lefreeakblog

Above is Sido, a German rapper who performed at the end of April in Dusseldorf to hundreds of people. Catch? They were all in cars and sensibly spaced out. The drive-in - a largely American cultural phenomenon from the Fifties - is back but this time it's not just films involved, it's also being used in the Music industry. Ever since downloading and then streaming put a death knell in the profits of artists, live music has been where the money is but sadly the pandemic has stopped all live events in the Arts. However like any good business, the music industry has come up with new ideas or, in the case of this, innovative new takes on old ideas once consigned to the bin. Now in UK a tour has been planned for dozens of artists to do just this: perform to you whilst you sit in your car. The artists including The Streets, Kaiser Chiefs and Dizzee Rascal will perform at 12 venues across the country including in London, Birmingham and Liverpool as part of a series called Utilita Li...

I found out last week that next month's much anticipated Killers & Manics gig in Birmingham has unsurprisingly been postponed. So with no new gigs to write about, I thought I'd post a review I did several years ago of one of my favourite recent gigs. Nile Rodgers Pres.the Chic Organisation @ The Forum, London - 14th June 2013 It may have been my friend's love of his music that brought me here - a friend who neatly summed up Nile Rodger's contribution to pop by stating; "He's produced almost every song you've ever danced to!!"; But what brought most other people here, especially the surprisingly large number of young people who were almost certainly not born when Chic were in the charts, was without doubt the song of the summer Daft Punk's "Get Lucky", a track so Chic it could be 1979 all over again! The young crowd was entertained early on by legendary disco DJ Nicky Siano who posed with Nile to take a photo when the lege...

Before life changed immeasurably and I like most of the rest of the world had to go into lockdown, I went to see a band I'd barely heard of, at a venue i'd never been too.. Saturday 15th Feb seems a world away now, it was cold, blustery and dark, a typical British Feb evening then. Indeed life was normal. A friend and I, on his recommendation, decided to see Half Man Half Biscuit , one of Britain's unsung bands, one of our Top 100 cult heroes (according to Mojo Magazine at least) and a band that has outlived most other Post-Punk/Indie bands that started around the same time. It's also a band I'd virtually never heard as being a Nineties kid meant I missed Post-Punk and the early Indie bands outside of The Smiths and The Jam (who had been revered by my Britpop heroes at the time). It was a first in more ways than one tonight, being also my first visit to Roadmender, Northampton's and indeed the East Midland's premier venue for live music, particularly fo...