Haven't been to a gig since 2022's George Clinton farewell tour, but grabbed myself a ticket to see the Wolfe Tones in Finsbury park for their last ever London gig in July, would've preferred to see them in a venue but got to admit I'm pumped, seen a lot of their live stuff on youtube and they're always great.

Not usually one to post gig stuff but I'm proper looking forward to this.

I was there! (The Underworld one)

No way! I was so happy when they sorted a second date which fell on the Saturday - both dates sold out all told. Karl Hyde announced, just before they launched into Born Slippy, that they'd been together, in one form or another, for over 40 years - which is just mind boggling!

Went so see Nadine Shah on Saturday night.  It was good gig - I've seen her a few times before.  The first time she was impressively terrifying, the second she was utterly professional, but seemed oddly flat.  It turns out she'd tried to kill herself not long before.  It was nice then to see her seemingly back on form, albeit different again.  The intensity was there as before, but also a level of playfulness that she didn't used to bring to the stage, and a certain childlike glee.

Sonically she seems to have gone full Depeche Mode, which seems to fit her vocals nicely. I guess my only complaint is whilst she has a fairly extraordinary singing voice, I can never entirely tell what she's singing, which is a shame, particularly with the new stuff which is frequently devastating.

Still, "Nadine Shah is still good" isn't really what I came here to post about.  It was more the support act - Callum Easter.  I gather he's been about for a bit, supporting Young Fathers on their last tour in particular, but he'd not hit my radar.  I generally think I'm going to be in for a good time when only one artist walks on the stage - in that it's generally going to be phenomenal or an absolute car crash - and both are usually entertaining.  In his case, it was the former.

He said not a word for the duration of the set, punctuating bits between songs only with a carefully controlled accordion drone.  He was joined part way through by a drummer, but the rest was him, the accordion, and various combinations of pedals, mics and things that go "boop".  At the end of the gig I joined the line to pick up copies of his album (I reckon he did well that night) and whilst it's great, it sounds absolutely nothing like he did that night.  As the guy behind me said, after Easter had walked off stage leaving only a strobe light and looping feedback, "fucking hell, I didn't think I'd ever hear rock & roll accordion". 

Definitely an act worth seeing live (though I suspect it varies enormously night from night) - in the meantime here's a song...

I’ve heard a lot of Glaswegians raving about Nadine Shah today. I’m guessing she played here last night?

regmcfly wrote:

She was last night at SWG3 and I think is doing one of the summer gigs

She's doing Big City supporting Moggers at the end of June. Looking forward to that one.