Ruth Radelet, Supersonic Records 4/9/2025
Context: ex-Chromatics singer in town in a very small venue. I only had one EP of hers initially (well she only has one out, and a bunch of singles and collaborations), which was a mixed bag, but I decided that having inadvertently missed on Basia Bulat in the same venue, restarting the whole gig season with a low-key peaceful music dose would be the right thing. I had a fairly mellow summer, so it felt like a very good idea.
External review: Benzinemag has it, I’m not totally with them there, but it’s fair enough.
Photos: N/A (beyond the couple featured in the article)
YouTube: indiegilles was there and captured the highlight. But if you look around, there’s a guy who hasn’t got many videos and probably came from a different angle and is not used to filming these and has Cherry (and a couple of others). The quality’s actually not bad at all, and, well, you can see actual indiegilles on it….
Company: just me.
Pre-gig: nothing really. First day back at work, but I’d had a bad night so worked from home, which allowed me some welcome naps now and then, that were much needed: I was feeling exhausted but better by the time I went to the gig. Decided not to get in early, but at a relaxed time, so I missed just the start of support. Only one beer, during support (very clever to now ask if you want to tip while paying by card, but this could end up being ruinous and the beer’s not really cheap).
Support: kndns. A French band. I had a quick listen beforehand, not bad, but also not good enough to get me to be in early. Not that I missed more than ten minutes anyway. What I certainly didn’t expect on arrival was to be greeted by the sight of a guy in a sort of very cheap astronaut suit on stage trying to open a triangle sandwich. Ruth Radelet herself appeared briefly by the bar soon after I got in but didn’t linger, getting back quickly to the dressing room. The music itself sounded pretty good at the start. Apart from the aforementioned astronaut (who was mostly dancing on stage during the set, but also using a camcorder to film band and audience, and started the distribution of Haribo sweets to the members of the public- the big box was passed around but I swerved it, at some point the singer asked if everyone had been able to get to it, and it ended up on the bar counter), classic rock line-up with singer/guitarist, another guitarist, bass player and drummer. As the singer himself said ‘c’est comme une boum’. So party-ish atmosphere, but after a couple of songs, I found the music rather unremarkable. Near the end, I thought the singer was going to present the band and they’d each get a minute to do their stuff as they were being introduced, but it seems like it was only about the drummer and what he was going to do, as all we got was a very wanky and unnecessary drum solo of two or three minutes, that wasn’t even particularly brilliant, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, they must have finished at about 8.45 so not a very short support slot, fine, and they said they’d be at the bar (no idea if they actually were as I had moves slightly forward for RR, only spotted them outside at the end of the evening).
Crowds: mixed bag, probably due to the pairing. Not very young in general, though I think probably younger for the support. The gig was sold out, so the room pretty full even when I arrived already, not sure how many were there for the support (as they are local) or for Ruth, but as it was a paying gig unlike next door’s Supersonic Club, we didn’t have the semi-habitual exodus post French opening bands. Mostly white I’d say, but all ages and genres and nationalities.
Standing location: Near the bar for the support, a few steps forward for Ruth. Either way, unlike you really are at the back, it is easy to be pretty close there. Sure if there weren’t the usual old habitués at the front, you could be even nearer, but that was more than good enough.
Setlist: It is here. Sometimes was initially missing but I added a comment and someone else actually edited the list (I didn’t want to do it this time, as I didn’t have the whole thing, and if there was a mistake, there could be more). So yes, I mentioned in the context that she had had one EP and a few singles in. There’s a couple of songs I really like on the EP, others not so much (a bit boring and bland maybe, the benzinemag commentator got that right), and a brief check on other singles a few weeks ago led me to get one of those singles which I really liked, and ignore the others. So I had no idea what we were in for. I also had absolutely no idea if she would play Chromatics songs, or if she was even allowed to (legally, I don’t know, things like that may not be that obvious, beyond the choice she would make), but just figured it would mostly be nice and ethereal. The band came on stage for good (after the initial setting up of things) shortly before ten past nine, and started with Stranger (an OK though not brilliant song). And well, Sometimes and Crimes were played early enough in the set, so that was me sorted for good tunes already. Ruth was playing a pale blue Stratocaster matching her cardigan, very nice touch, fair play for this sort of attention to detail. The drummer was young and cool, the other guitarist played an all white Jazzmaster, while the bass player had a Jazz Bass, so it was an all-Fender affair tonight. Amusingly (for me), after Crimes, she said ‘we’re going to slow it down now’ before switching to her synth for Be Careful. Amusingly because it’s not like Crimes is fast, so it really was a case of we’re going to do something even slower rather than a Gurriers-style ‘we need a breather now’. So far, we’d only had tracks from that EP (and all of them in fact), but next came a new song, that she said they’d only played twice live before. And I quite like it, it has to be said. That was followed by the slightly more dynamic single I mentioned earlier and that I really like ‘Shoot Me Down’ (looks like the BM reviewer likes it too), before a song I didn’t know (a cover) and another one I’d not fully checked though sounded OK in my investigations, as I didn’t know if it counted as part of her repertoire: a number that is in fact part of a game soundtrack and is a collaboration with some of her ex-Chromatics bandmates. Decent song too. There was not much inter-song chat, although she thanked us a few times, and early on mentioned she hadn’t been in Paris for about six years and loves it. And then, she thanked us again for coming to, well whichever venue she was going to be in next as she realised she’d got the name wrong unusually before correcting herself, she thanked some of the people from Supersonic, before saying ‘you might know that next one’. So, Chromatics? Indeed, the keyboard intro from Cherry echoed in the small venue (sold out, did I mention? I read it has a capacity of 180, didn’t think it was even that much, don’t think it can be that much in fact, unless you put people in the railing upstairs, but there was nobody there, it’s not public), to rapturous applause. I was a bit shocked to see the guy next to me attempting to use Shazam to recognise the song, but hey-ho, I guess he either came for the support or only knew her through the video game (I can’t imagine someone would go to a RR concert without having at least an idea of Chromatics). After Cherry came….the cherry on top, really. It didn’t take long for what was happening to sink in, despite the intro being unusually played on the guitar this time, the riff was unmistakable, and when she starting singing ‘Shadow, take me down with you….’, it was a moment of magic. You just wish you could have been in the Roundhouse in Twin Peaks really, but it felt special. I’d been slightly annoyed earlier that the voice felt probably too low in the mix, but I forgot about that then. Another thing that was great all evening was the general sound quality, and in particular the bass. No saturation, just perfect, and driving the songs masterfully. Whether that all came from the bassist’s skills or the set-up, it made me think I should really also a buy a bass to complete my music set-up. But I digress. If that had been the last song, I think it would have been perfect, but at the same time, you felt it wasn’t to be. Ruth said they’d play an encore but as they couldn’t go offstage and back on easily here, she’d just introduce her band first instead. No wanky thing here, just nice words from her and polite and appreciative applause from the crowds. She mentioned she’d be at the merch stand later selling records and the about five T-shirts they brought with them, before they started with the last song. I didn’t recognise it at all, it just felt totally unnecessary, some lounge Jazz number, but somehow I wasn’t upset or very offended by it, because the previous songs had lifted my mood and made me feel very well, and I knew this was the last song and wouldn’t extend forever. But yes, it was Blue Velvet (so another wink at the late David Lynch), but I’ve only ever watched the film once, and that music is really not my cup of tea, so it completely passed me by on the spot! Either way, this was the end of a beautiful set from lovely Ruth Radelet and her merry band. Music really heals, and at the end of a difficult day and a slightly complicated, tiring week was nearing, I felt a lot better (well the struggle for that week wasn’t over, but that evening felt like a happy conclusion then).
Post-gig: straight home. I’d have been tempted to hang around for a bit (it wasn’t that late, all over shortly after 10pm, but I’d been out later the previous night), but on my own and not forgetting that despite the music buzz I was tired, I felt I might feel a bit lost and desperate staying, so a bit gutted I didn’t get to thank the musicians and have a brief chat with them if possible, but I was home by 10.30pm and that was just good.
Blondshell+Francis of Delirium, Trabendo 15/9/2025
Context: When this gig was first announced, I was probably not going to go for just one song. On hearing the new Blondshell album, I thought ‘maybe’, though a little unconvincingly, even though I think I like her second album better than the first, despite no ‘Salad’ on it. But then Francis of Delirium were announced as the support, and so it became ‘definitely’. First trek to the Trabendo since the injury. I mean it’s all fine now despite this venue requiring the most walking of them all, but always a little more painful on physio day.
External review: can’t see any so far, and probably won’t find any.
Photos: annoyingly none either.
YouTube: again, very annoyingly, nothing for the Francis of Delirium part. Not as much as I thought for Blondshell. Mostly shorts, so only found a couple of whole songs. No Salad.
Company: Nick and Ornella.
Pre-gig: meeting time on a workday wasn’t too early, so with a few minutes delay and me very keen on seeing Francis of Delirium from the start in case they had some new songs, we decided to head straight to the venue. Beers having been ordered, we got inside quickly to ensure a good spot.
Support: Francis of Delirium. Well, they were one of the big reasons for me here, in fact, the one that made me definitely decide to go, so the ‘support’ part is not quite right for me there. But they played first and it was a fairly short performance so support they were, and that section may be the biggest for once.
So, a year and a half on, what’s new in the world of FoD? Not that much, by the look of it, although maybe the bigger place, the better sound and other factors mean an even more confident performance and getting ready for bigger things. The bass player is quickly spotted walking from the mixing desk and doesn’t look as gigantic as I remembered him (more on that later). I’m not totally sure I recognise the drummer, but that’s with the distance, and also, as the bassist told us later, he’s rather introverted so more discreet, and in fact we didn’t see him post-gig .They take to the stage a little ahead of schedule, unusually, and the first song they play doesn’t seem familiar, although the sound itself doesn’t make for a departure from their usual style. If I believe the Belgium setlist, it’s called ‘Little Black Dress’. We get the classics from the so far only album next. Blue Tuesday starts the sequence (Nick reminds me he had put that one on his ‘best of 2024’ list), before Jana tells us ‘we are from Luxembourg….Jardins du Luxembourg’ as a little joke (just in case some people weren’t aware, she later specifies that it was a joke and that they are indeed from the small Duchy). She’s looking and sounding very confident, and introduces the next song asking the audience if they ever found themselves groping their best friend, etc., and in the end wondering….’Am I gay?’ which leads to laughter but is in fact, the theme of the next song, the excellent Real Love, still one of their best (unfortunately once more we don’t get Something Changed tonight, maybe they never play it?). Jana’s voice renders superbly in this venue, I can’ truly say if it’s even better than ever, but it really shines tonight, beautiful and strong. She’s having fun onstage, sometimes playing the big guitar moves with Jeff (the bass player, wearing a skirt over his trousers). Nothing else is new on the setlist, but every song is excellent and splendidly executed. We get another brief mention of the F1 hotel in Montreuil, but this time even more as a distant anecdote, a place they will probably never have to stay at again. Jana sets up the ‘Give It Back to Me’ play again, asking the audience to sing back the bits at the end, but from my position, it doesn’t sound as good as at PopUp, whether it’s because of the bigger venue, or the fact that they are just supporting and so the audience is less theirs. Later when I mention that to her, she said she thought it actually worked quite well, so maybe it felt different from the stage, or maybe she didn’t want me to feel that bit didn’t quite succeed this time. Anyway, we get the fairly usual closer (only one this time) with ‘Quit Fucking Around’ , people –or me anyway–, shouting the words, and it’s all over too quickly. In the interval, I briefly go to the merch stand as it’s near us and kind of rudely interrupt just to say that was great, but once there are less people, I get back to buy a nice T-shirt and have a slightly longer convo with Jana, asking her if she still designs all the merch (of course she does, and I have to say those T-shirts are splendid), talk about the gig a bit, and ask if/when a new album would be out, but she just affects an air of mystery. Anyway, after ordering another round, it’s time to get back in position, but there’ll be more FoD chat in the post-gig section.
Crowds: have to admit that from our location by a fence, I didn’t pay much attention or didn’t have to. I think it was a very mixed crowd age-wise. Definitely mostly middle class white if anything.
Standing location: just firsts on the fence on the elevated bit at the back. Perfect really. You can’t be totally in the middle, but perfect unimpaired view, and in my still healing state, not having to constantly check my step and position was a huge bonus.
Setlists: not available, but both for FoD and Blondshell, I think the setlists from two days later in Belgium, here and there, are a very good indication. In fact, most likely there was no variation at all, and this would confirm Francis of Delirium’s opener was indeed a new song, or at least one I didn’t know and has not been released. In fact, looking at more Blondshell setlists now, there seems to be no variation, so you can be pretty sure it was exactly the same. Edit 24/9: well the Blondshell setlist is available now. And there is a slight variation, not in content, but a slight alteration in order, as T&A was played just a couple of songs later in Paris, though it seems to be the only time for this tour, so there is a doubt about the accuracy there, I’d say.
So yes, to Blondshell. The start is very direct, no slow messing about with opening track of the new album, straight with the main hit/most immediate track (I think) of the new album: 23’s A Baby. And that’s followed with another of my favourites on that album, Toy. After this, I’m kind of concerned that she played all her best songs first and the rest might be a little boring. I mean, Docket (obviously not featuring Bully) is played next, another excellent song, and Sepsis from the first album just after is rather good too though a little less obvious. But, to be fair, the next few songs pass pleasantly so it’s all very enjoyable. Sabrina does not speak much, but she moves about freely around the stage and the musicians are very proficient, so it’s a very enjoyable gig, once more helped by excellent sound. It all eventually does peter out as we reach more boring songs and attention fades, but it’s not going to be a very long gig. When the encore comes, it starts with a slower but very good song from the new album and then, obviously, we get the forever excellent Salad to conclude the concert, still her best song I’d say, though I’m not sure it has the same vigour as at Point Ephémère.
Post-gig: We go by to the merch stand again, as Ornella, still impressed by FoD, fancies getting a T-shirt too. Jana’s had time to get changed and now sports some nice big round glasses. Ornella gets her T-shirt signed, and then Jeff’s just standing by there so we chat a little more with him, he says the drummer is amazing and they’ve been playing in bands together since they were about 15. Ornella does the clumsy chat, telling him she had wondered if he was a boy or a girl because of the skirt (really? she realises quickly it felt like an embarrassing thing to say, but it’s no big deal, he had just laughed it off, that’s not the bass player from Library Card there though!) and even tells him he’s not as big as she thought he was. To which he replies: ‘haha, no I’m not that tall, it’s just that Jana is really tiny’. And in fact, I think that’s right, because despite my initial remark above, he was indeed back to looking like a giant on stage during the gig! Anyway, I think he says new album may be out next Spring, or something, and well, we have to say goodbye, after Ornella gets a second signature on her T-shirt.
After that, it’s pretty much straight home, apart from waiting for Nick to cadge a ciggie and smoke it outside the venue with the people he took it from and who may or may not be there for Dog Race on Friday (they weren’t, or we didn’t see them anyway – Nick had given his number).
Dog Race, Supersonic 19/9/2025
Context: Well, that EP they released earlier this year was one of my favourite releases this year, and is practically flawless. Nick shortly after had asked me if they were playing live as he really wanted to see them, and a free gig at Supersonic was announced not much later. So it was a no brainer to attend this.
External review: I was suprised, but benzinemag has it. A very good review in fact, rendering mine superfluous. SoV also has one, that came out quicker than usual, but maybe is slightly less to my taste. Only slightly, mind.
Photos: N/A, apart from a couple in the Benzinemag review. Unusually for a gig covered by them, SoV don’t have any.
