Music :: Live Review 20 Nov 2008
Darren Carle: It seems it's been a long yet rewarding year for Frightened Rabbit (**), touring the globe, letting folks know what a long yet unrewarding life they've had. Basically, singer Scott Hutchison's voice sounds like it's had it, as ready to disintegrate as ...
Music :: Live Review 19 Nov 2008
Jorge Marticorena: Dave: We played in London last week… Crowd: Boooooo! Dave: But you cannot fuck with Edinburgh! Let me hear you say Ahhhh! Crowd: Ahhhh! Yep, Dave (a.k.a. Trugoy the Dove/Plug Two) sure knows how to rile up a Scottish audience—-or at least...
Nick Mitchell: It’s a testament to the full-blooded intensity of their music that a line of fans snakes along the street outside the ABC to watch TV on the Radio, an under-publicised, experimental rock band from the other side of the Atlantic. Mention their nam...
Ally Brown: We're on the last train home, and it's mobbed. It's Sunday night. Some have been at Kanye West, some have been at TV On The Radio, some have been at Fucked Up, all are very tired. There's a dude sitting on the floor with a guitar, another with a bongo,...
Music :: Live Review 18 Nov 2008
Ally Brown: Okkervil River's greatest moment yet is the seventh song of their fourth album, Black Sheep Boy. Halfway through tonight’s show, Will Sheff ushers his bandmates off-stage so he can perform A Stone almost-solo, so he can cultivate lumps in all our...
Music :: Live Review 17 Nov 2008
Dave Kerr: “This one goes out to Lorraine Kelly, y’know, that far arse.” The years haven’t diminished Liam’s charm at all. In fact, recent press suggests that time has almost perfectly preserved the Gallaghers’ antagonistic sht...
Ryan Drever: Amongst Wu aficianados in the know, tonight's gig - comprised mainly of a complete performance of the seminal Liquid Swords - should be so exciting that it induces heart failure. Unfortunately that excitement is soon replaced with frustration and disap...
Music :: Live Review 14 Nov 2008
Nick Mitchell: With their self-titled debut album already jostling for position at the peak of many an end-of-year poll, Fleet Foxes are here to confirm what everyone in the ABC suspects: they are not merely blogosphere darlings but one of the greatest American bands...
Pete Ballantine: Marty!! Time to don those Aviators and jump into the DeLorean. For one night only, we are going back to the future. Well, back to the 80s it would seem, as Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip bring their paean to everybody’s favourite playboy car designer, J...
Dave Kerr: The irony of Luke Doucet’s (**) attempt to regale a roomful of Scots with a story about his song bombing in a hall full of chatty Russian ex-pats is not lost, and a swift change of tack becomes essential once I Wish I Was American enters Cabaret ...
Music :: Live Review 13 Nov 2008
Jorge Marticorena: You may have loved the 27 or so times you’ve seen Back to the Future, but you simply can’t deny the grandeur of the one and only time you saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. When it comes to live performances, it’s easy to overlook sheer immen...
Music :: Live Review 07 Nov 2008
Finbarr Bermingham: A night that pairs two of the best bands to come out of America this year was always going to be a big draw, as the battered floorboards of the Barrowlands Ballroom tomorrow morning will no doubt testify. The last time Ra Ra Riot (****) played in Scotl...
Music :: Live Review :: New Blood 07 Nov 2008
Finbarr Bermingham: Chronological order usually reflects the status or renown of a gig's performers, but it doesn't always necessarily mirror the quality. Tonight at Limbo, though, the correlation is completely accurate. Clint (**) are mildly entertaining, if wholly confu...
Music :: Live Review 06 Nov 2008
Ryan Drever: The air outside is terrifyingly freezing but the atmosphere inside the Academy tonight is hotter than all hell - perfect conditions for such monstrous metal icons. With the disappointing 11th hour withdrawl of Mastodon, tonight is - from start to...
Music :: Live Review 05 Nov 2008
Marta Nelson: The gravitas of Laura Marling’s (***) lyrics belie the fact that she’s just old enough to attend her own shows. Beginning the set with her new single Ghosts, the moonlighting member of Noah and the Whale doesn’t seem terribly pleased ...
Ryan Drever: Tonight is the latest installment in the recent Tennent's Mutual campaign - where online members choose who plays - and sees a blinder of a line-up take a trip up north, to a slow-forming but eager Inverness crowd. Edinburgh's Rob St. John (***) and hi...
Emma Smith: In as jovial spirits as he presumably ever reaches, Mr Middleton casually appears onstage, seemingly comfortable in front of tonight’s reasonably local audience. So comfortable in fact that the law is laid down directly as he explains to the some...
Music :: Live Review 04 Nov 2008
Darren Carle: After an intentional false start, testing the Ark’s apparently tricky acoustics, it’s a flying start for Edinburgh duo Conflict Diamonds, who somewhat erroneously bill themselves as “Scotland’s only Texan disco rock duo”. ...
Music :: Live Review 03 Nov 2008
Nick Mitchell: Metronomy belong to that new breed of band: the band who love synthesizers; who make music with the party in mind; who do remixes; who probably started as one teenager in his bedroom geeking about with loops on a computer. The danger with such bands is...
Music :: Live Review 28 Oct 2008
Chris Buckle: Fed up with waiting forever for Chinese Democracy? Holy Ghost Revival are here to help, with singer Conor St. Kiley (even their names sound as though they were lifted from Spinal Tap) doing his damndest to evoke Axl Rose’s heyday stage presence t...
