Do you remember the first time? Glastonbury Festival was due to celebrate its 50th birthday this month and to celebrate we’re casting our mind back to the highlights of the five years we’ve attended.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
TRACKLIST: The Only Exercise I Get Is You; If You Could See Your Faults; Somebody’s Superhero; Big News in a Little World; You and Me (Were Meant To Be Together); The Outskirts Of The Dancefloor; So Happy; A Good Day Is Hard To Find; Fat Of The Land; All Of My Friends; The Prison; House Party 2; He’s Got What I Had; New York Ivy; MCR Calling; My Legal High
Over 30 years ago on BBC Radio One’s much-missed Round Table single review show star Cyndi Lauper misheard the lyric of The Beautiful South’s brilliant Song For Whoever as: ‘I love you from the bottom of my pants OK.’
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Union Chapel, supporting Billy Lockett
WHEN: 15/2/18
SETLIST: Shoot Me Down; Blood Diamonds; Plastic; Pretty Boy; Paper Crown; Psycho; Bad and Beautiful; Black Dahlia
‘Does anyone here know a Pretty Boy?’ Our new favourite singer is about to launch into her best song in the atmospheric surroundings of Islington’s Union Chapel.
We were at the first preview of the Young Vic production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Apollo Theatre in July when Jack O’Connell decided to perform naked. Review
It’s almost Christmas and what would the festive season be without some recognition of the best of 2017? Over the next month we’ll shortlist five nominees in each of 13 categories for our Oscars, or monstas if you will, of 2017.
This year will be our fourth Glastonbury in a row and, although there’s far too much to be excited about to list here, we’d probably pick our first Emeli Sandé gig as the thing we’re most enthused by at the sold-out event which runs from 22/6 to 25/6. Katy Perry’s new album Witness is out 9/6 and Lorde’s Melodrama 16/6 and they both also feature.
The final of the 62nd contest takes place in Kiev, Ukraine, on 13/5 at 8pm on BBC1 and the pre-contest publicity has been dominated by the host country’s banning of Russia’s entry. Check out the search box for our predictions for this year which include the contest’s most surefire winner: Occidentali’s Karma by Francesco Gabbani (pictured above).
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
OUT: 31/3/17
TRACKLISTING: Anymore; Systemagic; Tiger Man; Become The One; Faux Suede Drifter; Zodiac Black; Beast That Never Was; Everything Is Never Enough; Moon In Your Mouth; Oceans
We saw Goldfrapp at Camden Roundhouse this week and they played six of these 10 tracks there.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: 27/1
Long-standing fans of this band have been aware for a while about how easily their more folk musings sit alongside the electro anthems that have propelled them to their most popular periods.
Sir Ian has long been one of our favourite actors and when he shared our BFI Shakespeare Q&A with him on his Facebook page in April our traffic went into meltdown. Pictorial evidence above.