YouTube: unlikely, but we’ll see in a few days maybe.
Company: a big gathering this time : Estelle and Patrice, Ornella and Stéphane, Nick
Pre-gig: I could easily miss a free gig on a physio day, feeling a little pain and being generally very tired, but I wasn’t going to miss that one. However, having seen there were two French bands supporting and despite not having tried to check their music, I thought I wouldn’t meet up there with the others early. Also because I didn’t want to get pissed ahead of Sunday in particular (big day back at The Arsenal at last). I was hoping to at least miss the first band altogether, but being ready and not having much to do at home -because I felt too tired to write the FoD/Blondshell review above, that I wrote just a few minutes ago now- I ended up inside the Supersonic long before 9pm so catching a good chunk of the first band. From the bar, while chatting, and enjoying the first beer (I skipped the second round and only had the next one just before the main act – but then I had more afterwards…). They were OK-ish. I wouldn’t go out of my way to see them or buy their music, but as I said to the others, they don’t make me want to go outside and escape. Which is more than what can be said for the second band (starting at 9.30pm sharp). A lot of very heavy rock/close to hard rock in fact. Later in the set, there are a couple of maybe half-decent songs, or maybe I just get used to it. Probably excellent to mosh to, mind, but obviously, on top of everything else and company, I suspect moshing is still absolutely to be avoided at this stage of rehab. At the end of their set, with Patrice, and shortly followed by Estelle, we move closer to the front as space is being vacated, while the others stay at the back. I have a good chat with Patrice, and we both were in fact wondering, having enjoyed that EP, if the singer was male or female, as it wasn’t that obvious from the sound, and neither of us had seen photos of them before. Patrice thinks it’s a bloke as there is no woman appearing in the initial soundcheck/setting up of instruments, but I recall Light By The Sea and told him she could still appear only just before the set starts. And in fact, shortly after, the singer, donning a magnificent red jacket, appears to finalise the soundcheck and all doubts are cleared. Oh yeah, that’s beyond ‘pre-gig’, I’m already eating in the other parts, but never mind.
Support: Scorie (OK- small amusing talk as before they played their last song ‘toutes les bonnes choses ont une fin, les choses moyennes aussi’ – actually now that I think of it, can’t remember for sure if it’s them or the next band who said that), Mosees (no thank you)
Crowds: It’s the Supersonic, it’s hard to know what part of the crowd is here for the bands. So yeah, we’ll say usual Supersonic crowds, mostly students, and an enormous lot of annoying people among them. But it’s normal, been there, drink, dance about, snog (for some, clearly), talk and not care so much about the music. Though I kind of wish most of these stayed upstairs or at the back, because at times it feels more like ‘a band playing in a pub’ rather than a full-on concert.
Standing location: on the left of the pillar, maybe a metre further back than I’d ideally wish: not perfect but good enough.
Setlist: incredibly (or not), it IS available.
Obviously, with only one EP and a couple of singles to their name, there wasn’t anything missing, and it also couldn’t be extended indefinitely. But all the songs are excellent, and we even get a new one. The set-up is the singer only sings (apart from one song, that new one, when she also gets to the keys while the main keyboardist temporarily exits the stage before returning for the more agitated second part of the song), there’s a guy on keys that’s at the front on the left. The bass player, maybe a little unusually is actually kind of hiding behind the keyboards man, and on the right (looking at the stage), drummer at the back, and guitarist at the front. Those two extra singles are played, there’s maybe another song or two I need to locate (don’t think they are available, but maybe they are also new just weren’t announced as such, including the opener), the voice is excellent and intense, the music makes you want to bounce (if only I could). Just the crowds coming and going, sometimes tall people impolitely squeezing themselves in front of you, and most annoyingly, especially in the more quiet moments, the incessant sound of rather lound chattering. But when The Leader starts, I think everyone focuses back on the music, and while I can’t properly tell which song is my favourite, I think this is the one that makes more of a difference live. And we finish with another excellent classic (well it will be deemed a classic in the future) : It’s The Squeeze! No encore, there rarely properly is in The Supersonic, but then they might not have had any songs left anyway: they played the whole EP, the two singles and three unreleased songs! Not a dull moment, very enjoyable music and performance. Only annoying thing is, at the end, even as most people at the front are gently jumping up and down, I can only keep my right foot firmly and flatly planted on the floor, and just go slightly up and down on the left. Hopefully, one day, maybe next time I see them, I will be able to move even better.
Post-gig: well, it wasn’t too late, it was Friday evening, so lingering on a bit seemed to make sense. Also the music was good, with Siouxsie and The Cure played immediately after the end of the gig. With Patrice, we thought everyone was going upstairs, but we went with Nick and then Nick immediately went back downstairs. Patrice went to the loo (further up), so I told him I’d wait for him before going downstairs again. Estella joined also before Patrice eventually came back (obviously busy time at the loo post-gig) and we went straight back downstairs, to the bar (another pint for me after all), only to find the others (well Ornella and Nick, with Stéphane a little less involved) talking to Katie, the singer, who it took me a second or two to identify without her jacket. She seemed nearly overawed, very enthusiastic, though no idea what was talked about, Nick asked about merch, the guitarist went upstairs to fetch it, and the rest of the band was there for a while. Now I felt a little bit awkward and not that good, having joined later. I’m normally (well, sometimes after a few beers) the first to go and congratulate the band and express my gratitude, but here, arriving after, not too tipsy, and surrounded by more extroverted people, the introverted me kind of retreated and kept frustratingly distant, which I have to admit annoyed me because I’d have really wanted to talk to them all. But as the drummer (less obviously popular? or just a positional circumstance) came a little closer, I could at least thank him, which was nice. No photo for me, it all felt odd, as if suddenly our group wasn’t completely a group. Anyway, yeah, more reflections about introverts/extraverts came to me. At least, I suspect Estelle who is more introverted (but also more generally confident in herself than me, I suspect) was not bothered at all about this flurry and activity so was a beacon of calm or something. Nick left shortly after, but a look at my watch suggested I still had more than enough time for one last beer before leaving, so I had a quick one with Estelle, Patrice, Ornella and Stéphane, before the latter two and I made our way out. All in all, it was really all about a good evening in a good place, and one truly excellent band I hope to see again somewhere soon-ish. As an aside, with this place never being truly full, etc, I think Ornella is right, we shouldn’t be coming this early if we want to see only one band. In fact, on seeing all the people on the terrasses in the cafés around, I thought I’d quite have liked to have had a drink there, as I had arrived too early for my own taste. Maybe it’s an idea for next time we all go there (possibly 10/10), although it’s unlikely that we’ll have nice warm evenings like that again (T-shirt and shorts weather it was) before next spring. I managed to blag a match ticket for Jez for the Palace match miraculously on the way back (4 pints at Supersonic, not very big pints either, don’t make you very drunk), so a productive evening too, even if back home just after 1am. I truly enjoyed it, less pressure on Fridays too!
Benefits, Petit Bain 1/10/2025
Context: Where do I start? Benefits released one of the albums of the year, and this concert was in the offing long before it was officially announced. In fact, as early as when I saw them in April, Nick had the news they would be playing at Petit Bain on 1/10. It got announced a few months later, as part of just a few Europan dates (some gigs not relating to each other rather than a tour, I think), and so a ticket was procured. It didn’t even sell out, but I was looking forward to seeing them on two legs this time, even if not yet 100% fit, having so much enjoyed that Lexington gig.
External review: I didn’t feel peaceful enough to write the review until now, but handily, the SOV review has appeared today. Though it has a couple of odd inaccuracies.
Photos: Excellent photos from Laëtitia at SOV. If you wonder about that photo of Robbie, now I can see how it just shows he was feeling unwell.
YouTube: none? Again some filming but such a small attendance, basically ten fans and the rest of the people.
Company: Nick, Alexis and a mate of his.
Pre-gig: The first surprise was learning on the day from an Instagram publication that they were not headlining. The day before, I’d got a DM reply saying ‘see you tomorrow’ stating ‘we’re on at 9pm’, which is kind of a standard starting time for headliners. But on the day, that post said ‘Paul Parker 8pm, benefits 9pm….Volition Immanent 10pm’. Now there had been a clue from the start, as the poster from the gig said ‘Gonzaï Night: Volition Immanent, benefits+guests’. The way it was presented might have been unclear, so I’d assumed that ‘Volition Immanent’ was just part of that odd gig title from whichever organiser, it didn’t occur to me that a) benefits could be not headlining, b) it was worth checking what that was all about since it was clearly not the name of the benefits tour in general. So while I now know Gonzaï is some electronic music French magazine, I could have figured out that the second part was not some clever subtitle. Oh well, anyway, as Nick said ‘it might allow us to go back home earlier’ (but you’ll see later that’s not what happened), especially as he’d been to a gig the night before already. Anyway, all this is kind of ‘pre-pre-‘ gig. A quick check at Paul Parker told me ‘hmm, interesting but not worth rushing in for’, while Volition Immanent (some kind of industrial goth music perhaps?) made me think I wouldn’t particularly be bothered to listen to them either. So meeting was arranged in front of the venue for about 8.30pm. I thought I might still get in earlier but somehow found myself busy and forgetting time. Also, no physio that day, but I’d been in my first short outdoor run for over seven months, and I was in a bit of agony. I decided to take a more serious painkiller than Ibuprofen this time, but not without checking if it would be OK with alcohol (I’d have to choose the painkiller if not, honestly). Nick was a few stops behind on the metro, and when I got to the venue, I got a text from Alexis who was just there. And so we all got inside, to find the room not very full at all. In fact, it’s probably the emptiest I have seen the Petit Bain in a long time, if not ever.
Support: Paul Parker. We only caught the last number or two, can’t really say if I liked it or not. It was as weird as I’d had a hint of from the quick listen and style-description, and possibly interesting. The sparse crowd liked it (he is French, we later learnt he was called Paul, but obviously not Parker, so possibly he had some mates in there too!), but with the heavy effect on the microphone, whatever he said between songs felt quite unintelligible (just turn the effects off when you speak, mate? would make it easier), although I glimpsed a ‘one more song, or maybe two’ or something. Anyway, not sure I’ll investigate further, unless he collaborates with benefits, which is maybe not to be excluded if I believe small hints from a later conversation (more about that later). When the crowds fled after this set, it was easy to get to the front, in fact, it felt so awkward I basically stayed there and went slightly furthe back a few times while the rest of our crew stayed back (there was zero need to occupy the space or keep your spot) before eventually convincing them to move forward to the front of the stage. Laëtitia from SOV was around ready to take photos, but chatting with someone (probably the SOV guy who wrote the actual review?), so we didn’t get to greet until just shortly before the gig, no time for a chat.
Crowds: none. Joking but hard to say. The place pretty much emptied before benefits, and while it did fill up during the gig, I doubt it was full. At the start it felt like it wasn’t any busier than when Been Stellar started at Trabendo a couple of years earlier. All the better for us really. It never got too dense though, so apart from occasional filmers/photographers (well a couple of photographers, plus one very non official guy roaming around filming from time to time with his mobile, slightly more annoying), the ‘front row’ was just fans. I couldn’t move too much, but there was a relatively young black-haired girl with a piercing in her eyebrow that went really mad for the hardest tracks (including warhorse, so she definitely wasn’t new to them), and another older one also doing a lot of up and down jumping on some tracks (turned out she worked for BBC2 – she wasn’t there in that capacity though- as we found out when chatting later), just to my right, in front of Nick more or less. Anyway, so, crowds, not sure what to say, but judging from the actual benefits fans met later, and isn’t that something I said about the Lexington gig too? *checks, yep!* , the same reflection comes to me, given their message, if the younger generations won’t listen to them, how fucked are we? They are a vital voice that needs to be heard.
Standing location: straight in front of the stage, none of the old schoolers hogging that space today, so absolutely fantastically perfect, you can’t beat that. I had to convince Nick and Alexis to be there as they wanted to stay back or on the ramp to avoid noise overload (they used their earplugs though – mind you, I did have a brief tinnitus -extra tinnitus, I more or less always have a heavy dose now- the next morning), but there was so much nobody it would have been criminal to be elsewhere in the room. Also, there was not going to be any moshing, so I didn’t fear for my foot.
Setlist: It’s not on setlist.fm, but it’s actually there with the SOV review linked above, and I think it’s accurate, from what I remember anyway. And I will in fact start with the setlist mention. As we proceeded forward, Nick had a look at the mixing desk (they generally have the setlists there, obviously, and it seems it was on display before the gig), I reminded him that I didn’t want to see it, that I hate not having the surprise and he should know. However, much to my dismay, he proceeded to tell me, ‘I’m surprised there is no ‘Blame’ or ‘Divide’ ‘. I figured he was clever enough to just be winding me up and either of this tune would figure in the set. But more on that later. After the setting up (nice knotted colourful Boro scarf on Kingsley’s keyboard’s feet), the start was, as expected, with ‘Constant Noise’ followed by the forever excellent ‘Land of The Tyrants’. Kingsley looked to be in super form, chanting/wording with extreme conviction (not an easy feat, seeing as he clearly creates new lyrics maybe each evening and was therefore reading a lot from lyrics sheet he’d created and was throwing quickly to the side after use) and not hesitating in emphasing the lyrics (‘Hail to the Thief! Hail to the FUCKING Thief!’) and you knew you were in for a proper treat. With a shorter set, I wondered what sort of tracks we would hear, so when Warhorse sounded next, it felt absolutely monumental. The girl to my right went mental, Kingsley was an absolute pile of energy (throughout the set, doing lots of spectacular an dynamic moves/kung-fu kicks when he was singing/screaming/shouting and not at the decks). As this was followed by Lies and Fear, it was a particularly compelling part of the show. Somehow, I felt back all that intensity that I had been amazed by when I first heard them live in 2023. I’m not sure why, if it was because of the (slightly) softer musical nature of the second album, or my own particular circumstances at the time, but I remember the Lexington gig as being phenomenally good (Robbie said later it was), but somehow without that sheer intensity. Missiles brought a little respite, and, well, there’s something I’m confused about, as I felt it happened later in the gig, but as it was an adaptation of the end of Lies and Fear, maybe it WAS just the end of Lies and Fear. Either way, that bit I want to mention is Kingsley adapting the lyrics fantastically about the Gaza genocide, and observing the destruction, instead of ‘what will you do?’ that is in the original repeating ‘WHAT DID YOU DO?’. Honestly, there’s something absolutely vital and spectacular about the way Kingsley expresses himself, both in body movement and lyrics. As I listened to both albums again the next day (I meant to keep that for the post-gig bits, but what the hell, the stream of consciousness always takes me, even if all the elements here have been around in my mind in the past few days rather than just now), I enjoyed Nail even much more than I did when it was out – somehow it felt a lot more listenable, don’t ask, especially as I’ve just spent half the year saying the evolution of their sound was necessary as they may not have been able to survive, with an audience, without that), and a thing that strikes me over, and over again, as it did during the gig, was that Kingsley really has a way with words, and I mean not just their significance, but their sound. There’s an incredible quality to the phrasing and the collection of sounds, making him in my opinion a rare actual modern poet, and, especially live, the variations he offers in the way he sings, being able to switch from some kind of primal screaming to near-crooning is remarkable. Robbie’s work on his decks, sometimes creating a wall of punchy sounds through his array of effect pedals was no less spectacular.
