Live Review: The Hoosiers - o2 Institute 2, Birmingham
It is nearly 20 years since former University of Indianapolis football scholarship students turned colourful pop act The Hoosiers burst into the charts with their #5 charting debut single, Worried About Ray. With the subsequent album, A Trick To Life, claiming the #1 spot on the charts, it seemed certain that global stardom beckoned.
Eddi Reader's tour continues
Eddi Reader is bringing her unmistakable voice back to stages across England this October, with a run of intimate performances celebrating a career that has continually bridged folk, pop and traditional Scottish music.
Shed Seven Announce Largest Headline Show Of Their Career
Shed Seven are set to play the biggest headline show of their career next May in what promises to be a defining moment for the band. More than 30 years into their career, the landmark show will see the band headline a special hometown show at York’s LNER Community Stadium on Saturday May 29.
Hugh Cornwell announces farewell tour
An intimate evening of songs and stories, plus an open Q & A session. As lead singer and songwriter of The Stranglers during their golden period, Hugh Cornwell cast a spell mixing fact, history, mythology and ideology within the lyrics of the songs.
Chesney's Christmas Cracker Starring Chesney Hawkes Come To Holmfirth- Pictuerdrome
Get ready to unwrap the ultimate festive night out as Chesney’s Christmas Cracker lands in town! Pop icon Chesney Hawkes headlines a night packed with feel-good hits, festive fun and pure nostalgia. Expect a high-energy live set featuring all the classics, including the massive chart-topper The One and Only, guaranteed to have the whole room singing along.
Second ‘Pay What You Can’ Opera Launched By Opera North
After its sellout ‘Pay what you can’ performance last year, Opera North has launched a ‘Pay what you can’ Rigoletto, enabling people to enjoy a night at the opera at a price which suits them. Verdi’s popular classic will be performed in full in the stunning surroundings of Leeds Grand Theatre at 6.30pm on Wednesday 28 October.
Live Review: Stevie Wonder at the Utilita Arena, Birmingham
There are artists who the world loves fleetingly and get remembered for a certain song or a certain moment, then there are artists who become icons with back catalogues that don't just form a soundtrack for one generation, but whose music becomes a soundtrack for moments big and small around the world on repeat. Stevie Wonder falls effortlessly into the latter.
Northern Stars Rise On Whitby’s West Cliff As Musicport Turns Elemental
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For one weekend this month, the most cosmopolitan address in Yorkshire will be a Victorian pavilion perched above the North Sea.
University Hits The Right Note With 60th Anniversary Playlist Featuring Nirvana, U2 And Elton John
The University of Bradford has created a special playlist featuring 60 artists who performed on campus as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, including global stars such as Nirvana, U2, Elton John, Mike Oldfield, The Stranglers, The Pretenders, Billy Bragg, Primal Scream and Stormzy.
Leeds, York And Halifax: Three Nights Of Pop Gold In Yorkshire
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Westlife turned Leeds Arena into a 25th anniversary singalong, Joe Jackson brought snarl and wit to the York Barbican, and the Burt Bacharach Songbook gave Halifax’s Victoria Theatre a night of timeless melodies, writes Graham Clark There are few bands who can turn 25 years of pop history into something that feels this effortlessly celebratory.
Albums: Jamie T Ghosts (100 Days Of Morning)
Jamie T Ghosts (100 Days Of Morning) Tracks: 3310, Cocktail, Waist 36 Leg 32, All I Wanna See Is Now, The Won, Chelsea Girls, Ghosts, Crimson & Clover, Crucible, Caught Cheating, Tallahassee Label: Polydor Jamie T has always sounded like an artist with one foot in the present and the other caught somewhere in the past.
Opera North And Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
The 1980s were turbulent times for the Soviet Union. The death of the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, in 1981, and the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow waltz of the regime toward its collapse and eventual dissolution in 1992.
Albums: NY Loose Monolith Kids
Led by the formidable Brijitte West, NY Loose was one of the great underground secrets of mid-’90s New York rock. They had the swagger, the sleaze, the guitars and, crucially, the songs. Their 1995 Loosen Up! EP helped build a devoted following before Hollywood Records came calling, eventually releasing the band’s debut album, Year of the Rat, in 1996. Yet despite touring with the likes of L7 and Marilyn Manson and seeing their brilliant track Spit appears on The Crow: City of Angels soundtrack – the commercial breakthrough never arrived.
Albums: Walt Disco Walt Disco
There is something fitting about calling your third album Walt Disco. After two records spent pushing, pulling and occasionally losing themselves in different directions, the Glasgow band have arrived at a record that feels less like a reinvention than an acceptance of everything they have already been. It is a statement of identity, certainly, but not one delivered with the certainty of a band who have finally solved themselves. Instead, Walt Disco finds its strength in the messiness of becoming.
