This year, says Gary Barlow, marks 30 years since five boys walked into a room in Manchester and auditioned for what would turn out to be the UK’s most successful pop act. It is fitting, then, that what they are billing as the Odyssey tour features 25 hits from across three decades - and more than a few callbacks.

Get The Blessing are a band whose music never fails to conjure up images of someone like Steve McQueen driving along a coastal Californian road, looking cool as you like in very dark shades, sat in an open-top sports car from a seriously stylish cops and robbers film from the mid-Sixties. This is despite the fact that their first album was only released in 2008 and they hail from Bristol.

John Mayall keeps up one hell of a touring schedule for an 85-year-old. Last night's early set at Ronnie Scott's was the first of a three-night, two-houses-per-night stint at the club. And these performances come on the tail-end of around 35 previous engagements: Mayall's quartet has been criss-crossing Europe and gigging on most days since starting off in Tampere, Finland and darkness in late February. And his diary of North American dates scheduled for June and July looks pretty full too. 

How do we want our fleeting, precious, close-up glimpses of the royals to be? Do we want the mystique, the aura, glamour and transcendence? Or would we rather be reassured that they are, in their way, just like us?

“I don’t know if I’m going to recognise any of it,” I say to my accomplice as we drain a couple of light ales amid the sea of grey beards in The Old Market’s bar. “I don’t think they’ll play the hits,” he replies, deadpan, “but don’t worry, there should be some onstage banter that’ll give you a couple of the titles.”

“Our attendees are a select group, but we have a connection,” remarked Damon Albarn at the end of The Good, the Bad & the Queen’s set. He’s not wrong – much of the band had outgrown Cardiff’s Great Hall 25 years ago, but it proved the perfect venue for this musical love-in.

There is increasing urgency, commitment and assuredness about the way Laura Mvula performs her music. The context for her performance here was Love Supreme's day at the Roundhouse. As the event's main headliner and the stand-out performer, she really delivered the goods on Saturday night.

The sticker on the sleeve says “Marvin Gaye’s Lost Album.” A prime internet sales site states “You’re The Man was the album that was proposed to follow-up the monumental What’s Going On.” According to the marketing and promotional material, You’re The Man is “Marvin Gaye’s never-released 1972 Tamla/Motown album” and that it’s the “music legend’s shelved follow-up to What’s