But back to the set, and hang on is that just….? Yes, of course, it is ‘Blame’. Fantastic. And yes, followed straight away by the no less excellent ‘Divide’ ! No Shakk this time for extra voice and entertainment, but it still sounds essential. So what was Nick on about? We got both. So I told him later I did think he had probably be pulling me leg, but he said this wasn’t actually the case. Given the setlist confusion as mentioned by Kingsley onstage and Robbie later (seems everyone had the wrong setlist), I am honestly none the wiser, but happy they played both.
With it not being a headline set, they had to be selective with the tracks they played, and also probably reduce inter-song talk, though Kingsley had time to give many words of thanks and love as usual, and we got the Free Palestine speech from Robbie, a little earlier in the set (it was more or less in conclusion in London), and very nicely adapted to the local crowd. And so he starts saying he used to not like the football team PSG, but after seeing the tifo they deployed before a big match about the Gaza genocide, he is now a fan. For context, while I don’t remember the match (and I think the SOV reporter got that particular detail wrong, but maybe I’m the one in error, just didn’t think it was the final, more likely a much earlier match in Paris [Edit, I was right, this was the PSG vs Atletico group match], the PSG ultras had an absolutely gigantic banner deploring the genocide. Following that there was some uproar, calls for bans and sanctions, etc., and I think in the end, and surprisingly and pleasantly, the way it was done, UEFA (or whichever instance, but I DO think it was a European match) declared that it wasn’t an illegal political message or something and there was no sanction. So we joined for just a few second of ‘Free, Free Palestine’, not as noisy here maybe due to limited crowds and also not necessarily their crowds, before the gig carried on. Robbie was sporting a nice Free Palestine T-shirt, and there were a few times when he was not facing the stage, and I just assumed (correctly or not, but it felt cleverly done) that it was to display the bigger logo on the back of the T-shirt. Mind you, there’s also a couple of minutes when he programmed the beats before going off for a minute or so while Kingsley carried on (it was well done so there was no disruption to the flow), and now that I know he had a ballooning stomach, I suspect it might just have been for medical reasons (again pure speculation). He did tell me later, mind, that when Kingsley gave him the microphone, he wasn’t quite ready as he hadn’t been expecting it at this particular moment. All this may even have been before Blame, I don’t know, as with many things, I remember elements, most or every one of them, but I’m not always good at remembering order. Might even be some sort of cognitive issue in me, but it’s not new. Anyway, redouble the intensity for Flag and we get to the last song, which, as in the Lexington, is a mash of Born Slippy and something else. Not sure I’m right but for some reason, I seem to remember bits of ‘Everything Is Going To Be Alright’ (from Constant Noise) finding place here, rather than the Suicide cover. Maybe, maybe not, but it’s the moment when I’m struck with the quality of Kingley’s voice when sort of ‘crooning’. And then it’s all over….after 45 minutes.
Now, generally, if you see a short-ish gig and say ‘it felt like it lasted for hours’, it might mean you got bored and checked the time, but here my feeling was the opposite. I felt like the gig had lasted longer, because I was actually totally immersed in it (very well helped by being at the front, for sure), and so when the music stopped, I’d felt like I’d been part of such an intense musical experience worth more than a 45 minutes fill. And I’d only had a single pint before the gig at this point.
Post-gig: with Nick and Alexis and his mate, we stayed just a few minutes by the stage, while Kingsley and Robbie were clearing it. Nick asked Kingsley if they’d come up for a beer afterwards (they would). In a weird and absurd ‘so what do you say to the artist after the gig?’ (caveat : with the previous invitation, while I’m never 100% sure what’s next, I’d surmised we’d have a chance to chat longer, so I’m not even sure at this stage I even said ‘thank you! or ‘great gig!’), I asked Kingsley as he was still on that stage ‘So…are you top of the League’? and it took him a second and he said ‘YES!’. (shit, just reminds me I didn’t check what they did at the weekend, now I see they lost and Coventry are top, so I can’t send a message to Simon to remark both Arsenal and Boro are top, oh well, hopefully soon again). We moved towards the bar while the band were still taking a few selfies with people in front of the stage (we did one later just outside the bar room by the boat’s railings – wanted to do it mostly for Jez), and so yeah, the ‘one pint plan’ slowly unravelled as the four of us (not with the band now) ordered a round and started chatting about the gig and this and that.
A drink later or so, Kingsley and Robbie appeared just outside, so we went and had a bit of a chat, or a long one, mostly with Robbie in my case, talking about various random things, football teams (Robbie’s a Man U fan, something I didn’t know), football injuries, life on crutches, Gaza, the price of beer, transport, politics, and various places in Europe and in the UK. And obviously about the Café de La Presse and Lexington gigs too. Alexis and his mate went to check the headline act, eventually Kingsley also went down there briefly as he nicely felt it was the right thing to do as they’d been invited onto this bill. Paul Parker came by and exchanged a few words with Robbie (that’s when we learned he was called Paul but indeed not Parker, and I suddenly remembered there was a Man U player from the past called Paul Parker – clearly not the influence in this case!), saying they should keep in touch (hence me thinking a collaboration on a track could sound interesting). When Kingsley came back, Nick went in to offer him a beer and have a chat with him and other fans, and we joined them eventually; Robbie had to absent himself for a bit (he’d been unwell, dodgy water or something), so this may be why, as it took him longer than he’d hinted at, so I got the next round in and the beer was ready some time before he could eventually make it back. I had a little chat with Kingsley indoors, who on seeing my T-shirt actually rememeberd he’d sent it (stating he obviously remembered better when sending somexhere ‘exotic’ ie outside the UK), so I told him about the Christmas card from that year, and indeed he never got, he would have changed address in the intervening months, I think! Anyway we chatted a bit with a couple of other French fans too, then a girl turned up, asked me what my story was, a question which totally confused me (my life story or my story with benefits?), so waffled about Bordeaux, I asked her where she was from, and she said Nottingham, so I made her connect with Nick as she was a Forest fan too. Turns out she worked at BBC2 (Ellie’s the name, doing some of the breakfast shows) and was there with her boyfriend who also works on BBC Radio (6 I think?), anyway, such a nice evening with lovely people, and somehow, even to this introvert, it felt good to randomly chat with random people, I was in a very good space. Someone suggested we all went to Odeon, which under other circumstances I’d have been very happy to do. But having committed to drive a colleague to work the next day, I couldn’t really go (would have been absolutely incapacitated, especially as an evening when both me and Nick had planned to only have one beer, was already turning into a 4 ( or 5?) pinter). Nick was unsure but having to work too and having been out the next night, decided to also not join. Regrets? Sure, but at the same time, definitely wise, because I think it’s one of those evenings I could have gone out and have fun and possibly be out until the morning, but in the event, would have been a big mistake for the next day: sometimes I still have to choose to be wise, but it reminded me of the good days of going out in Paris with the Mardous and other gig going folks, some stuff coming back at the moment, more mature but quite fun and etc. I suppose I also have to take into account I am nowhere near 30 or even 40 anymore…. So yeah, home at about 0.30am with the antepenultimate RER and the next day was more manageable. In short, one of the best evenings of the year: superb music, great band, and fantastic people. Go see them if you get the chance. I’ll definitely catch up when they’re next around, that’s if I don’t go and see them somewhere else. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
Nova Twins+HotWax, Alhambra 8/10/2025
Context: one of these that was a ‘maybe’ initially. When the new Nova Twins album was released, I thought ‘hmm, it’s a little less ‘in your face’, might make a good gig without being too much’. HotWax were supporting, which hugely added to the appeal. And Jed was going, which I think clinched it. Not sure I’d have gone if either of these two factors didn’t exist.
External review: SOV has it. I always write my review before reading others, in order to not be influenced, but I will happily note the same remarks on crowds composition now.
Photos: Robert Gil was there, for both sets, support and main.
YouTube: one from HotWax (unfortunately not their best song)
looks like indiegilles was just there for HotWax (so that explains why I saw him where/when I did, see below) but this is an excellent view of the night’s closer:
Company: Jed.
Pre-gig: I’d felt a setback when doing simple jumps midday (despite feeling the best in a while in a morning, with more freedom of ankle movement), so had been in pain most of the afternoon, painkiller time, but just the Ibuprofen this time. Anyway, as the support was a must for me, while we agreed to meet just before 8pm in front of the venue, Jed who’d been golfing in the afternoon in Chantilly had to be a bit late, so I went straight in, after the little queuing that was left to do. Some guy (who was with his young daughter) asked the bouncer if there was a support, so they didn’t have to get in already. Picked my spot to be easily describable for Jed to catch up later, and settled there.
Support: HotWax. One EP and one album to their name, plus a recent single. Two girls fronting it (one with bass and occasional backing vocals, the lead vocalist on guitar), and a drummer ticking it all together excellently. They make a good racket, Rip It Out from that 2023 EP was the first hit, something slightly off-kilter, starting a little quietly before exploding to life. The advantage of only two front performers is that they can use the whole of the stage to move, and the bassist in particular used the space well. Their ‘hit’ (it probably isn’t, just the most accessible/melodic track? a banger anyway) ‘Strange to Be Here’ is the expected highlight, and we get treated to a new song called ‘Change My Name’, not bad at all. Not a lot of inter-song banter, apart from the usual expression of delight at being back to Paris, then mentioning they’d toured with Nova Twins before and that they were excellent people, people they’d chip their teeth for, nicely introducing the next song ‘Chip my Teeth for You’, that kind of serves as title track on the new album (as it features ‘Hot Shock’ in the lyrics), before finishing with a couple more tracks from this year’s album, ending with the opening track indeed. A very satisfying rock’n’roll performance. Maybe they’ve peaked already, or maybe they’ll find another gear, but either way, they’re good.
Crowds: very very mixed in colours, styles and ages. Even some young children, I noticed one wearing some kind of heavy-duty noise-blocking headphones on the balcony. As the set itself proved, it’s not entirely surprising, as the nature and originality of their music mean they can as easily appeal to hip-hop heads as well as rock’n’roll headbanging fanatics or something. The ‘old guys’ gang was there, indiegilles and the usual very very tall geezer, probably some others I couldn’t see from my spot. In fact, I only saw ig as he went sideways back from his usual spot between the two acts. Could that mean he was not in his usual spot or ‘on duty’ and why I don’t see any YT from him yet?
Standing location: didn’t want to be anywhere too near the front as moshing in my state was out of the question, so settled for a spot on the left, kind of middle of the room depth-wise. Not ideal or perfect viewing, especially for HotWax where I felt a tall geezer was really hampering my view, but good enough, and I didn’t feel impaired during the main set. As I said, I’d tried to describe the spot precisely for Jed, yet we managed to miss each other initially. I thought I’d spotted him halfway through HotWax, but then didn’t. So at the break when we texted each other, he told me he’d just been there by the fire exit, meaning probably a couple of metres to my left but slightly forwards. It might have been him then. Either way, it would be easier in the light, he was upstairs in the bar, so I decided that reasonable sobriety would allow for a beer, and he came down with the round, no problem with spotting each other this time. It was sold out, looked crowded enough, yet, but maybe that’s just because of the law these days, the density of folks at least where we were wasn’t too high, pretty comfortable. Well, the temperature rose near the end of HotWax as the venue filled up and some people started to push forward (I kept the same spot as it seemed just right for me for tonight), so I tied my jacket around my waist rather than keep it on (I know I occasionally did it in the distant past, but I can’t get the appeal of cloakrooms given the queues on exit).
Setlist: HotWax setlist is available now (wasn’t initially, but as I correctly deducted, it was the exact same as other dates). Here’s the Nova Twins one.
So three albums in (I’d never checked the first one, but they played what seems to be a classic from it, Taxi), what’s this strange new band about? Amy (lead vocals, occasionally guitar) and Georgia (bass, occasionally backing vocals) are the ‘twins’, backed by another powerful drummer at the very back. So a ‘similar’ configuration to HotWax, but an entirely different proposition altogether. And they start with, unusually, the…..final song from the new album, not a favourite of mine, really, but as a (very relatively) sedate scene-setting introduction, it will do. The set itself is in fact mostly focused on the new album, most of it is played, and just a few songs from the second one), and I won’t go into a blow-by-blow of the set, just focus on a few highlights and impressions. By the time the very recognisable Soprano from the new album rings (dedicated to all the women in here), you’ve already been through a variety of impressions, it’s not really a mix of hip-hop and rock’n’roll, it is both at different times, but it is neither, in a way they are pretty unique. At some point, I think they are like a modern, black, female Beastie Boys (with less members) despite being English, but then I’ve never seen the Beastie Boys live, just my idea of them. But you can see the appeal to so many different types of people. Sometimes it’s even closer to rap or the like at some points within a song(Cleopatra from the previous album?). When I see that Amy has long ditched the guitar for most of the set, I pay more attention to Georgia’s play and that’s where my mind is totally blown. There may be the occasional beat on tape on top of the drumming, but there is actually no doubt that the whole of the music/notes come from that bass. She must use various effects and switch, hell sometimes it seems like when she’s playing higher on the neck she uses a different sound, she wields her bass around, playing high notes, low notes, saturation, while moving around and it is actually incredible to hear the sounds that come out of that instrument. She truly is an impressive performer. To the extent that whenever Amy gets to use one or the other of her guitars on some tracks, I can’t even distinctly identify what it adds. N.O.V.A leads to a sort of call and response from the crowd, at some point using the old left side/right side now routine, and another impressive moment comes on the previous album’s Choose Your Fighter when both Georgia (while still playing that bass) and Amy (still singing, she managed to affix the mix to her chest inside her top before launching herself into the pit) go for a little crowd-surfing, to the delight of the crowds. They do quite a round there in fact, before finishing the song on-stage. Can’t remember which songs leads to a ‘circle pit’ (on demand though, but is that a new thing? I’d never heard of/truly noticed circle pits before DITZ at Levitation, maybe it’s the new-ish thing, like Acoustic mini-sets in the middle of sets – I’ve seen less of these this year). It’s all rather relentless anyway, until the final song of the main set, when suddenly you (I anyway, I have no doubt other noticed them earlier) notice the huge white flowers on the background. Hummingbird, by far the quietest/slowest song on the night is played. Maybe the only one in fact, there are some kind of mid-tempo ish, but this is different. And it helps emphasise how amazing Georgia’s voice actually is. She really sings there, no fast rapping/hip-hopping, and she hits the high notes very powerfully and accurately. It’s been an hour and it’s been hugely impressive. I expect we’ll at least get Monsters in the encore, maybe as the first song, but in fact we get a highlight fromthe second album, Antagonistic, to begin with, before Monsters pleasantly appears. And the final song? The anthemic Glory that actually opens the new album. Yep, last song played first and first song played last, a very special gig from a very unusual band really. I sure wouldn’t listen to their music all day, I’m not even sure I’d run immediately to see them again very soon (though in the future perhaps), and I expect them to fill bigger venues (especially in Paris? At some point they mentioned France was one of the first countries to really take to them), but the performance was incredible, and I am very glad the factors combined for me to attend. If you get the chance, yeah, go.
Post-gig: as everything was reasonable and it was still only 10.30pm and the pressure at work was mostly off after a stressful start to the week, we decided to go for a beer near the metro stop we were just going to. Reasonable price, so we just had a good chat before heading home, out on the terrasse was still warm-ish enough, so a pleasant way to wind-out, and in my case, just a second beer of the night was a very reasonable option this time, I got lucky with my RER connection too, so home before midnight as a very enjoyable evening came to an end.
NewDad, La Maroquinerie 11/10/2025
Context: I jumped on this one long before the album was released, and in fact, it was also sold out long before that. The new album itself (their second) was rather good, probably better than the first in terms of number of good tracks, so while maybe not expecting wonders, I was looking forward to hear what they sounded like live. I’d forsaken a gig at Supersonic the night before for various reasons so I was actually in good form and spirit going into that one. Well, apart from some pain in the heel that came back rather heavily many hours after another short run.
