New Music Reviews
Edinburgh Fringe: Shakespeare - The Man from Stratford/ Mick Ferry/ John GrantWednesday, 18 August 2010
The premise of Jonathan Bate’s one-man play, directed by Tom Cairns, is simple but surprisingly effective: a trawl through the seven ages of Shakespeare, from babe to box, told through a mixture of biographical narrative illuminated by relevant scenes from Will’s work. Shakespeare – The Man From Stratford, Assembly Hall **** Read more... |
Toots and the Maytals, Academy, IslingtonFriday, 13 August 2010
The Academy was heaving, the floor was so sticky with beer that lifting one’s feet was an effort, and the crowd were beginning to lose patience. Frederick “Toots” Hibbert and the Maytals were late; a 9pm start for this London show was scheduled, but the appointed hour had come and gone, the minutes were ticking by, and the DJ’s efforts to keep us entertained with a string of ska and reggae classics were beginning to fall on stony ground. There was even some booing. Had it not been for the... Read more... |
Silver Apples, The LuminaireTuesday, 10 August 2010
One doesn't want to be prejudiced about audiences, but when you go to see a show by a “pioneer of electronic music”, particularly one in his seventies, you most likely expect a crowd that are fairly male, fairly unfunky and tending towards the middle-aged. And to be fair, there were a good few paunches and beards in evidence at the Luminaire – but there were also a quite startling number of young, dressed-up, attractive and really rather groovy twenty-somethings of both (and indeterminate)... Read more... |
Tinariwen, HMV ForumSunday, 08 August 2010
Back in June of this year, the international successful Malian blues band gave what felt at the time like a curiously muted performance at the World Cup Kick-off Celebration Concert in Johannesburg. But perhaps it was the effect of having their laidback hypnotic grooves juxtaposed to the in-your-face emoting and hip-gyrating of the likes of Shakira and Alicia Keys that seemed to somewhat mystify the stadium audience. Read more... |
Benda Bilili!Friday, 06 August 2010
I must confess that when I first heard about Staff Benda Bilili - a Congolese band partly made up of paraplegics – I felt a little uneasy. The last thing that one wants as a (hopefully) trusted critic is to feel compromised by an obligation to give a positive review, or feel guilty about lessening their chances of bettering their circumstances with a bad review. Yes, the vanity and solipsism of your reviewer has no bounds! Read more... |
Kris Kristofferson, Festival Theatre, EdinburghWednesday, 04 August 2010
“This song is for my kids – and all their Mommas.” Even at 74, Kris Kristofferson exudes the quietly satisfied air of experience of a man who has spent at least half his life drinking, shagging, smoking and strumming to his heart’s content, and now has a whole lot of good times (and plenty of bad) to draw from at will. Read more... |
Shellsuit, Dublin Castle, CamdenTuesday, 03 August 2010
During the 1980s, a major artistic response to the Conservative government came in the form of a sustained surge in music that was, on some level at least, politically engaged. Not necessarily in the classic agitprop manner either. For every band of Red Wedge-compliant rabblerousers, there'd be another act insisting that "the personal is political", as they made domestic power struggles or everyday banalities their preferred songwriting topic. With a Tory government once more, pursuing... Read more... |
Gruff Rhys's Separado! & Tony da Gatorra, BFI SouthbankSunday, 01 August 2010
Patagonia’s Welshness was a nagging issue for Gruff Rhys, mainman of Welsh psycho-nauts Super Furry Animals. His distant cousin, the folk singer René Griffiths, was born in the desert-filled southern reaches of Argentina, but visited Wales and appeared there on TV in the mid seventies. Remembering those appearances, Rhys decided to visit Patagonia to search for Griffiths amongst the region’s little-known Welsh-speaking community. Given a Rhys-hosted outing at the BFI yesterday, the resulting... Read more... |
Separado!/ Gruff Rhys, BFI SouthbankSunday, 01 August 2010
Patagonia’s Welshness was a nagging issue for Gruff Rhys, mainman of Welsh psych-nauts Super Furry Animals. His distant cousin, the folk singer René Griffiths, was born in the desert-filled southern reaches of Argentina, but visited Wales and appeared there on TV in the mid-Seventies. Remembering those appearances, Rhys decided to visit Patagonia to search for Griffiths amongst the region’s Welsh-speaking community. Read more... |
Pink Martini, BarbicanSaturday, 31 July 2010
“You see! This is America! All races, genders and everything else blending together to make something beautiful!” This a quote from an American fan living in the Middle East currently on Pink Martini’s website. Thomas Lauderdale, the musical director of the band was involved in politics, about to run for Mayor in Portland, Oregon when he put Pink Martini together. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and pow...
It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair...
My Favourite Cake review - woman, love, and freedom
The taxi cab has become a recurring motif in modern Iranian cinema, perhaps because it approximates to a kind of dissident bubble within the...
Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall revie...
A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching, ceaselessly engaging first...
The Band Back Together, Arcola Theatre review - three is a d...
We meet Joe first at the keys, singing a pretty good song, but we can hear the pain in the voice – but is that...
Music Reissues Weekly: Sean Buckley & The Breadcrumbs
Although Dagenham’s Sean Buckley & The Breadcrumbs are less than a footnote in the story of beat boom-era Britain, appearances on archive...
The Critic review - beware the acid-tipped pen
The setting is the lively 1930s London theatre world, but any sense that The Critic will be a lighthearted thriller should soon be...
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - pass...
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the...
Kim's Convenience, Riverside Studios review - KC and th...
One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old enough to buy...
