Two very different Antipodeans are performing in London over the weekend. Having seen Nick Cave more times than you can shake a didgeridoo at, the time has come for this reviewer to scrutinise Rolf Harris – pop star, painter of the Queen, sentimental presenter of cuddly animal shows. When the spritely 82-year-old appeared to tumultuous applause I suddenly recalled that I had seen Harris on this very stage in 1999 alongside Cave, Kylie Minogue and Barry Humphries in a nightmarishly bizarre Meltdown gig. It was easy to forget his contribution.
“Tschernobyl… Harrisburg... Sellafield… Fukushima” reads the display above the four figures standing impassively below like toys, suddenly turning these harbingers of the computer age into proselytisers for an anti-nuclear energy policy.
Childlike wonder is a rare emotion at a gig, so gasps of delight are doubly jolting as the first images appear to float out of the mammoth screen behind the stage and float over our heads. These are notes of musical notation that cascade from a car radio at the moment when the dial shifts in "Autobahn", the track where Kraftwerk’s concepts first properly coalesced and that gave their breakthrough album its title. The German electronica pioneers are to play 1974’s Autobahn in full as they begin an eight-night residency revisiting much of their back catalogue in order.
The notice saying “table reserved for Lord Chelsea” in Cadogan Hall’s foyer bar instantly signalled this show was likely to be more rarefied than your normal pop concert. It was in keeping with the grandeur of this early 20th century, Byzantine-style former church a minute from Sloane Square. The tone was further elevated by this being a rare, small-venue British outing for Jane Birkin, an actual, proper star.
Truly an ensemble cast, the Wayne Shorter Quartet's playing on Without A Net - marking Shorter's return to Blue Note Records after 43 years - fuses disparate elements into something transcendent and utterly original. From the slow burn of “Myrrh” to the searching, high-velocity romanticism of “Starry Night”, two of six new Shorter compositions featured, the album takes small group music-making to another dimension.
Aimee Mann must surely be one of the most unstarry of stars. While most of her fans were still in the bar thinking about what they might have as a pre-gig aperitif, she strolled onstage to join support act Ted Leo for a couple of new songs they have written together. No grand diva entrance here, she just strapped on a bass guitar and stood next to the Costello-ish Leo pulling at those strings. Moral? Never ignore the support act, it might feature the person you've paid to see.
Bassekou Kouyaté’s ngoni looks like a real bugger to play. Its hollow body is the size and shape of a child’s cricket bat and its rounded fretless neck is thinner than that of a broomstick. It’s a mystery how anyone gets a note out of this ancestor of the banjo's four strings, never mind play the kind of galloping, coruscating solos that this Malian virtuoso gets out of it.
Fronting her four piece band - pianist Peter Edwards and saxophonist Binker Golding among them - the young jazz/soul singer Zara McFarlane performs a mix of new songs and tunes from her album, Until Tomorrow. Among the former, “Woman in the Olive Groves” is inspired by a midnight taxi ride through southern Italy, passing an African woman by the highway, among the olive groves, trading her sex.