External review: benzine got it just two days later. I suspect there will be a SOV one soon, but we’ll see. [Edit, there was, but I’m not convinced by it so not linking]
Photos: SOV has the photos, so you can see the red and tortoiseshell bass colour scheme, and that A4 sign mentioned in my review too, though you still can’t read it from there.
YouTube: a lot harder to find, weirdly, but managed to get this, which is the whole encore, so good though limited view as the filmer is using portrait mode. And I still can’t work out what Julie says at the very end, but you can see for yourself how thrilled she is! Edit 18/10 : fuck knows why, the video has been removed by the user, so now you can’t see. Hope I can find another one…[Edit a few days later] now it’s available again at a different address? Think it’s the same though. That person has quite a few vids of the gig in fact. As has who I can only think is her husband (or brother…) as someone with the same last name has a few, some different, some exactly the same….
Company: Benoît and his mate Romain.
Pre-gig: well I was going to go to this one on my own, it being a Saturday after a decent rest, no pressure, but on checking the support I thought I didn’t need to be in early. Maybe 8.30pm. But then, I was ready to go, and despite again not really meaning to drink, I thought I could just have the one pint upstairs if I was early before going down to the concert room. I still sent a message to the music group asking if no-one was around for it, and it turned out Benoît managed to snag a couple of tickets from a resell site just two days earlier. And so I caught him and Romain upstairs at Maroquinerie just after 8pm, before they were about to go downstairs. Knowing the support (more below), and them still having beer left, on a fairly pleasant if not warm evening, I just ordered a pint and we had a nice chat and finished our drinks there before heading down at the ideal time of just after support had finished. So the room was very busy as expected, but not crammed due to the interval and we just picked a nice enough spot with a decent view.
Support: LaFrange. I don’t mind her stuff, it’s very quiet and nice music. But having seen her twice supporting other bands (the last time in this very same venue, possibly the last time I was here – can’t remember if Camera Obscura or Deadletter were my previous gig at Maroquinerie), I really had no problem deliberately missing that set.
Crowds: back to mostly white rock’n’roll crowds, but more homogeneous also young adults/students types. Not so many older people like us. But not the youngest like I’ve seen at other gigs either. In fact, as Romain nicely put it later, pretty much people the same age as the band!
Standing location: on the left when looking at the stage, on the edge of the last step to the pit by the pillar there, so pretty much an excellent view, close to ideal.
Setlist: It is already present and correct. 9pm, after some rather unremarkable/unrecognisable pre-gig tunes (I noticed Turnstile’s Never Enough), lights dim, sounds start and the band comes on stage, led by Julie Dawson sporting very short pigtails and a white dress. Back to standard starts here, with the first song being the opening track from the new album, a fairly gentle number before the serious stuff starts with one of the best tracks from that album (one that was part of the EP released earlier in the year already), Entertainer. Truly excellent. At the end of it, Julie says ‘Bonjour Paris’, claims it is their first headline show in Paris (so maybe they didn’t have one for the first album? couldn’t remember if I’d missed it or it hadn’t happened), and just shakes her head incredulously as if she can’t believe how lucky she is to be here. She looks genuinely overwhelmed and excited to be on this stage tonight before introducing the next track, the popular Sickly Sweet, from the previous album. The next tune, Pretty, is dedicated to their home town of Galway, with a little giggle and add on mentioning that ‘Paris is as lovely as Galway…it’s a compliment!’, to hilarious applause. The good tunes follow one another after that, the audience is well into it (some girl near the edge of the stage on the other side displays one of these silly A4s I can’t read it, but you probably can from the stage, no idea if it asks for a song, a pick, or their T-shirt), and they sound absolutely great and better than I thought. Julie plays guitar on most of the songs, the lead guitarist is having a blast, the drummer is perfect, and once more, though in a completely different way from Wednesday, the bass shines. Marie, who is not actually an official part of the band, but a usual touring member, playing a nicely coloured Jazz Bass (now I wish I had the same colour-scheme rather than the black one I just got), is truly leading the tunes, adding some very nice flourishes underpinning all the melodies. All throughout, the band looks happy, Julie in particular beaming from ear to ear. I honestly can’t remember ever seeing someone looking so happy on stage. She does at some point mention the crowds being amazing and states that she doesn’t say that to all the audiences (I’ll never check, some people behind me say ‘yeah, yeah, ‘on ne me la fait pas celle -là’, but whatever else, she really made it sound/look convincing).
But then, as they seem to be playing heavier sounds, rocking hard but less melodically, we hit two of the weaker tracks from the new album (in my mind), that I can’t even recognise (mostly because they didn’t even register when I listened to the album), even the bass seems to disappear or be drowned in the maelstrom of noise, and for the first time I am, actually, starting to get bored and lose attention. It’s strange, because especially the last one is rather soft on record, though after a relisten, I can confirm it is also very boring there… And then they leave the stage, and so this turned out to have been the anticlimactic end of the main set. After just over 45 minutes, disappointingly. But you know they have a few tunes in reserve (they haven’t played Angel yet) so the encore should be good. After not even two minutes, as the guitar sound from the end of the last song is still lingering there in fact, they come back and restart with….Angel indeed, to a raucous reception. I never know what’s a ‘hit’ or not, but it’s probably the tune that made them better known, a classic. How many songs will be in the encore? Three? Well no, as Julie announces the next one as being the last. And so we get the big tune from the new album ‘Rooboosh’, which I didn’t immediately take to on first listen, but is indeed, brilliant and fun, especially live, with all the ‘hate’ shrieks reprised by the crowd together, and at some point Julie saying she’ll just let the audience sing as she walks away from the microphone for a few seconds (the video above as I see it now suggests this bit may have been during another song). It ends in cacophony in the room, Julie says quite a few words, presumably of thanks and wonders and maybe see you soons, but there is absolutely no way anybody can hear what she says under the torrent of applause and hollering. And it doesn’t matter, because she’s still giggling and happy and all that happiness is contagious and so the crowds are delirious too. It’s all over before 10pm but….everyone shouts on long after they’ve left the stage, asking for more. The lights seem to threaten to come back on, one spot is lit but then is turned off again….could they come back? For a few long minutes (probably at least 5), we are left in hope. No music is being played, the lights are not coming on, and after, all, it’s not like they’ve got no tunes left. So maybe, I don’t know, in my case, a little cover would do? (live or in the studio, they have covered artists as various as The Cure, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX). ILY2 would be a massive bonus. But no, a couple more minutes, no sign of anything, people start leaving the room (I can’t remember having seen such a post-gig ovation like that, not as long without a band coming back anyway, and people staying in, meaning the hope for more, from the crowd at least, was genuine, probably also fuelled by the brevity of the set), and hopes are crushed. Oh well, never mind, and they DID finish with two stunners, so maybe were wary of spoiling things. It’s been a good, enjoyable gig, just too short, and looking back at the selection of tunes, they left out some good ones, while, on top of the last two of the main set, playing quite a few not on my ‘likes’ list. Even when they played a song from the Waves EP, it was one of the couple of underwhelming ones. Yet, I have to admit again, I barely noticed any dud in live version, bar the two that lost me. And the sound was good, the music was good, and most of all, the simple joy and happiness of Julie Dawson was contagious and endured through the evening.
Post-gig: well, as it was early, we decided on going back for another (overpriced) beer or two upstairs. Benoît was feeling peckish, thought the kitchen might be closed, but they said they were still serving until 10.30pm (the joy of early finishes, even though odd on a Saturday night), so we settled at a table. I had had food beforehand so focused on the beer bar a small helping of a couple of chips at B and R’s insistence. We had some more nice chat about gigs, London, football rivalries and holidays, while the evening was still nice. I could see from where I was sitting that the band (and their giant accompanying photographer) were coming back up but not quite leaving as their entourage lingered. They didn’t come in the vicinity of the bar, apart from Marie who Romain noticed under a very warm hat and just standing there. So I gave her two big thumps up and bowed down, telling her that was a great gig and her bass playing was fantastic. And as we eventually finished our beers and upped sticks, the band were still loading their big van (no huge tour bus like Nova Twins, obviously they aren’t and never will be as big I suspect) and we walked past, Julie was there, now with a nice coat over her dress and also wearing some warm type of hat/chapka, so I was lucky I had the chance to tell her how great it was to see someone look so happy on stage, and she grinned some more and repeated that the crowds were truly excellent tonight, and so I could walk happily away with Benoît and Romain. Sure, I could have asked for a selfie, but I would have felt like an awkward twat. It doesn’t come naturally to me (even with Robbie and Kingsley, I felt I was forcing myself, just to be able to send the photo to Jez, I even felt I had to justify that to them, but I wanted it out of the way as quickly as possible — I mean remember even with Sam Herlihy last year, I refrained), and it all felt a lot more real and perfect without the photo. If someone else takes a photo, it’s fine, and often looks better. If I ask for a selfie, nah, I feel guilty. Anyway, that’s an aside, I got home safely at about half past midnight after a happy gig. I was also in a lot less pain than earlier, whether it’s the beer or the ibuprofen from before the gig, or natural healing, I’ll never know.
London next. Craig can’t make it, I’ll ask Tom if he’s around, otherwise, another solo one there, but in a familiar environment.
Hope of The States, Islington Assembly Hall, London 15/10/2025
Context: well, unexpectedly, Hope Of The States announced a few dates earlier this year. A very limited three nights tour, after having released a couple more songs. So I rushed to got these too, though astonishingly they didn’t sell out quick this time. In fact, the gig still wasn’t sold out on the day. Beats me, that.
External review: not found any yet, we shall see.
Photos: doubt I will find.
YouTube: more annoyingly given the number of phones, nothing yet, maybe there will be a great full show one like for Cranes?
Company: just me during the gig. Craig couldn’t make it, and Tom had to be a little late, so we only got to speak briefly after the gig.
Pre-gig: I headed in the direction of H&I early enough (my hotel was only two stops away with one easy connexion at Finsbury Park), thinking I’ll just text Tom and grab a bite on the way. When Tom replied he could make it only for the actual HotS advertised starting time (8.45pm), I decided I’d just have a pint in the Famous Cock then head to the venue. So a quiet Guinness was had (this being a busier area than last time, while I tried to figure if there were any potential gig-goers, it was a lot more unlikely, and also it was not ‘the big gig back’ in the unknown, so I wasn’t going to talk to random strangers on the vague hope they’d be going to the gig). So just feeling good, I headed to the Assembly Hall a little after 7.30pm, got in while it was still nearly empty and had a Red Stripe. I was still planning to have a fairly quiet one, and thinking at best I’d have a pint with Tom post-gig, and this time, despite the support being late (they turned up just after 8pm instead of 7.45pm, so I knew the main band wouldn’t be on before 9pm either, better for catching up with Tom hopefully), I stuck to the plan, so once my beer was finished, I just put the (plastic) glass back on the bar, went to the loo, and back to my exact same spot without trouble (the place was hardly busier by then) long before the support actually started, without ordering a new drink.
Support: lotusbliss. From Canterbury. I’d had a very quick listen beforehand and thought they sounded nice. Brothers (one on guitar, the other on keys, third one on drums, the two non-lead also doing backing vocals) and their friend Charlie (sporting a nice afro and a Wu-Tang-Clan T-shirt). They set up their instruments and then….music started. Seemingly featuring guitars, keyboards and drums, but before any of them actually played on their instruments. And for me that confused a lot of the performance. There were a couple of songs that had a sort of fade-out that also wasn’t totally being played live (again the drums showed it blatantly, possibly not helped by the singer later saying that the drummer was just recovering from illness), there was also a moment when the voice seemed at normal level despite the singer having moved quite some distance from the microphone. So unlike with Nova Twins where you could clearly see and identify that everything coming out of that bass was live, however unlikely, here was quite the opposite. I couldn’t even be sure that ANYTHING was live. I’m guessing most of it was, but because of the doubt cast at the starts, it didn’t ‘feel’ live. So what else? The songs were OK, it was nice enough if inoffensive, but I came out of this thinking there was a band that actually sounds better on record than live.
Crowds: mostly oldies really, interestingly, as this wasn’t sold out (maybe because it was midweek, whereas last year was a Friday night, so most of the potential goers would have been people working and not being able to go easily if not local), it sounded like quite a few people were the ones who missed out last year, while the ones who went then maybe were not a big proportion. I’m not sure. Don’t think the venue was bigger (possibly the opposite), though it is certainly nicer. Either way, it did get more crowded so must have been near-capacity, but there wasn’t the same excitement/communal feel as last year maybe for various reasons. See below for ONE thing that was missing, but that probably in my too sober (and in foot pain) state I might have struggled to join or enjoy as much as last year anyway.
Standing location: at the front. Not at the fence, just one step back so not on the metal surface. I probably could have but, you know me. So just one slightly annoying thing was the very tall bloke in the middle a few centimetres to my left, meaning my view on the left side was hampered a slight bit, but really it’s just needless filming that would be more problematic than watching or enjoying the gig. So yeah, pretty much perfect this time!
Setlist: I may not find reviews or youtubes, but at least the setlist is here. And even if it wasn’t, I was able to take a photo of it, so it wouldn’t be a problem.
Just after 9pm, lights off, I still can’t spot Tom (I regularly look behind, having described him my position, though I probably undersold how close to the stage I was, I looked several times between songs, but no luck, he later explained why), and the music starts, with text appearing on the background, usual hope of the states doom/humour, starting with mentioning that London is kind of their home gig as the nearest to Chichester, and other stuff. And then, hmmm? No Black Amnesias? That’s a change. What we get instead, with a long instrumental intro before Sam -sporting a more trimmed haircut, and a simple T-shirt, no military jacket this time – takes to the stage (the band is unchanged from last year, obviously a settled line-up) is Angels Over Kilburn, so a B-side (or part of EP, etc, non-album track anyway, but available like all of them now on that compilation released at the end of last year), not one that I had earmarked as very good from first listen, but that actually works very well live, especially as an intro, so fair play for changing things up this way. And then it really moves up a gear with the powerful Black Amnesia/Crack-up at the Race Riots combo. Incredibly (well we should be used to it now) good start, the sound is excellent (none of the trouble that plagued the very low frequencies for Cranes in the same venue last time), and what strikes me overall (though the less-excitable/less-imbibed state compared ot last year might help in that respect) is how absolutely sharp they all are in their sound. It’s breathtaking. Sam starts speaking then, thanking everyone again and saying how amazing it is to be here before introducing one of the so many classics from The Lost Riots, ‘Nehemiah’, with the first opportunity for the crowd to sing along and bellow back the ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ s. George Washington follows (dedicated to George, heh), before we get introduced to the first new song: ‘Ghost Story’. Well, they did play it last year (along with another two to come later), but somehow I had forgotten about that. The thing is, from the three played last year, I remember they were good, not always how good, but this time, again helped by more sobriety, it’s not so much that they sound more familiar, but this one in particular sounds superb. At this stage, though this was noticed from the first song, whether it’s again a deficient recollection or not, I am struck by the background projections, not remembering them from last year, though I suspect they were already there if not identical. ‘Footage’ gets announced next, one of the very new tracks released this year, in fact as a double song ‘Footage/Steamtrain’, but here he only announced ‘Footage’, which is rather good, especially the Steamtrain second part, despite a brief hiccup at the transition meaning that bit had to be very quickly restarted. Black Dollar Bills is the next rousing classic, followed by another one ‘about colour schemes’, heh, The Red/White/Black/Blue. James and Sam sometimes move between keys and guitar seamlessly during songs. Next on the list is the very new song released this week: ‘Billboard Mountain’. I’d not had much time to listen to it/take it in, but have to admit it’s the one that doesn’t sound exciting either live or on record. It baffles me that they released it, as I think it is by far the least enjoyable of the new tunes released or not, a point of view that Tom also expressed later. Minor gripe though, as the next new song that is played just after raises the bar again. After a difficult start. Sam says ‘I normally don’t do this, but….fuck it, this is dedicated to my wife’, and he starts some intro on the guitar, before the rest of the band joins in, but it sounds completely off-key, Mike’s guitar in particular sounding wrong… So they stop and Sam says ‘well, I love my wife, but my band doesn’t….’, they confer and check and he gets back to the microphone, saying he was the one who was one tone too high and adding ‘and here I was, shouting my mouth off….’. Heh, his fault,and they’re ready to restart (cutting some of that intro), ‘this is still dedicated to my wife’, and play a song that develops very nicely after its quiet start: Concerned Relative Blues, played last year too, but somehow I am paying more attention to the music itself this year, and I’m liking what I’m hearing. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea if the sound is better, if they are playing better together now (which would make sense one year on, having had more time to practice together), but it all feels absolutely perfect, Mike Siddell and his violin doing an incredible job again, all perfectly tight, I am truly enjoying the sound of that gig. Sing It Out is next, the only song from Left that is played tonight (I’m still surprised they play so little from it, though obviously with the new songs, there is less room for old songs, and gems like My Ves Y Sufres from The Lost Riots are missing too), so we’ll still get no Blood Meridian, not sure why, it was the first track off it and still a truly fabulous song (as is Left itself), before the last of the new songs already played last year, more identifiabled as named both years: Ambient Violence. No distribution of Glow Sticks this time, and maybe it’s a little below Ghost Story and Concerned Relative Blues, but still a decent song. The moment/song everyone was kind of waiting for is next to conclude the show: Enemies/Friends, with everyone reprising the chorus at the very least, and then they walk off the stage.
