Bounding on stage in a purple version of the man dress pioneered by Mick Jagger at The Stones’s 1969 Hyde Park concert, Ariel Pink looks like a mistranslated version of what a late-Sixties rock star should be. His long hair is dyed blonde. The roots show. His make-up is already smudged, as if applied with mittens. It’s a wonky look, in keeping with his music; a music that sounds like a badly tuned radio playing the hits of the early Eighties, the smooth soul of the Seventies and Sixties bubblegum garage pop all at once. Los Angeles’s most peculiar art rocker doesn’t seem to be playing it straight.
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david.cheal
At 7.55pm I was tired and grouchy. By 9.30pm I was a happy man, thanks to Neil Diamond. Say what you like about this 69-year-old singer and songwriter: he may be a cheesy old showbiz pro, but personally I am partial to a bit of cheesy showbiz, and an hour and a half in his company on the final night of this year’s Radio 2 Electric Proms was a real tonic.
With his Thunderbirds eyebrows and his prowling gait, Diamond was an imposing figure whose voice has lost none of its gritty rasp, a quality that lends his songs emotional authenticity. And his rapport with the audience was immaculate – lots of eye contact, expansive gestures at the big moments, a serious little nod of acknowledgment when a familiar song was greeted with a ripple of applause, a wave for the folks in the balcony, another little nod to acknowledge the cheers that came back. A real trouper.
He was a garrulous host, too, flirting with the ladies of a certain age who clustered around the edge of the stage in a sort of middle-aged mosh pit, and talking – as he always seems to, and with not terribly convincing self-deprecation - about how he was “just a kid from Brooklyn” when he became an in-demand songwriter in the mid-1960s.
And he was a crowd-pleaser, delivering exactly what the audience wanted: all the hits, played by his band of old-timers, backed by a string section. In contrast with Elton John, who I’m told made a poor job of balancing old tunes and new material at his Electric Proms show on Thursday night, Diamond didn’t oversell the new stuff, almost apologising as he introduced another song from Dreams, his decent new album of cover versions, among them a surprisingly affecting rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" and a strong, stirring "Ain’t No Sunshine". On neither occasion did he even attempt to sing them as “soul” songs; he sang them as Neil Diamond songs, with that strong, measured, purposeful delivery. Also impressive was a stripped-down version of his own "I'm a Believer". Mercifully we were spared the album’s low point, a version of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s irredeemably sickly "Alone Again (Naturally)".
As has become traditional with the Electric Proms, he also brought on a couple of guests. The first was the perennially perky Lulu, who sang a Neil Diamond song that she had a hit with in 1967, "The Boat That I Row", followed by a sweet and soulful "I’m a Fool For You", finishing each song in a little clinch with Diamond, her sparkly stilettoed heel kicked up behind her. Rather less flirtatious, but packing considerably more musical muscle, was the second guest, Amy Macdonald, who, accompanied only by her own acoustic guitar, wrapped her remarkable tonsils around "Shilo" and "This is The Life". What a voice she has: it seems to belong to another era.
Then Diamond stepped back into the spotlight for the finale: the dark and purposeful "Holly Holy", an exuberant "Cracklin’ Rosie", and the irresistible "Sweet Caroline", the audience waving their arms like sea anemones on a coral reef.
What else can I say? This was good, old-fashioned, uplifting fun, lapped up by the Roundhouse audience, and doubtless appreciated by those listening live on Radio 2 (it’s due for broadcast on TV later in November). And there were times, notably on "Pretty Amazing Grace" and the magnificent "I Am... I Said", when Neil Diamond reminded us that, for all his slick showmanship and smooth patter, he’s a man of substance, too.
Overleaf: Neil Diamond sings "I Am... I Said"
Jasper Rees
“I was a very good soprano.” Of all the sentences you’d not expect to hear tumbling from the mouth of Keith Richards, that one is up there with "Tap water for me, please, and I do hope this vegan restaurant is non-smoking." He has the addled larynx of a Fag Ash Lil who, when not mopping and dusting, perches on a barstool glugging gin and puffing on Bensons. But once upon a time little Richards did once sing for the Queen. Got a free bus ride up to the London and all, he recalled with a wide-eyed cackle. When his voice broke and he was relieved of his cassock, he was most put out.
bruce.dessau
It is not easy to kickstart a fresh musical career after you've been in a painfully fashionable – and intermittently brilliant – band. It is even harder when this is your second bash at starting out again. And harder still when a couple of months ago you trousered enough money to keep you in leather jackets for a lifetime by briefly reforming that original band for a pair of festival cameos. Yet last night erstwhile Libertine and ex-Dirty Pretty Thing Carl Barât did enough to suggest that, if he digs his heels in, his personal rock drama might have a memorable third act yet.
Kieron Tyler
Although Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel has professed a kinship with Roy Orbison and his grand musical dramas, it’s John Cale that she covers on her debut album. Choosing the slow-burning “I Keep A Close Watch” from 1975’s Helen Of Troy (Cale re-recorded it in 1982 on Music For A New Society) is telling. Not only does Obel look for and seek to telegraph emotion, she is allying herself with performers and songwriters recognised as passionate and heartfelt. After her openness, it’s fair to ask whether Obel is similarly affecting.
Peter Culshaw
“It’s not often you get a global superstar down at the Elephant and Castle,” marvelled a local who spent the evening dancing like a dervish to the infectious music of Manu Chao, who had breezed into London for a rare show last night off the back of a short tour of Japan and the West Coast of America. The first person I saw as an usher was Colombian philosopher Oscar Guardiola-Rivera whose book What if Latin America Ruled the World? suggests - among many other things - that the US is becoming the next Latin American country. Like the others he was wearing a Colombiage T-shirt - the organisation for which this was a benefit.
howard.male
Paradoxically, the greater the number of established artists you find yourself comparing a new talent to, the more original you are eventually forced to conclude this new talent is. So let’s get those comparisons out of the way: this Kansas City gal sounds a bit like Cassandra Wilson, Joan Armatrading, Me’Shell NdegéOcello, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, Bob Dylan, Bill Withers… and the list could go on. But more importantly Krystle Warren already seems to exude the same kind of gravitas as all of this illustrious roll call.
Russ Coffey
First up, a confession. I’m one of those who’ve never considered KT Tunstall to be quite the real deal. She’s sometimes described as indie, but I’ve always found her more background music for filling out a tax form to than someone to help you through a lost weekend. On a recent single she sings about being “still a weirdo”, but it comes over to me about as convincingly as Guy Ritchie’s accent. Weirdo? That cutesy Sino-Scottish face and Jimmy Krankie accent are only a curio when stacked up against mainstream AOR, which is clearly what she doesn’t want to be. To me she’s indie-lite. Or Melua-heavy. Am I alone? Last night I sure was.
bruce.dessau
There was a rumour floating around the packed Forum last night that David Cameron was in the audience. I did not spot him on my way in, but he did choose The Killers' “All These Things That I've Done” as a desert island disc in 2006 and I imagine that, being a man of firm convictions, Brandon Flowers still floats his prime-ministerial boat. Clean living, passionate, nothing too controversial – just like the PM before he pulled the knife out and started plotting to slash away at the country's finances.
Adam Sweeting
"The Legend of Axl Rose" sounds like the title for a long and fanciful western movie, about a bandit who defies the law and even time itself. In person, wayward vocalist Rose does indeed resemble some kind of picaresque outlaw who rules his own eccentric kingdom, and he lent much-needed gaiety to this sprawling performance by constantly ringing the changes on a huge wardrobe of hats, jackets and multi-coloured T-shirts.