxophones, an alto clarinet and a recorder. They lay waiting for the deft fingers and mighty breath of a master European jazzman who would conjure from them music of haunting beauty, his melodies memories […]
Bruce in Manchester: standing shoulder to shoulder in hard times
The rain was lashing down so hard that the windscreen wipers could barely cope as I drove over to Manchester to see Bruce Springsteen’s show at the Etihad Stadium yesterday with an old friend who, at the last minute, acquired a pair of tickets from someone unable to go, and had graciously offered one to […]
Woody Guthrie: a Liverpool celebration
A little bit of music history was made in the Rodewald Suite last night. The event was a celebration of the centennial this year of the birth of Woody Guthrie at which Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, gave an engaging personal talk about her father’s life and music. Organised by Alun Parry, founder of Liverpool’s Woody Guthrie […]
Andy Sheppard’s Trio Libero at RNCM
Trio Libero is saxophonist Andy Sheppard’s latest band, with Michel Benita on double bass and Seb Rochford on drums. We had front row seats when we saw them on Saturday as their current tour reached the RNCM in Manchester. The great thing about live music is that you generally listen far more intensely than at […]
Trio Mediaeval and Arve Henriksen: exquisite pleasure
When I phoned the Royal Northern College of Music to book tickets they asked me, ‘where would you like to be seated – on the balcony or in the pool?’ There’s a first time for everything, and this was the first concert I’ve attended in a swimming pool. The concert – which was undoubtedly one […]
The Lady: Sandy Denny tribute at the Phil
The lady she had a silver tongue. For to sing she said, And maybe that’s all. Wait for the dawn and we will have that song. When it ends it will seem That we hear silence fall. The Lady: A Homage to Sandy Denny is a touring monster of a show that celebrates the musical […]