Albums: Amon Amarth – The Allfather Awakens
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The biggest surprise arrives with Uppha’. An acoustic, folk-inflected piece, it is the kind of detour that could easily have sounded like a novelty. Instead, it provides the album with atmosphere and breathing space, allowing the mythology at the heart of Amon Amarth’s music to emerge without the usual wall of distortion
Album Review: Bróna McVittie Supernatural
What makes the album particularly compelling is the way McVittie brings together the warmth and intimacy of the harp and traditional vocal styles with atmospheric electronic production. Rather than feeling like a clash of old and new, these elements compliment one another beautifully, giving the music a distinctive identity that is at once organic, otherworldly and modern.
Classical Music: Softest Thunder
There is a particular kind of disc that asks you to switch off the radio, put the phone in a drawer and simply listen. Toby Carr's debut solo recording for Delphian is one of them, and it repays the effort many times over.
Carr will already be familiar to many from Battle Cry, his duo album with the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, which collected both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine awards in 2023. Here he steps out alone, and the result is an atmospheric, quietly absorbing recital.
Albums: Dead Poet Society – Monarch
What makes Monarch stand out is its refusal to choose between experimentation and accessibility. There are enormous hooks here, but they come wrapped in warped guitars, unconventional rhythms and enough darkness to stop proceedings becoming predictable.
Classical Music: Gershwin Variations
Some recordings politely ask for your attention. This one pulls up a stool at the bar, loosens its tie and calls for another round. For anyone who loves Gershwin and the jazz idiom, Lucas Debargue's Gershwin Variations is a double album to treasure: it fizzes, it swings and it oozes panache from first bar to last.
The first disc, recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris, pairs Debargue with the Orchestre de Paris under Elim Chan. The Piano Concerto in F skips along with real clarity, the orchestration crisp, the syncopations relished and the percussion crackling with rhythmic fervour.
Classical Music: Sol Gabetta Saint-Saëns & Lalo Cello Concertos
Her playing is fluent throughout, her agility impressive and her rhythmic precision unerring, while soloist and orchestra alike embrace the full Romantic sweep of these scores. Period instruments are often sold as a corrective to excess; here they serve the opposite purpose, lending these concertos a warmth and freshness that makes a persuasive case for all three.
Classical Music: The Beethoven Connection Volume 2
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has a gift for turning musical archaeology into pure pleasure. In this second volume of The Beethoven Connection he has unearthed some lovely pieces, and he plays them with passion and a beautiful tone from his Yamaha piano. His sensitivity, expressiveness and virtuosity shine throughout the recital.
Albums: Teenage Fanclub Do Not Dare To Dream
Following the Fannies’ 2023 Nothing Lasts Forever and last year’s side-project Butler, Blake & Grant, Blake and (day job) co. return with Teenage Fanclub’s 13th full-length album. Opening with There Was You, a playful, folksy and upbeat song about how magical surprises can interrupt otherwise predetermined lives, Do Not Dare To Dream gets off to an engaging start. There’s an easy warmth to the song, but also a sense that the album might be setting its ambitions rather lower than some of the band’s finest work.
Album Review: Everyone Says Hi Funny Cos It's True
At its heart, this is hook-heavy, groove-forward indie pop with a wonderfully hazy, retro-futurist sheen. The songs are packed with infectious melodies and big, anthemic choruses, while the warm production gives the record a timeless quality. There are echoes of classic songwriting craft alongside more psychedelic, contemporary textures, making the album feel both familiar and fresh.
Albums: Troye Sivan She's the Best
Harriet: Trying To Get The Feeling Again
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With more than one million social media followers, over 100 million views and sold-out shows on both sides of the Atlantic, Harriet has had a remarkable rise over the past two years. Now, the British singer-songwriter is bringing her acclaimed Trying To Get The Feeling Again show back home to the UK this autumn, this time with her full live band.
Hear'Say and Liberty X return for co-headline tour!
Hear'Say and Liberty X are back and better than ever as they head on a UK and Ireland tour in 2027. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their formation, Hear’Say and Liberty X have announced details of their upcoming tour - ‘Popstars: The Originals’ which will see both bands perform together for the first time ever on the same stage.
The Pussycat Dolls Land On Their Feet In Leeds
When The Pussycat Dolls toured the country in 2009, the support acts were Ne-Yo and a new artist who had initially had success in France by the name of Lady GaGa.
Record-Breaking Ryedale Festival Announces New Christmas By Candlelight Concerts
Following a record-breaking summer, Ryedale Festival has announced two special Christmas concerts by candlelight, bringing Royal Northern Sinfonia and acclaimed vocal ensemble APOLLO5 to North Yorkshire this December. The announcement follows the Festival’s most successful year to date, with nearly 11,000 tickets sold, almost 10% more than the previous year.
Zack Gibson has figured it out...
At just 17, Scottish singer-songwriter Zack Gibson is already establishing himself as one of the most compelling young artists in Scotland’s new acoustic pop scene.
Sleeper announce End of the World tour
Sleeper have announced their biggest UK tour since reforming, with the band set to take their forthcoming sixth studio album, End of the World, on the road across the UK in March and April 2027, with South London four-piece Turin Brakes joining them as special guests.