At that moment, I’m in expectation of what happens with the crowds, timidly vaguely amost try to start it, as I think someone near-ish me may be, but no, no linking arms no chanting ‘come on people, keep your friends close, your enemies won’t matter in the end’ together, none of that. Whether it’s because it’s a more sober midweek, not the ‘big comeback’ gig, or ‘people who couldn’t get to the gig last year mostly’, it doesn’t happen. Kind of understandable, sort of a pity, but last year that was so organic and spontaneous. And in a way, too sober, I think I would not have enjoyed it as much anyway. So never mind.
Time for the encore, this year again we get treated with a B-side for starters, The Last Picture Show, again maybe not the best, but good enough, so I’ll have that. Next comes what sounds like a more gentle tune I’ve never heard (a new song I think, called Houses on the Hill, short (but then it’s a shortened version, even the Setlist -photographed, not just on the link- says ‘Edit’) and, without a break in sound, leading into one of my all-time favourites, 66 Sleepers To Summer. Superb again. It’s nearly time to say goodbye, so after another little speech thanking everyone and saying how amazing it is to be back, while leaving everything in doubt again (‘maybe it won’t happen again, maybe it will’), ‘this is the last song, this is called Long Waits in A&E’. Seems this could be the closer for times to come, that 10min-plus epic released as a comeback last year, a song in three or four acts that sounds excellent again. No mixing in bits of ‘The Good Fight’ at the end this time (something Tom regretted, which I can understand, it’s not one of my favourites, but there’s undeniably an anthemic quality that would have come with everyone singing the lyrics to that). It’s nearly 11pm (the music curfew time), so there wouldn’t have been time for more than a short other song anway.
Post-gig: I don’t move immediately, hoping I can catch up with Tom, and he spots me just as I’m about to take a photo of the setlist that some girl gets, not without having to scale the fence to fetch it as it felt into that gap while one of the roadies was trying to hand it to her. Her companion tells me there are other setlists left, but really, having done that before, I’m not interested in memorabilia as such, it just clutters the place and is never displayed, so I’m happy enough taking photos of setlists if I can, especially when I’m not certain they will be available on the usual website. Anway, yes, Tom joins, very kindly making the effort to stay. He explains that because they were late in arriving, they had to remain on the left side and a little further back. Unfortunately he’s working early the next morning, so no time for a post-gig drink, so just a quick chat as we make our way to the exit (no stop at the merch stand, to be honest, the only thing I’d have bought is another can of beer to complete my ‘collection’ of HoTS branded cans, as I noticed it was a different design), talking about how good this sounded, the new songs, what does the future hold, injuries, and etc. Tom’s doing a marathon next year, for charity too, and has to battle with some amount of tendon pain too right now. We part ways as he has to take a bus while I wander back to Highbury and Islington, so happy to have seen one of my favourite bands again, sounding absolutely fantastic and with some excellent new songs to boot. So what does their future hold? It’s a worry that tonight wasn’t sold out (or at least didn’t sell out before the day of the concert itself, it certainly looked full when they played), but they do deserve more success and a bigger audience (although as Tom also puts it ‘selfishly, I’m quite happy they’re not playing bigger venues), so I hope they can play again, release more music, etc. Whether they will ever have a chance to play in Paris is a different question, but I’ll be happy to travel again to London just for them any time.
The good thing about not drinking (two pints pre-gig is kind of perfect, though in a way, three might have been more optimal) is I had no problem getting up to do my little run in Finsbury Park the next morning. Still some pain mostly afterwards, but a good and happy trip all-around.
Johnny Marr, Elysée Montmartre 22/10/2025
Context: I normally put some context related to release or how I got to book a gig. But although there were recent releases, nothing truly new, and it’s ‘Johnny Fucking Marr’, as the saying goes, so that was booked very quickly when it went on sale, I like a lot of his music and there would obviously be Smiths classics. He is an excellent guitarist too, so likely to bring aural pleasure. I had booked this for John also, which, if I may vaguely add or hint at non-music context, turned out to be an incredibly lucky thing given the timing of this (planned a long time ago) relative to some unforeseen and totally unplanned (both on my/his side – other people involved on both sides to make it actually happen) meeting a few days earlier.
External review: I’m sure SOV will have one, surprised benzinemag doesn’t, unless they are just late. [Edit : both there a few days ago, but the SOV one matches my views more].
Photos: I didn’t spot him this time but Robert Gil was indeed there for the snaps.
YouTube: there are shit shit shit loads, mostly from the same person, so I’ll pick a couple for once. Note that the new song It’s Time also exists elsewhere, but not with good sound quality.
So, have a bit of the maybe surprising electronics mentioned with Spirit, Power, and Soul.
And the naturally fabulous extended set closer, no need to introduce it, dedicated to ‘all of us, and hope’. Yep, that’s what it felt like.
Company: John, Alessandro, and, by chance and briefly, Etienne and Sylvain.
Pre-gig: That’s where the fun starts. John and I had arranged to meet at 7pm (which sounded right, not too early, not too late, allowing a cool chat before heading in either for or not for the support. Tickets said 7.30pm, I thought that would be doors, but they were already open by the time I walked by. In fact, I walked a little more than I needed thinking I might be early, but John was already there when I arrived at the meeting point. Very fortunately because…well the setting was a bit surreal (but also very fortunately because I’d been in a tough mental state for a few days and particularly that Wednesday, possibly close to some silly breaking point, and not having any fear-easing pills to take anymore – I still had a look for the first time, not sure if I’d gotten rid of them all, and well use-by dates were well over two years ago, so on top of not wanting to ruin 2 and half years of sometimes hard work, I thought it wasn’t worth it).
John was there sitting outside at a table on the corner of the street outside the bar. It was the sometimes used Chinese place next to these venues, I’d suggested it, he thought it was the Fourmi, which could have worked too and I’d have changed my mind, but John is thankfully as easy-going as me (or more constantly even….), so no issue. But anyway, the place looked shut from outside, on top of me wondering why the hell (he wasn’t even wearing a jacket) he was actually sitting outside, like in a film scene. And as I greeted him, he explained that the place was shut, but that it was also not shut. You had to enter through the side/back door, and ask for a beer to the lady in there who was actually happy to serve pints. So I did just that to order a round, stepped into the dark (there wasn’t much light in there), saw no-one initially but the lady behind the counter appeared so I placed my order. As I suspected with the lack of electricity, no card machine would work so we had to pay cash. Small complication but thankfully there were a couple of ATMs around. She vaguely pointed me towards one saying it was very near, but as it didn’t look so near, I decided I’d enter the nearby hotel to ask where the nearest cash point was. The guy at reception kindly said there was one a little further near Elysee Montmartre (so that was the one the woman had been hinting at), but also that the bureau de change opposite the street had one was probably nearer (street crossing permitting…). So I managed to run-ish (glad I can do that now), just apologising to John for the shenanigans, and came back with the dosh. Anyway, that’s just to set the scene: two blokes sitting in dark Paris, at a small round table at the corner of a road between Pigalle and Barbès, with two pints, in front of a clearly closed bar. A little unreal, and obviously there was nother customer. It was strictly on a ‘need-to-know’ basis in a way, and in fact John explained that he only had asked because before he arrived, there was a couple of guys who were actually in the same situation : at a table in front of that closed bar, with drinks.
Anyway, that made for an interesting start to the evening, and John is always such a treasure, you cannot not feel well with John (even someone who possibly doesn’t know him that well, or didn’t at the time anyway had told me ‘he seems like a good guy’ to which I had replied ‘a very good guy’, because I always knew that, and moments like tonight reinforced that once more. But yeah, the meeting arrangements were a small other miracle of the evening. Because Nick couldn’t be in earlier so was meeting Alessandro directly outside the venue a little later, and given I felt Ireally needed to speak to John, it worked out fine. Add to that that I had thought about also arranging to meet Etienne and Sylvain, but thought that for once, I couldn’t play the great federator (even if I always do in an understated and little noticed way, but I know, but that’s my Introverted side (or just the mediator in the INFP), I had to think of my own wellbeing. As you will see, all this turned out even better than I could have imagined. Anyway, yeah, that’s not the usual pre-gig write-up, but even with all the danger inside me with old wounds suddenly and unexpectedly re-opened, and being close to breaking point (but I knew I was meeting John, even if until it happened, I couldn’t know of the practicalities, timing and the weirdly perfect for the purpose surrounding). So yeah, feeling good, it would have been easy to shelve any idea of a serious talk (not that it took the gravitas that I feared, and sure being me, there may be a few points I wish I’d highlighted, because a day later, I feel so much better, but I know that closure in one way or another has not happened and never might), maybe in the past I would have, but I’ve learnt my inner pains etc, and knew I had to speak or regret it forever and risk falling into full depression again instead of just flirting with it. I mean, after the elation now I’m not 100% certain I feel safe, but let’s say I’ve felt a lot worse, and if I can have a decent night’s sleep after all the last few, the battle may be on the way to being won. But I rant on, so yeah, I think it wasn’t so hard, I just was myself, and opened the way that was nice, the way I felt me, because a large part of the worry (most of the part, spontaneously), was not about me. And so while there are many reasons I won’t expand on here, while I was only partly reassured, there was at least a couple of things that made me spontaneously breathe with relief (even if a doubt lingered after more analysis) that I hadn’t been responsible for too many otherside wounds. Anyway, I managed to keep mostly light, and put a lit on all that for the rest of the evening and the conversation moved on very naturally to what it would have been anyway, music and other things, and I didn’t find it complicated, my mind was absolutely clearer and lighter, not harking back, and so maybe the work of the last few years was also bearing some fruit. Nick texted when they were at the entrance, but we were still on the beers, having had a second round, so we entered a little later. Maybe 8pm ish. No sound of support, so they must have been and gone. Nick had said that they were at the side bar, so that’s where we were headed. We didn’t see them first, so while the next round was ordered, we started drinking a little closer to the stage than Nick and Ale were, as I just got a photo from Ale making localisation easier. But at that stage, I’d spotted Laëtitia from SOV (who was there ‘as a tourist’, not on photo duty, regretfully as it sounded), so I made the introductions with John, and the three of us had a good chat about The Smiths and Morrissey essentially. And then we headed towards the general location of Nick and Ale so we joined them before the gig started.
Support: The Clockworks. Didn’t check beforehand, didn’t catch them, so don’t ask.
Crowds: predominantly fairly old, obviously, but actually they were a few younger people too.
Standing location: rather left side when looking at the stage, but not that much on the side in fact. And probably about middle of the room depthwise.
Setlist: Here. And now, after that super long and far too personal intro that has to be confusing to everyone but me (or maybe John, vaguely – and yes, I could have kept to the amusing bar facts, it would have been easier, more legible and pleasant, but hey this is a website that is, I realised a while ago, an autobiography of sorts more than anything else. Sure I KNOW it is public, so there may be some vague level of restraint, but at the same time, if ever I was writing for a music mag or website, yeah, sure, I’d produce a very different version of reports. And I know I am still considering stopping all that anyway, because probably nobody reads that, and I’m not sure anyone NEEDS to read it, even if it may be the only way to know me without me having to speak. But I like communicating, I don’t have enough of it, introversion has got in the way so many times, and the last hope of a deep communication that was killed a while ago, I don’t even know if that can come back, however much I wish it did. Yeah OK, still tired today, still in a reflexive moo), let’s go on with the gig.
Lights dim at 8.30pm already (Nick suddenly glad they came early and no assumption was made of the classic 9pm start), sirens blare, and Johnny and cohorts start the set, with the rocking Generate! Generate!, and you feel the sound is already incredible. Between last Wednesday and tonight, I have felt blessed not just by great rock shows, but a sound quality that I feel I had forgotten about. Tonight’s set mixes new and older songs from Johnny Marr’s solo career, a fair amount of Smiths classics and even an Electronic song (Getting Away with it, another classic, but for me far from one of their best, but then, Twisted Tenderness was my drug for a bit, and Disappointed is incredible). Johnny showcases the incredible variety of his repertoire. Going very electronic/beaty with Spirit, Power & Soul, the excellent title track from what I believe is still his most recent LP? But just for one song. We get one brand new song, that as Sylvain said later, sounds very ‘Smithy’, with classic excellent jangly work on the intro especially, JM’s original trademark really. No more Rickenbackers though, Mr Marr is now a strictly Fender Jaguar man, though he has several (three, counted John) in different colours. A couple of times the crowd chants ‘Johnny Fucking Marr! Johnny Fucking Marr!’, he is happy to be here, he dedicates ‘Hi Hello!’ (from the excellent Call the Comet) to all the people in love (‘and if you’re not in love with someone, love yourself, this is for you too’ – I may not recall exactly but that’s the spirit anyway). The Smiths songs still get the biggest reactions (all phones suddenly go up, modern world, but tonight I don’t even take a single short video or photo, not located well enough for my quality of shit, thankfully I know Ale will have taken quality photos), and there’s no doubt that some of the crowd possibly only came for the Smiths song. Panic leads to a great singalong, This Charming Man is always popular, and even Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, not necessarily a song I ever found remarkable, sounds superb, just a beautiful soft number played on acoustic guitar. Bigmouth Strikes Again obviously has the crowd in rapture. For once, I’m really not being linear, the feeling is as important as the details or orders of a setlist, though maybe I’ll get back to that order before the end. In the middle of all that, between two songs, I turned back around towards Nick and Ale, and who do I see? Sylvain (my cousin Armelle’s husband), and then Etienne (my double cousin, so his brother in-law). Wow! As Etienne said later ‘ce n’est pas non plus le Stade de France’, but as I insist, it’s also not that small, and the chance that we ended up in the very same few square metres in the venue was still pretty unlikely. It’s not like we bumped into each other in moving to one place/entering/the loo/exiting. Anyway, it just added to the magic of the evening. John very early on (in fact during the conversation with Laëtitia), had predicted that How Soon Is Now (one of his all-time favourite songs) would be play shortly before but not last song to end the main set and it’s exactly what happened. Don’t know if he was familiar with setlists or if it was just his good intuition (he has a lot, including for something that didn’t work, but I still think he was fundamentally right….stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before….I digress) and sense of a good Johnny Marr set. So that was played, just before the aforementioned Getting Away with It that closed the first part.
