By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
WHEN?: All May 2025 at Papillon, Southampton
Snapped Ankles are a Mr H thing, but off we went to our favourite new venue, Papillon in Southampton. We have a tea towel from the tour, Hard Times Furious Dancing, hanging in our disco area. They certainly do make you move!
By Neil Durham
WHEN?: Friday 13 June 2025, tour runs through 26 September 2025
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
Setlist: Spike Island; Grown Ups; Slow Jam; Sorted For Es and Whizz; Disco 2000; F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E; Tina; Help The Aged; Farmers’ Market; This Is Hardcore; Sunrise; Something Changed; The Fear; O.U. (Gone Gone); Party Hard; Acrylic Afternoons; Do You Remember The First Time?; Mis-Shapes; Got To Have Love; Babies; Common People; A Sunset
Tonight Pulp discover shortly before taking the stage at this arena for the 1st time that More, their 1st new album for 24 years, is their 3rd UK charttopper, their 1st since 1998’s This Is Hardcore.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN?: Monday 26 May 2025, tour runs through 26 August 2025
Setlist: Lights Camera Action; In Your Eyes; Get Outta My Way; What Do I Have To Do?; Come Into My World; Good As Gone; Spinning Around; On A Night Like This; Last Night I Dreamt I Fell In Love; Better The Devil You Know; Shocked; Things We Do For Love; Dancing; The Locomotion; Hold On To Now; Never Too Late; What Kind Of Fool?; I Should Be So Lucky; Where The Wild Roses Grow; Say Something; Supernova/Real Groove/Magic/Where Does The DJ Go?; Confide In Me; Slow; Timebomb; Edge Of Saturday Night; Tension; Can’t Get You Out Of My Head; All The Lovers; Padam Padam; Love At First Sight
Kylie has been releasing music for almost as long as we’ve been listening to pop and tonight we marvel at the consistency of her hits over 5 decades as well as the showgirl pizzazz with which she performs them.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN?: Friday 23 May 2025, tour runs through 15 August 2025
AG Setlist: Ride A White Horse; Number 1; Dreaming; Believer; Find Xanadu; Reverberotic; Rocket; Ooh La La; Strict Machine; Fever
SS Setlist: Laura; Better Luck; She’s My Man; Tits On The Radio; I Can’t Decide; Lovers In The Back Seat; Running Out; Take Your Mama; Paul McCartney; Fire With Fire; Mary; It Can’t Come Quickly Enough; Sex And Violence; Any Which Way; Comfortably Numb; Invisible Light; Let’s Have A Kiki; I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’; Return To Oz; Filthy Gorgeous; Music Is The Victim
It’s the Friday night of a bank holiday weekend and we arrive at our seats early to see an extraordinary greatest hits support set from 1 of our favourite pop stars.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Thursday 22 May 2025, tour runs through to 16 August 2025
Setlist: Silver Lining; Wonderful Life; Blood, Tears And Gold; Sunday; Stay; Illuminated; Affair; Evelyn; Better Than Love; Devotion; Mother Nature; Unspoken; The Water; Verona; Miracle; Some Kind Of Heaven; Rolling Stone; Somebody To Die For; Voices; Ready To Go; Nothing Will Be Bigger Than Us; Under Control; Wings
We join Hurts at their 1st UK gig for ‘7 or 8 years’ where lead singer Theo Hutchcraft describes the band’s debut album Happiness as their passport from the dole in Manchester to the rest of the world, making their dreams come true in the journey.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN?: Last date of tour Monday 7 April 2025
Setlist: Polari; I Know; Make Me A Man; If You’re Over Me; Whisper In The Waves; Cupid’s Bow; Archangel; King; Dizzy; Starstruck; Worship/Breathe; Desire; All For You; It’s A Sin; Eyes Shut; When We Kiss; Sweet Talker; Heal You; Shine
The voice of Sir Ian McKellen (Player Kings, Noel Coward Theatre) opens the show explaining Polari, the title of Alexander’s debut album, and the actor’s here tonight waving at the delighted crowd from the box above us.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN? Sunday 6 April, runs through 7 April 2025 Update: New gigs at this venue in June Details
This is the 200-capacity east London venue where we saw our 1st post-pandemic gig and our best show of 2024 but we never dared dream we’d see the 1st concert in a quarter of a century by 1 of our favourite bands here.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN?: Sunday 23 March, tour runs through August 2025 Tickets
Setlist: Big In The Suburbs; Knock And Run; Soak Up The Culture; Shopping; Country Cousins; Life Is A Motorway; It’s Not Like This In France; Me And Your Mates
Debut album Big In The Suburbs has been in the world for less than 72 hours and we hear 3 songs from it tonight that we’ve not heard Welly play live before.
By Andrew Mosley
WHEN?: Saturday 29 March 2025, tour runs through 8 May 2025 Tickets
It’s a roar of defiance, a statement of intent and, as it introduced the fantastic Songs of Strength and Heartbreak album 25 years ago, so it does proceedings at a packed Brudenell Social Club tonight.
By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
WHEN?: Monday 24 March 2025, tour runs through 3 August 2025
Friday saw the release of Welly’s debut album, Big in the Suburbs. Regular readers will know we have followed them since we “discovered” them at Victorious three years ago, and have been to many south coast gigs since, bought the t-shirts, met the mums/nans, interviewed them and now have even been responsible for a custom-made unlicenced Deere John t-shirt.
