WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Jellyfish is the sound of schools breaking up for summer, lotion lathered on lazy sunbathers and the moon lighting the way home after a giddy evening.
By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
WHEN?: Saturday 5 July, tour runs through 31 October 2025
This is the sixth time we’ve seen Duran Duran and in a nutshell, we think they’re better off at their own arena tours, rather than festivals, and better off outdoors, so last night was just perfect.
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.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Saint Etienne’s best single since their 2012 run of Tonight and I’ve Got Your Music finds them collaborating with the Chemical Brothers and returning to the dancefloor with a bang.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: **** RUNTIME: 110 minutes (with interval)
WHEN?: Saturday 24 May (matinee), runs through 14 June 2025
Russell is a singing student with cropped bleached blond hair who returns to his north-east home in the 80s where his single mother calls the local priest to exorcise her son’s demons.
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?: ****1/2
WHEN? Saturday 12 April, opens 16 April runs through 10 May 2025 RUNTIME 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
Playwright Gary Owen explains his modern take on this beloved Ibsen in the programme: ‘There is a point to messing with a classic – if you get it right, you might preserve what was truly startling about the original. You might reproduce the impact this dusty old classic had when it was a snarling, swaggering young play.’
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
69 is the 2nd single from Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s 3rd album A Complicated Woman and is as sexual as its title suggests.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
Tracklist: Big In The Suburbs; Home For The Weekend; Knock And Run; Deere John; Soak Up The Culture; Shopping; Cul-De-Sac; Pampas Grass; The Roundabout Racehorse; Under Milk Wood; Family Photos; Country Cousins; It’s Not Like This In France; Life Is A Motorway
Under Milk Wood is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas where the narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing town, Llareggub.
By Andrew Mosley
WHEN?: 20 March 2025, tour runs through 19 September 2025
As Conor McGregor vows to stand for the Irish presidency on an anti-immigration platform after meeting Donald Trump, it shouldn’t need The Mary Wallopers or myself to point out the stupidity and ignorance behind his message.