And so to the encore, opening with another cover….but…not of a band he was part of: this is Iggy Pop’s The Passenger, another excellent song loved by most people I know (and I include me for sure there), another new Johnny Marr song follows, called Ophelia, and a couple of days later, I still don’t have much feeling associated with it. But it doesn’t matter, everything sounds good tonight. Johnny’s happy, he does the occasional windmills, the crowds are happy. He introduces the band (then or before? I can’t even say, though it would make sense to have happened at this particular stage of the evening[Edit, with the video I see the logic and memories matched for once), that includes an American guitarist, before what can only be the final song, perhaps the ultimate Smiths classic? I think everyone has a different idea of that. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. I always liked it, and even just the title would do, in fact I have that as ‘signature’ on a forum or another, something I liked as being me, I may be down, nearly out, depressed, I’ve been through the darkest recesses of the mind, and yet somehow somewhere, I’m not always sure, it seems that there has always been a light that refused to die inside of me. And today’s no different really, sometimes maybe it feels it’s all too late, but I don’t want to give up. Anyway, more digression, but of course we all sing along….and unsurprisingly in terms of set construction, that is that, no second encore, it is over not much after 10pm after all, but, it was kind of perfect.
Post-gig: The mood was good, I wasn’t meant to drink much (what is ‘much’?) but with the relief, the company, and so needing to let go a bit, I was already at four pints, even though I skipped one round in the venue, but it was early and having a post-match drink made a lot of sense, despite having to run the next day (in very high winds as it turned out, not so easy especially after a short ish night, but mentally I was so much better than the day before, and while I tired later – and now, as this is still the day after the gig for once, partly motivated by having another gig already tomorrow and so another review to write soon), and a lot of work to do. Sylvain and Etienne couldn’t join us, but we got tp a nearby bar indicated by Nick (it was in fact, La Binouze, the bar we went to pre-Hak Baker for me, I think, Jack White for Nick and Patrice, oh so that was my last-gig pre-injury!), just one pint, a good chat again, amusingly Olivier (the singer from a band that John had mentioned he knew and would be playing soon at Nouveau Casino) then turned up, so I knew who he was, his bandmates were there too or something. We left at some time that may have been 11.30pm or so? Shaun (John’s mate, City fan and Metabaron skipper, who I’ve known for many many years too thanks to John and Fiona) is in town on Friday so a few of us might gather that evening too, I’ll have to be reasonable post-gig… so plans, goodbyes, I had to walk to Barbès to Catch Line 4 due to works on RER B, and got home safely, feeling fairly exhausted probably still tipsy (factor in the huge fatigue and stress of the day pre-meeting John), but after one of the best evening I’d had in ages. But I feel I’ve had a few lately already, to be honest. I know that there have been some hard struggles and tough days or nights, but between the injury recovery, maybe a better balance between staying in/going out/trying to make music, and also being busier at work (but not to the point of ridiculousness, though maybe this week….), I still feel and want to believe that the overall direction of my spirit and soul (power?) has been forward.
Basht. , Popup! 24/10/2025
Context: this one was organised recently. Talking to Alexis at the benefits gig, he mentioned not having been to the Popup in ages and that he wouldn’t mind going, so I told him there was a decent gig coming up, that I was vaguely considering going to. A few days later, he told me he’d booked it so I booked it too. For musical context, I saw them opening for Been Stellar last year and thought they were quite good and interesting, and while the two EPs they have released are somehow uneven, they have some really good tracks. They played twice in May for the new version of the Block Party festival, that I wasn’t sure I’d be going to, but of course in the end couldn’t even go to at that stage of rehab.
External review: we’ll see, maybe SOV. I think I spotted Laëtitia on the other side of the stage, but I don’t even know if she had a camera. Update : well looks like she did the review….
Photos: …and the photos.
YouTube: posted a different one earlier, but found this better version of Gone Girl (still difficult to film at the Pop-Up I’d say…on top of annoying for others).
Company: Alexis.
Pre-gig: I had totally forgotten that Pop-Up gigs could be late starting affairs – although, actually, they are not, it’s just the time displayed is time of opening band, and it’s a little venue so 8.30pm felt late, but short gigs, etc.- so it allowed me to change my plans from what I thought they would be, on two levels: as I had to go to the office in the afternoon (not planned before the Thursday, but there really was a lot to do, and I couldn’t not go, even after a gruelling physio sesh while hypertense this week), it allowed me to work later. But also with the Black Sheep meetup as mentioned by John on Wednesday, having figured that going between there and the venue was a very straightforward 15min walk, it made sense to go there first and have a pint, in case I couldn’t be bothered going afterwards, rather than force myself to go otherwise. Think is I know I would have no problem going after, as I was rather in hyperactive mode despite obvious fatigue, but still… So, I got there for 8, John and Ale were there (handily as I could directly hand Alessandro his card that didn’t fit into any of my pockets), as well as Shaun and a mate of his. David and Eric and some of their friends were around in a different corner of the bar, so I went to cheerily greet them while my Guinness was being poured. Good mood, I mean, mentally I’ve been rather positive since Wednesday evening, but the health thing meant I fear being a ticking bomb, I had to be reasonable and not veer into manic behaviour. That pint was drank slowly, I told Alexis I was there, but he went directly to the venue after all, so I finished the pint and got down to the Pop-up room at about 8.50pm.
Support: read the name on the Popup website on the day, but didn’t remember, and of course they only have forthcoming gigs so the page is not there anymore (or hidden – maybe I can check in my browser history (Edit: nope, as that only has the main handle). It wasn’t displayed on the little ads in the top bar, and we couldn’t quite hear when they pronounced it or when the basht. singer did either when thanking them. I only caught the last three songs or so (amusingly when there was a quiet moment, Alexis told me ‘you’ve caught them at the quiet moment, they were rocking more earlier’, just before the song actually exploded into life and I got what he meant), but I liked their sound a lot. French band, classic two guitars/one bass/drums (same configuration as Basht. just after in fact), not sure how to describe their sound, lots of effects to polish the sound, giving it that texture I so much like, especially from the lead guitarist. One worth checking….once I get their name.
Crowds: kind of mixed, but actually rather young. Alexis told me there was a bit of hype around them, I wondered briefly, but figured it would have been the Block Party gigs. It’s nearby, and an excellent event for students in particular, I’d say. On the walk to the venue I was reminded how I liked that feeling of Paris being alive in the bars and terrasses, a life I feel I unfortunately never had but would have been fine with. I mean, I guess, in the early pub days, I had sort of that, but not really, as it was very British, whereas the thing I see here is French (and then yeah, the INFP in me can feel those things very well as I now realise), so a great area and the PopUp itself, worst actual gig room aside, is a cool place. There were older people too, including an older woman we had a brief chat with before the gig, who was a drummer and chatted briefly with the band’s drummer Ryan just after he did his soundcheck. She indeed had seen basht. at the Block Party, and proceeded to rave on about Irish bands mostly, and the Lambrini Girls I told her I could imagine being great live, but I was not convinced about. Anyway, yeah, good crowds, this was clearly sold out: the venue was packed when I arrived, we briefly wonder if it was due to the support being French and they’d all leave, but after we went and fetched a pint from upstairs between bands (thrilled that they let us in with the glass pints), it was clear that no, it would still be packed.
Standing location: the Popup is terrible, but as I arrived downstairs and Alexis was directly in sight, I realised he had the right idea and so we came back to where we were for the main band: totally to the side of the stage, behind a speaker more or less, but with actually an excellent view of the band itself. For the support I could barely see the bass player, but for basht. maybe we were a little closer as everything was more or less in sight. Sure at that position, you are so close to the exit (no door there) that there can be people coming and going, but it doesn’t really happen during the gig, so given the stage and venue, if you are not right at the front, this was probably the best position to be in. An absolute giant was spotted on the other side, though thankfully – for others- not right at the front, and well, as Alexis said, on can guess there was nobody in the three or so metres behind him!
Setlist: Unusually, I checked the setlist after I’d written the review, but don’t think that will make me alter it much. Even with a recent relisten, it was kind of oh yeah this song and that song is good, but with me not registering the link between music and title, it made it hard for me to identify. Purely my fault and laziness I would say. So I’ll probably have to refer to a setlist for more details, but for now, mostly impressions will appear. Or maybe I could listen to the music again without a set list and try to work out memories. Good start (9.35pm, so yeah later than most venues, one hour later than Johnny Marr a couple of days earlier, but not the 10pm I briefly feared), possibly with Dirty White the opener from the first EP? [setlist says yes]. Great voice (and from close proximity, the singer definitely looks a lot Irish, don’t ask me in what way, and obviously there is bias when you know he is Irish, still, it is a remark I made to myself on the spot). It quickly felt like it was a gig I would enjoy because I was in a good mood rather than a gig I’d love thanks to the intrinsic quality of the music. Also it felt that, on this smaller stage, the singer was more focussed on his singing, without adding movement (physically impossible, although….see later), rather than geeing up the crowds. Mind you, as it was their first headline gig here, the crowds were there for them, so didn’t really need convincing. The main man then introduced a few new songs (one is called ‘Dive’) and well, I was a bit underwhelmed. I think they sounded a little ‘deeper’ (no idea, didn’t check the lyrics, but just something the singing conveyed), not fast paced, but also, because of their sound (and that’s not entirely down to the venue), they didn’t have any particular melodic qualities, and so yeah, meh. When they got back into more familiar works with something from the second EP, the band sounded a lot more convincing (all throughout I enjoyed the mostly syncopated drumming). But then there is an excellent song, that I didn’t seem to remember and in fact the setlist confirmed it hasn’t been released. Terror on TV is more rocking and excellent, so new can also be good when they get back to the more energetic ingredients of their formula . But when the singer picked his Telecaster at last for just one song (Strat otherwise), I was wondering what would come out, but, hmm, more underwhelmage. He thanked everyone, the PopUp, the supports, said they only had a few songs left to play but probably would be hanging around for a pint afterwards. After a good Wild Horses from the first EP, finally we got the probably expected highlight (and the only one I recognised as such, despite remembering at least two or three excellent songs from record, I’m really intrigued about the setlist, they haven’t got that many songs, so what haven’t they played, or was I just less musically enthused by those live versions? – actually yes, maybe there’s three very good songs, some ok, and some forgettable, so the real impression wasn’t that different[setlist confirms my feeling: I was right, because they didn’t play Better and Twisted, particularly bizarre as it is the title track from their second EP, and yet the only song they didn’t play from it]), the truly excellent Gone Girl from the first EP. Whether it’s because it’s getting to the end and there is relief of having gone through without too much trouble (lots of requests to the sound guy, mostly by frantic gestures even while playing, impressive in fact, not sure if it’s the acoustics or the guy at the mixing desk, because I remember the same thing with HighSchool -incidentally, the PopUp doesn’t mentally scar(e) me the way it did for a bit, also not being on my own, but it felt just normal), but the singer finally sets his guitar down and goes into the crowd for a short pogo while singing (well, even from where we are, we can’t really see what he’s doing there, despite not being far, but yeah I assume he wasn’t just singing) and he utters a last thank you. Is this the end? It should/could be, but no, he gets his guitar back and starts another song, again not particularly memorable. Very unnecessary if you ask me, but what do I know? It makes us reach nearly 10.30pm so at least, thanks to new songs, they played nearly one hour, which is more than I thought they would, and in fact, to put things in perspective, it makes for a significantly longer set than what New Dad played just a couple of weeks earlier, despite had a lot more material on record. So fair play to them, trying so much new material live.
Post-gig: no real need to hang around for a pint with the singer/band (though we bump into the guitarist from the support on the way out, quick thanks), and I suggest to Alexis that rather than have a beer upstairs, if he’s open to it we could go to the Black Sheep for a beer. We both agree that while a good gig, this wouldn’t be the gig of the year, and that despite their popularity with youngsters in there, it seems unlikely that they will go stratospheric. And so we get to the Black Sheep, John and Ale are still there, Shaun just left (but he’d told me beforehand he wouldn’t have a long one), and it looks like Tony (who had arrived shortly before I left earlier) had also just departed, while the other John he’d come in with his still there. Follow me? Round of Guinness, good chat, in French due to Alexis, so Alessandro speaks a lot of French there too, we talk music mostly, obviously, bands, venues, festivals, and a great time is being had. My very initial health-driven idea was to have two or three pints tonight, but looking at the time and in this mood, despite knowing it wouldn’t do me good for the next day, looks like a fourth and final for the night makes sense. John (our John) tells us a couple of hilarious jokes, it’s a good night. Time to go though, after brief consideration of an extra pint, but I figured I really didn’t want to do the walk from Bagneux, never mind taking a night bus even later, so aiming for the last RER was for the best. With perfect timing I even got the last but one, reaching the platform just as it entered the station, saving me from an annoying ten minutes wait. I even got a seat, so got home comfortably. Yet another good evening, where the gig turned into just a part of good fun rather than the main thing, sometimes it is just fine like that.
The Boo Radleys, La Maroquinerie 29/10/2025
Context: Well, I hadn’t seen them in their glorious first era, they’d reformed a few years ago and produced a couple of underwhelming albums, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to hear some classics, so got a ticket as soon as it got announced.
External review: Benzinemag with the goods. For once I read it before writing mine, but don’t think it will influence me. I broadly agree with it, but it also highlights my slightly different perception on the night, though that might have been driven by a slightly down mood. In short: I didn’t come out of the room with a big smile on my face. Unlike a few other gigs, even when I wasn’t so well actually, so….
Photos: the SOV photos are already there.
YouTube: the full set was film so you can judge the gig for yourself.
But if you only get one song (this guy has plenty so you can also take your pick Kingsize and Stuck on Amber are available too), I’ll give you not Ride The Tiger due to the instrumental massacre, but the lovely Finest Kiss.
Company: JC, then Patrice, Estelle and Cyrille after the concert (and Patrick very briefly).
Pre-gig: Alessandro (who was leaving for Italy the next day and not coming to the gig, and lives near the venue) had told me JC would be coming and they might meet up for a drink beforehand, so we all arranged to meet up. The venue itself, even the upstairs bar, didn’t seem to be open before doors time of 7.30pm so we went to the nearby cheap and cheerful Café des Sports. Wasn’t sure what time I’d turn up as very busy at work (though WFH that day), but I made it for about 7pm when Ale and JC were only halfway through their first drink. I had had a so-so night after a good one the night before, so was a little bit in a down mood. Either way, this only reinforced my non-alcoholic plan, so I ordered a ginger beer. We had a nice chat, and time for another round for them. Like me, JC had not seen them at their big period, and we shared a taste for the same classics. Under the still pouring rain, we parted ways with Ale as we made it into the venue shortly after 8pm. JC struggled for a few minutes before finding his e-ticket, and as I went to get my DICE ticket scanned, the screen appeared in red. The guy at the entrance checked again, red again, puzzled, until he asked me if I’d been stamped already and told me I’d just been checked in…..nine seconds before. Unless someone had managed to hijack my screen when I was gretting it ready earlier while JC was searching for this ticket, and had scanned just before (so probability of all that : 0,000001% if at all), the only possible explanation is that the guy had inadvertently scanned my ticket first time from a little more distance than thought as the screen was bright. Unlikely too, but more likely and still puzzling either way. Anyway, thanks to those ‘nine seconds’, I think he figured nobody else but me could have actually scanned it, so stamped my wrist and let me in. We went to the concert room, which was fully packed, and settled for a spot similar to where I was in for NewDad, maybe a metre or two further, not as good a view, to see a guy with an acoustic guitar doing his stuff. We’d been wondering earlier if there was any support at all (speculating : 8.30pm Boos start if not, 9pm if there was), so we got our answer.
