GIG REVIEW

GIG REVIEW: Christine And The Queens at Eventim Apollo

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

SETLIST: Comme Si; Girlfriend; Le G; Science Fiction; Make Some Sense; Les Paradis Perdus; iT; Feel So Good; Tilted; 5 Dollars; What’s Her Face; Here; the Stranger; Goya! Soda!; Damn; Nuit 17 a 52; Doesn’t Matter; The Walker; Saint Claude; Intranquillite

WHEN?: 20/11/18, tour runs until 10/3/19

The most striking thing about Christine And The Queens in the flesh is how Héloïse Letissier sings and moves so in sync with her half dozen-strong troupe of athletic dancers.

  • Read on for reasons including why they’re a band we think we should love more than we actually do

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GIG REVIEW: Culture Club, Belinda Carlisle, Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey at the SSE Arena

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

TTTB SETLIST: We Are Detective; Love On Your Side; Science Fiction: You Take Me Up; Lies; Lay Your Hands On Me; Doctor! Doctor!; Hold Me Now

WHEN?: 14/11/18, tour runs to 8/12/18

He may have been 3rd on the bill but Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey won a deserved acapella audience singalong of the chorus to 1983 classic Hold Me Now after his all-women band had finished it.

  • Read on for reasons including reviews of Belinda Carlisle and Culture Club

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GIG REVIEW: Sigrid at the O2 Brixton Academy

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

SETLIST: Sucker Punch; In Vain; Schedules; Plot Twist; Raw; High Five; Dynamite; I Don’t Want To Know; Fake Friends; Haunted; I Don’t Buy It; Savage In Our Blood; Go To War; Don’t Kill My Vibe; Focus; Credit; Strangers

WHEN?: 12/11/18

WHERE: O2 Brixton Academy

‘We need to hear that debut album – now’ we wrote when we last saw Sigrid in March at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire and it is a sentiment that is much underscored tonight.

  • Read on for reasons including which arenas to see her in next year

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GIG REVIEW: Suede at the Eventim Apollo

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHERE?: Eventim Apollo

WHEN?: 12/10, tour runs until 14/10/18 (more dates likely, see link below)

SETLIST: As One; Wastelands; Outsiders; We Are The Pigs; So Young; Heroine; The Drowners; He Is Dead; Tides; Roadkill; Sabotage; Dolly; It Starts And Ends With You; Filmstar; Metal Mickey; Trash; Animal Nitrate; Pantomime Horse; The 2 Of Us; The Invisibles; Flytipping; Beautiful Ones; Life Is Golden

Ask us what our favourite ever gig is and we’d probably say Suede at Portsmouth Pyramids in 1993 because it was the 1st time we felt we had ever found our tribe.

  • Read on for reasons including which song Suede played for the 1st time in 26 years

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THEATRE REVIEW: The Height Of The Storm starring Dame Eileen Atkins & Jonathan Pryce

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHERE?: Wyndhams Theatre RUN TIME: 80 minutes (no interval)

WHEN?: 6/10, press night 9/10, runs to 1/12/18

French playwright Florian Zeller is interviewed in the programme and declares: ‘For me, theatre is above all the place for questions and not answers – for doubt more than certainty and conviction.’

  • Read on for reasons including how Dame Eileen Atkins is terrific in the role of the protective wife

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GIG REVIEW: Sophie Ellis-Bextor at the Royal Festival Hall

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHERE?: Royal Festival Hall

WHEN?: 3/10, tour next year

SETLIST: Groovejet; Wild Forever; Catch You; Me & My Imagination; Youngblood; Love Is A Camera; Not Giving Up; The Sun’s On Us; Music Gets The Best Of Me; Bittersweet; Take Me Home; Young Hearts Run Free; Love Is You; Groovejet; Don’t Leave Me This Way; Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer; Murder On The Dancefloor; A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed

Perhaps it’s having a former Blue Peter presenter as a mother but Sophie Ellis-Bextor has always been refreshingly down-to-earth. So, when she describes tonight’s orchestral pop extravaganza as a ‘dream come true’, the qualification that: ‘All I had to do was pay for it’ comes as little surprise.

  • Read on for reasons including how you can see Sophie on this tour next summer

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GIG REVIEW: Soft Cell: One Final Time at The O2

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Carron Stacey

WHERE?: The O2

WHEN?: 30/9

When writing a gig review, I like to explain what sort of fan I am. I was 10 when Tainted Love came out. Of course I loved it. I loved all their 80s hits, loved the naughtiness of their debut Non Stop Erotic Cabaret album of the same year and liked a few of Marc’s solo ballads.

  • Read on for reasons including why Dave Ball’s synth’s Tainted Love “doink doink” was the memorable sound of the night

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GIG REVIEW: The League Of Gentlemen Live again! at the Eventim Apollo

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHERE?: Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith

WHEN?: 27/9, tour runs to 29/9/18

Tonight is the 45th gig of this 47-date tour and the BBC is filming which means the chance of seeing it on a small screen near you sometime soon seems assured.

  • Read on for reasons including whether beloved Restart officer Pauline is really dead – or not

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GIG REVIEW: Janelle Monae at Camden Roundhouse

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHERE?: Camden Roundhouse

WHEN?: 12/9/18

SETLIST: Dirty Computer; Crazy, Classic, Life; Take A Byte; Screwed; Django Jane; Q.U.E.E.N.; Electric Lady; Prime Time; Pynk; Yoga; I Like That; Don’t Judge Me; Make Me Feel; I Got the Juice; Cold War; Tightrope; So Afraid; Americans

When Monae encourages BAFTA-winning British actress and screenwriter Michaela Coel to join three audience members, including 1 in a wheelchair, on stage for a dance-off during an extended version of I Got The Juice (see 1h 16m in below), you know that you’re witnessing something extra special.

  • Read on for reasons including how this show opens with the 2001 Theme and, astonishingly, lives up to it

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