Support: Galapagos Rex aka Louis Smith. I’m not always necessarily into ‘one guy with a guitar’ if I don’t know the artist, but have to admit this one managed to make his repertoire fairly varied with this one instrument, so fair play to him. Decent voice as well, some classic folk ballads, but also some funkier stuff. Midway through the set, he mentions he actually plays guitar for The Boo Radleys, that they are great guys and he is thankful for them to give him that apportunity. Some of his songs are old ones he never had a chance to perform live before (some date 20 years back), and he mentions he will stick to the acoustic, as the electrics (he points at them) will be his stuff later. He quickly explains he wouldn’t try to speak French or why, which is even more amusing in retrospect in the light of Sice’s notes later. Anyway yeah, the music is not necessarily gripping or enthralling, but he is a good performer, I’ll give him a pass.
Crowds: mostly old as expected, white most definitely, but a few younger heads and faces, pleasantly and surprisingly, possibly inspired by their parents’ tastes? There was a young guy not far ahead of me whe seemed to notice the classics, move to all the songs and sing along, while sometimes casting a glance back towards someone who may or may not be his mother (she didn’t look quite old enough), that was a little baffling. But yeah, the age range was wider than I expected.
Standing location: after the support, we managed to move forward a bit, ending up pretty much in the same spot as for NewDad now. But there were taller people in front/around so had to shuffle a little bit to get into an acceptable position. Having briefly seen and said hello to Patrice, him, Estelle and Cyrille actually went to the fence above the mixing desk, probably a better view if you’re not stuck behind tall ones. In short, not a perfect situation, but actually pretty good with a decent view in the end, without having to strain too much during the concert.
Setlist: it is of course there, and before I actually go into the details and impressions, the first and main thing to notice and that came as a big relief, is that there was absolutely no trace from the post-reformation albums. I feared there would be at least a few, but this was not like an album tour, really it was called the comeback tour, but fair play to them for sticking with that to please the crowds. There is meant to be a ‘proper’ tour next year, I expect this will have more recent stuff. Whether I am minded to go or not is a different thing, as you will realise when you reach the end of the report. So, the band (three of the original members, sadly still no sign of Martin Carr, + the aforementioned Louis on guitar and a trumpetist on some songs) comes on stage at 9pm to the familiar sounds of the intro to Giant Steps’ opener, I Hang Suspended, that goes straight into business after Sice’s brief ‘Bonjour!’. Familiar territory to start with, that is reassuring. Although I am a little shocked when the voice starts that for a few seconds, from where I stand, it sounds completely off-key. A little bizarre, and this happens again in another song later in the set. I’m not sure Sice’s voice really is all it’s cracked up to be tune-wise. Throughout the gig, Sice will put on his specs between songs to read from his French notes. It is a times amusing and endearing, sometimes a little too prepared, but it’s actually a nice touch. C’mon Kids, the title track from what is probably their most unhinged album follows and adds some electricity to the stage. Sice mentions they haven’t played in Paris for 30 or so years then says they will play a song from each album (all that in French, so maybe something got lost in translation, although on hearing it again, he does clearly mention there will more from some albums than others, so he clearly meant ‘at leas one’, although interestingly ‘all the albums’ doesn’t cover the new ones after all), so I wonder how they will do that (also they haven’t got that many albums so it’s not a workable proposition anyway), but in fact, he introduces the next song from Giant Steps: the excellent Upon 9th and Fairchild follows, with the much appreciated changes of pace during the song. When ‘another one from Giant Steps’, Barney(…and Me) follows, it soon becomes clear that we won’t be treated to many new songs if any (in the end, absolutely none), which is perfect (and there I am with the guy in the BM review). However, and again I seem to agree with the other reviewer, it also means we will get a few from Wake Up! which is by far my least favourite album of theirs. In fact apart from the most recent, it is the only one I haven’t got (actually, I had it…on a tape copy). Or hadn’t as I decided to get hold of it post-gig, and having relistened since, yeah, it’s not for me, bar one or two songs. So that’s why I feel Find The Answer Within, which is next, fairly irritating. In fact, aside from Giant Steps, it was the most represented album, with five songs (at some point we also get a ‘between albums single’ , the underwhelming From the Bench at Belvidere). Anyway, and again I think the BM reviewer is right: it’s the price to pay as Wake Up! is their most widely popular album (they practically went mainstream with the title track), and so probably the only reason they can actually afford this tour. It’s a more than acceptable price if you ask me. So yeah Wake Up Boo! is played to a rapturous reception and dancing (the only song when Sice doesn’t play a guitar), but it’s just too much for me. I mean, I think at some point, one day, I liked it, the pure optimism of joy of it, but either I need some bittersweetness in my joy or, it’s just too twee. After all, there are songs of pure pop happiness that I truly like. This, on the other hand, reminds me that a part of the audience are indie twee (ex-) kids, probably big fans of Belle&Sebastian etc., but actually found the Belles & Sebastian gig last year to be of higher quality despite knowing/appreciating their songs maybe less overall. I guess I was never really a ‘hipster’ indie fan. But then, The Boos are kind of a paradox, with their more shoe-gazy debuts, and then, thankfully and mercifully, the post Wake Up pre-split couple of excellent albums. Which leads me to the first true highlight for me, which Sice dedicates to his brother-in-law and nieces-in-law who are in the crowd (they live near Paris): Ride The Tiger. That’s the first time of the evening when I feel a little emotion. Unfortunately, I think the second part of the instrumental break (the first break without trumpet) does not come out as powerful and noisy as on record. Our friend Louis goes too much into slightly wanky guitar solo mode, and the aural/sensory delight from the noisy wall of guitar I hope for fails to materialise. Still, it’s an excellent song and a pleasure to hear it. The wonderful but very short Lazy Day from Everything’s Alright Forever (essentially just a good guitar riff repeated, and Sice sounding very off-key again) is next and precedes the beautiful Wish I Was Skinny, although again, I must not be in the right frame of mind, because I don’t find it that beautiful in the moment, despite the communal singalong at the end, I feel it is missing some depth, I don’t know. In fact, during the gig at some point I think I know what is missing: some proper keyboards, swathes of synths sound to bind and envelop the music together. Weirdly, there is at some point pre-recorded keyboards at the start of a song (Finest Kiss), and also definitely some pre-recorded keys during Kingsize. But never mind, Sice keeps smiling, amuses us, shares a fair amount of banter with Tim (Brown, on bass): ‘He’s allright, he’s actually hilarious if he’s not in front of a mike’, praises the great vodka (I think), and they all look happy. Another actual highlight in the emotional stakes comes soon with The Finest Kiss (present on early compilation Learning To Walk), which has a beautiful chorus and is dedicated to friends of his and his wife that he hopes made it to the gig tonight.. In fact, with the production on the studio version being a little raw perhaps, it may well be the only song I find better live than on record tonight, so I’m very glad to have heard it. And as I start to wonder if it’s just the song he dedicates that sound better (don’t think it is because he puts more into them, they just happen to be the better songs), this time we get another treat immediately after, with the title song from their last pre-split album : Kingsize. I’m sure it’s their least favourite album for a lot of people, but it’s always had a particular emotional resonance with me, so I’m glad to hear this song, even if it’s the only one they play from that album. Sice mentioned that they’d never toured it, but that they had played Black Session for it, which gets a loud cheer. Another Wake Up! song has me bored and drifting away, before a very fun What’s In The Box? reminding me how good C’mon Kids really is. I see it as their ‘fun’ album. It was considered commercial suicide after the arch-pop of Wake Up! but it may well be their secret masterpiece. I think it’s in introducing that song that Sice names his bandmates, and especially Rob Cieka (‘the best drummer in the world’), mentioning he doesn’t like that as it puts him under pressure but that because he is saying it in French tonight, it’s all right as he won’t understand. Heh. As the end of the set gets nearer, Sice mentions something about ‘people filming with their camera will know what this is about’ (I haven’t got a clue…) when introducing Stuck on Amber, probably the only song on Wake Up! that I can actually appreciate, with an excellent chorus and instrumental end too. Consulting his notes for the very last time, in a sort of a little faux-pas remarked on by my fellow gig-goers, he thanks the crowds for having been amazing (I mean, that’s all said in French reading from his notes, it’s probably heartfelt and meant, judging from his smile throughout, but as it is, it is pre-prepared so lacks even the illusion of spontaneity that usually still comes even with the habitual ‘you’ve been the best audience’ probably said in many places), mentions they don’t do encores so the next song is going to be the last, and we get a triumphant Lazarus for desserts after nearly an hour and a half.
So, was it a good gig? Yes. Brilliant? Not sure. Emotionally rich? In my case definitely not, and three days later I am still not sure if it’s entirely down to how I felt on the day (having mostly felt great for a good chunk of the week, though I’ve been too busy at work) or if ‘something’ intangible was actually missing. The set list was great, I was there for the old tunes, and I got the old tunes (allowing for the annoyingly heavy dose of Wake Up! songs, but that’s absolutely to be expected, logically). Still, listening to all the tunes on record the following couple of days, I realised how much better they are in studio version than live, or at least this current live incarnation (I unfortunately wasn’t there to see them on stage in their heyday). As I mentioned above, I didn’t particularly get out of this with a big smile on my face, but I totally get that some (most?) people did. In the cold light of day, as for some reason I didn’t have high expectations of this gig, there is no doubt that said expectations were largely exceeded. But all in all, it felt more like a factual memory trip into songs I liked rather than an emotional one, and it means I am not sure I would go see them again, outside maybe the context of a festival.
Post-gig: JC went for a cigarette while I waited for the rest of our folks up the stairs (no staying inside at all), and while we decided to go out rather than in the upstairs bar, JC thought he was too tired to linger so had disappeared. In the end, we went back to the café des sports (well ‘back’ only in my case), settled down at a table, another ginger beer for me, apple juice for Estelle, coke for Cyrille (no, not that sort), and Patrice with the only pint. I would have gladly got home earlier if only considering tiredness, but I was happy enough to be out with people I hadn’t seen in a while, so absolutely no regret. The conversation was enjoyable, ranging from the Boo Radleys and other concerts, injuries and marathons (Patrice had just recently ran two and it was taking its toll on his body), scary holiday neighbours and interesting films. So all in all, a pleasant evening, a much better gig than I had feared, home after 12.30am, which was way too late in a middle of a very busy week, but I managed to be very productive again the next day, just deciding to shelve any idea of Thursday sports.
Jadu Heart, La Bellevilloise 12/11/2025
Context: I missed out on their last tour, as it sold out too quickly, so I jumped on the occasion there, as soon as the gig was announced. That was before the album dropped. The new album I find really poor, bar one or two tracks, just about. So I was not sure what to expect, fearing disappointment going to the wrong tour. Also, a new venue for me, finally (I have to add it on the appropriate page!), as I couldn’t go to Hinds earlier in the year.
External review: not found any, maybe there was competition from other gigs, but I find it baffling that they can sell out venues easily and yet are so under-represented at least in French specialised media.
Photos: no review, no photos.
YouTube: even more surprisingly, I can’t find any. Yet?
Company: Back on me own for this one.
Pre-gig: With the un-googlable support, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Truth be told, I’d tried to Google ‘TV the band’, and was led to some Indonesian rock band called TV, which was meh and I found an odd choice of support. Anyway, it means I wasn’t in a rush, yet with not so much to do at the end of a WFH day, I found no reason to delay, so thought I might catch some of the support, transport permitting. I made if before 8.10pm, so not bad.
Support: TV. But not them as quickly became evident on seeing the stage. And well, I liked very much what I heard, kind of atmospheric at times (at some point I thought there’d be no reason to clap hands, and that it would be a performance only to be applauded at the end, given the instrumental transition I witnessed), some fantastic shouting/screaming during a song, and other stuff. One guy with a guitar, another with bass/synths, plus one who came on stage to add something (more on him later). Either way, very much superb ‘mood’ music in a way, I really liked what I heard, unfortunately not very easy to search, though Nick might have found them, so I hope I can get a listen.
Crowds: very very varied. Which I suppose should be expected, in a slightly different way from Nova Twins, but it makes sense, so all ages/size/sexes/colours.
Standing location: new means no idea where’s best, but somehow as I decided to go for a pint pre-gig, I gound myself bar-side, so on the right. I ended up just in front of a pillar, stage slightly to my left, and importantly, just on a step up the moshpit. Would have been great if a giant hadn’t joined his girlfriend just in front of me before the start of the set (despite him being down the step, he was still far too tall), but it wasn’t terminally critical, just meant I could rarely view the whole stage at once.
Setlist: Here, although stlightly wrong. Not sure if it’s because the early technical incident affected the end, but there was no encore as such, just a ‘this is the last song’ before ‘U’, and only then did Edgar take to the stage to propose, and after that, the last song was played (Walk The Line). More on all of this later, and yes, I don’t know if this came from the actual paper setlist or wrong recollection. Maybe the Edgar stuff was meant to be where it says, but as the note clearly implies factual stuff, just bad recollection then I guess. I might not be able to tell if a track mentioned was not played because of the early issue.
Lights start to dim five minutes before 9pm, and so Diva and Alex (accompanied with a drummer/multi-instrumentalist who is the same guy who guested for the support at some point on synths, and another woman on synth/electronic violin) get on stage right for 9. As I expected, they start with the opening track from the new album. Classic move, but not a classic track, so the expected meh, ok, from me. A strange loud sound seems to come from the synth at some point. Bum note? Weird, and as we will soon discover, nope, it wasn’t. The second song improves things from a musical point of view, with I Shimmer from previous album Derealised, a good track if not one of the absolute bests from that album. But another loud off the charts sound appears near the end of the song, and so Alex announces they have to stop due to a technical problem. He seems fairly pissed off as he and Diva walk offstage, but a guy with new cables comes on stage and fixes things with the synth lady, and it seems like in a just a few short minutes everything is sorted, and so the band comes back onstage, apologising but a little happier. And indeed, no weird note was heard after that. Thankfully, as this little interval in fact precedes the best part of the gig, the only sequence I truly enjoyed. Because next on the menu is the verily splendid Dead, Again from Hyper Romance and I too, feel happier. Alex says bonjour and states how great it is to be back in Paris. He’s not talking much between tunes, seems very focussed, while Diva seems to be enjoying herself a little more. The sound is maybe not perfect, I feel the bass is not forward enough (but then I’ve grown very bass-oriented lately), but it’s still good, Alex’s guitar comes out chiming clear most of the time, and when another highlight from Hyper Romance, Metal Violets, comes next, I’m kind of over the moon in this familiar and lovely territory away from the new album. The track that follows I don’t recognise, but correctly surmise is from their first album (which I haven’t yet got), and as the chorus suggests is indeed titled ‘I’m a Kid’. It sounds fab, and it’s possibly the song they most seem to enjoy, all smiles. Have only listened to a brief snippet from the studio version, and I have to say it seems like the live version may be better (may just be due to the production being dated on record), I’ll check it soon again, anyway, this is truly a high moment of the show. Unfortunately and inevitably, we have to go back to the new album eventually, and the drummer gets hold of a guitar (the new album being more electronics, it lives with programmed beats rather than organic drumming) and one of the pointless numbers is played (Littleboy it seems, but I’d not recognise it). But while we stay on the new album next, thankfully, it’s one of the very rare (one or two) good songs from it, AUX, so I quite enjoy it, and as the follow up is the beautiful closer from HR, Pink & Blue, this is another great sequence. Alex thanks everyone again and repeats ‘it’s so good to be back here’, and, suddenly realising he’s already said that, apologes, mentioning they are very tired. Before turning to Diva and saying ‘but we’ll make it through, baby’, which is followed by another very good one from Hyper Romance: Burning Hour. (Note, I think that’s the sequence, but maybe he said that repeat and apology at another point of the gig, though I can’t be far off). So yeah, that’s another trilogy of good songs, and I can’t really complain about the setlist at this stage. But it’s time for the drummer to take a guitar again before another duff song from POST HEAVEN, and from there on, I don’t think the highs are reached again. The other decent song (not as good as AUX, but just about passable) from the new album is next, with the drummer briefly doing the laptop stuff on this one before getting back behind the kit (or maybe it was on the previous and guitar on that one, not entirely sure), and after that we get only the second (and sadly last) song of the night from Derealised, Cocoon and while relatively decent especially after what just preceded, very far from one of the bests on that album. I have to say though, that while I don’t like a few (most of) the songs from the new album, it doesn’t feel like time is stretching or that I’m getting bored. Back to Hyper Romance without a break (don’t get fooled by what setlist.fm states) with the opening track from that, Another Life, before Alex announces that they only have one more song to play, and the ‘big single’ (really?) from the new album, U, is played, to rapturous applause and all cameras filming. Now, on first listen I thought, maybe that’s one of the decent moments on the new album, but on relisten, I found it really very poor, and live it managed to sound even worse to my ears. So nope, didn’t like it there. Oh yes, by the look of the setlist it was preceded by another number (short, instrumental) from Derealised, 8×8 Endless, but that didn’t register with me, I felt I only heard U after Alex’s short speech, but that’s probably due to the brevity of said track that served as intro to U. By the look of other setlists, that’s where the set normally ends, that should have been it. But tonight was not usual: Alex said (I don’t remember the exact words): we actually have one very last song to play tonight, but before that, our friend Edgar (‘are you here, Edgar?’) will come onstage for something special. And so some bloke comes onstage, hugs both Diva and Alex and starts his speech about his girlfriend, before getting a ring out and invinting her onstage for the proposal. By the look of things, I’d say the band didn’t actually know Edgar before but he must have asked them about doing this and they kindly agreed. Anyway, of course, she said yes, to much rejoicing from the crowds! Edgar looked like he didn’t want to leave the stage and started talking again, but the couple eventually had to rejoin the hoi polloi, before the last song was actually played, introduced by Diva this time, emphasising how appropriate it was: Walk The Line, not a Johnny Cash cover but another track from Hyper Romance. Again, not the best, but after the preceding U, it still felt like a very good song, and the mood everywhere was up after the marriage proposal. Great stuff from the band doing that and basically adding a song to the set just for that purpose! And that was really it, lights on very quickly after that.
Realistically, given my dislike for the new album, while it was the most represented on the setlist, only half of it was played, so the setlist didn’t feel it was too much weighted that way, with Hyper Romance also very very well represented. However, the little disappointment was in the under-representation of Derealised (just emphasising how I would have liked to be there for the gig I didn’t get a ticket for, that would have been the perfect JH tour for me to attend), or, if it had to come to that, the ‘wrong’ choices from there. If they had played ‘Blame’, I think I’d have said the gig was as close to perfect as it could have been given the new album. Failing that, maybe Webs? But no, so we missed the best two tracks and a few other good ones from there. At the end of the day, I was still happy to see them, and the setlist was a relative relief, it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully, next time they will reassess and come to the conclusion that POST HEAVEN doesn’t quite have the beauty/impact of the rest of their oeuvre but we shall see. I’d go see them again if they have a brilliant new album, otherwise, probably not, and I will have to live with the frustration of having missed them last time around due to my slow reaction to booking.
Post-gig: straight home, no reason to stop, I would have wanted to ask the support how to get hold of their music, but they didn’t seem to be at the merch stand, and I didn’t spot the singer in the outdoor bit either. So yeah, it’s still a fairly badly located venue, but timing meant I was home at 11.20pm, not so bad.
Jade Bird, Les Etoiles 16/11/2025
Context: I much preferred her second album, but somehow on a good day I felt her third was good enough to warrant me going to this gig. As it is, she didn’t even tour the second album (here anyway), but as you will see, that unfortunately didn’t mean a catch-up session. Much much later (I think we only talked about that when having drinks before the Boo Radleys gig (or at best we talked about it after the Johnny Marr one a week earlier), Alessandro said he would go (without knowing I was). Turned out (see pre-gig) the conjunction is what made it happen.
External review: we’ll see but somehow I have doubts.
Photos: ditto.
YouTube: it’s only the day after so maybe more will emerge, but I found one! Which will help you understand some of my comments below too. (Another video emerger later, but that’s about it).
Company: Alessandro
Pre-gig: Sunday gig can be several things, but in this particular case, both me and Ale had fairly heavy nights on the Saturdays with different groups of people, so energy levels were a bit low. In fact, I think if Alessandro was not going, I might have given up on the idea, with low motivation and uncertain I would actually enjoy the gig. Still, I texted him during the second half of the Bordeaux Cup match (rare chance to see them on TV), so we agreed to meet just in front of the venue at 7.50pm. As he told me later, he wasn’t so certain he wanted to go, so me texting him kind of pushed him. So a gig we both had a ticket to, but might both have missed if the other wasn’t going, eh. And at the end of it, we were both glad we went. Not a single drink was had, the only struggle was to find the best spot in the room without giants interfering.
Support: Barbara Forstner. Franco-American singer-songwriter. Very good voice, also good looking (or ‘hot’ as Ale said), just a woman with a guitar singing folk-ish songs. Not bad, but also not very original….or varied. We both drew the same conclusion, that the songs, while nice, were all a bit too samey. Still, she was thrilled to be there (she didn’t know this venue), announced her new album coming out at the end of the month and a next gig at the PopUp (I’ll give it a miss…), and, apart from the odd thank you, she spoke in French (obviously), she dedicated one song (a love song) to a very important person who is ‘right here in front of me’ (I couldn’t quite work out who), another to her Mum (also in the audience), and 25 minutes went by very pleasantly. File next to La Frange maybe, but probably a little less interesting.
Crowds: not many, nobody upstairs, and in fact the main room didn’t look very full either. There were some young/young-ish people, but a lot of middle-aged ones and a few oldies. I think her appeal is possibly limited in numbers but broad in range, and again, it sort of makes sense despite her relative youth.
Standing location: pretty central, about five metres from the stage maybe? Thankfully the stage there is pretty high, so apart from sometimes having to look to the left, sometime to the right of the tall-ish geezer we thought was not going to come back in front of us (with his girlfriend) after spending the interval in a different part of the room, it was a decent spot with a good view, this did not prove too annoying.
Setlist: here. A bit of a surprise in some respects, but one that can probably be explained by recent history. That might also explain the no touring of the previous album. A bit more context may be needed, and though she explained or alluded at some, but in a detached enough way, the new album was a lot of a post-breakup album. Break up from being engaged with her touring guitarist. Seems like it’s been very messy too.
Anyway, so while Alessandro was wondering, I pointed to the lack of anything happening on stage between the gigs as a clear indication that it would be just her and an acoustic guitar, and so it proved. Technically, she could have come on stage five minutes after Barbara Forstner left, but I guess timing considerations and maybe business considerations from the venue meant the regular timings of a 9pm start were respected. Lights dim, and she does not just appear onstage but literally bounds onstage while already hollering before even reaching the microphone. She does a lot of talking, mostly explaining song contexts when introducing them, and starts with an old one from her early Something American EP (that I don’t have…yet). She says it’s great to be back here (not a single attempt at French tonight, and it does make sense, with her flow and way of speaking) and explains the times in the meantime had been really shit so there’s not going to be a lot of happy songs, introducing Dreams from her new album as being about one of the lowest moments of those last few years. To be fair, it’s all about the lyrical content there, because at no point is there a song where she actually SOUNDS miserable or down. And it is quite interesting, because while I am still more about the music than the lyrics, it means she puts her woes into the lyrics, not in the music. Sometimes things match, but here, it’s not like there is a blatant discrepancy, just that we don’t FEEL the misery and horror, despite them clearly being important and key to her songwriting. It’s just the way she tells them I guess. Anyway, I’m not necessarily going to go into setlist details, but the very popular and singalongable Uh Huh from the first album is next and very well received. While she never changes instruments (a single white (electro-)acoustic guitar is used, and never even has to stop to retune, Jade Birds plays the guitar very loud and very well indeed. Her playing, I find, is more assured than the opener’s, and it doesn’t matter whether she just strums chords or arpeggiates, it always sounds pretty much perfect. A few songs in, I figure she very much has a raspy voice, as if she smoked a lot, and funnily enough, during the next inter-song talk, she mentions her day in Paris and smoking lots of cigarettes (and buying a baguette from a vending machine, but ‘very authentic’). Back to the setlist composition, what is remarkable tonight is that the first album is the most represented, despite her having been around playing in Paris twice in those pre-Covid years. And interestingly, (for me) we get basically the songs I’d marked as good on that, and a couple more. The new one is second but with only four songs, and by contrast, only one of those I’d marked as very good. Whereas, annoyingly, my favourite album is only represented by one song, albeit a good one though not one of the very best ones. That early Something American EP is well represented (proportionally), and we get another cover that I don’t think has been released (I Can’t Make You Love Me), and she states she could only dream of writing a song that good. And well, that’s arguable, although it does sound a little different and maybe more peaceful. She really is like a chatterbox at times, and what is very remarkable is how there, on stage, she never quietly speaks, always seems to kind of shout (a couple of times maybe she sounds more appeased), occasionally punctuating her sentences/jokes/self-deprecating comments by big ‘HA!’ s. It might feel a little forced, but it just makes me wonder if it is just some kind of stage persona, to in fact stave off feeling too personal or vulnerable, kind of a protective mask. I speak and shout so you won’t actually ask me how I truly feel, even if I am actually saying it. Well, I know what I mean, even if you might not. She mentions being a Brit so having a cynical sense of humour, there’s lots of personal anecdotes about relationships, with exes or with her parents (she’s not spoken to her Dad for years now, but there’s a song to/about him), kind of repeats how things were terrible for her over the last few years, but in a detached humourous way, that (I suspect) hides a rather more pronounced pain inside. Again, it doesn’t show in the music or in her outward demeanour, but I suspect the lyrics are much closer to the bone. And when she mentions before a song that this is going to be pretty much the only happy/optimistic song for the night, well I think (and again it makes sense) THAT was the only one from Different Kinds of Light: Now is the Time. So yeah, as I was hinting, there may be a few reasons for her not playing much from that album, despite never having played it over here. While maybe the music is generally fuller and would possibly be more difficult to play without bass/drums (bass particularly present in the studio version of the superb I’m Getting Lost), I think she would have pulled it off, so I suspect it is mostly because of the lyrics, pre-break up, perhaps they all feel like an illusion or a lie to her now, something she doesn’t feel at all. I’m speculating a lot, but that’s the kind of reflections this gig triggered in me. There’s another song that draws my attention, from the early EP, called Cathedral, and the reason I am going to get hold of that EP. There’s more context about it (she wrote it long before it sort of came true with the engagement breaking), but it’s pretty much (even more pronouncedly so than in the cover I mentioned above) the only song where the singing sounds a little emotional. On an evening where fatigue from the brain meant I was unlikely to feel much, I find it kind of touching, and, while her voice throughout the whole evening sounds impressive (singing that loud without a break, added to the loud talking between songs), on this one, she really reaches a more melodic style. Oh yes, and about those ‘Ha!’ and various practically onomatopoeic sounds, she is very much self-aware (another reason why I think there’s more of the introvert in her than her demeanour could suggest to the inattentive), and says ‘yes, I should be a cartoon!’, and that is exactly that: she sounds very cartoonish between songs.
But, again, the performance is relentless and stunning (she has a very spectacular flow particularly on the few lines in the middle of songs where the extremely rapid succession of words is out of this world), we get ‘the only song I wrote that you can sort of dance too, or at least shuffle’ (I think that may be Save Your Tears from the new album, but I’m not even sure), the crowds clap from time to time and we reach the last song, I Get No Joy from the first album, for which she enjoins all of us to sing along. Not my favourite, but I can get the appeal and it works. Last song? Ah no, she has one more, meant to be the encore, but as she said ‘I won’t do the walk off the stage, walk back on thing’, and it’s yet another one from the first album to conclude the set. It is over in just under 55 minutes, which is about as much as I expected, as I’d told Alessandro earlier who was wondering if she would play longer. Alone there with her guitar, chanting fairly loudly and strumming the guitar with incredible vigour (something with an intensity that was beyond what I had envisaged), I think it’s already a rather impressive feat, as a performance like that must be quite exhausting, physically and mentally, though she still looked fresh as a daisy at the end.
Both of us being tired but contented by a very good gig, we headed straight for the exit (Alessandro realising he might even catch the end of the Italy match, but while it was 1-0 to them when we checked, it ended up rather terribly for his fellow countrymen), and so I will never even have a vague clue whether JB’s off-stage persona (though would still have been public there) is any different from the on-stage one. I suspect I would have found her very interesting to chat with though.
The thing is, if I’d been aware of the setlist, I might have thought I’d be in for the disappointment I half-expected before entering the venue. But as it was, even the songs I might have felt I liked less on record sounded very good and lively: there was no drop in quality, and the performance was compelling. Having not even re-listened to the records in the days leading to the gig, for various (lazy) reasons, I came with very little prejudice. I knew it wouldn’t/couldn’t be one of my favourite gigs of the year (but there haven’t been that many this year), but I was more than pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it a lot, so much it it didn’t feel like Rely On or I’m Getting Lost were missing. Again, I would not necessarily go and see her again, unless maybe in a different context with a band (but did the split also refocus her as performing as solo on stage? At least I’ve seen her perform stuff on piano on youtube, maybe that’s something I would like to hear from her), but there wasn’t a dull or boring moment in this admittedly (but justifiably) short gig, and both me and Ale were glad to have gone.
Post-gig: straight home, this is a venue that is very practical, just off the Metro, only one short stop at Châtelet, and as a bonus, my RER to Robinson changed from omnibus to express at Cité U (I’m not sure I’d ever seen a Robinson RER change to express), so I was home not long after 10.30pm and could too catch the very last minutes of the Italy vs Norway match.
Pip Blom, Petit Bain 20/11/2025
Context: I missed out on Pip Blom in February last year as my return from a work trip made it close to impossible, so I jumped on the catch-up session. On my own this time, or so I thought. Had a quick relisten on the days leading to the gig, and thought, yes, really looking forward to it, even with a new EP I hadn’t listened to yet that seemed to be a lot more electronic. Two support bands as this was part of the Les Femmes S’en Mêlent event, but more on them in the corresponding section.
External review: doubt it, I seem to be making the unpopular gigs these days (despite two out of three selling out), but there was also competition from other gigs. Also: SOV only does UK+Irish ones.
Photos: unlikely, as above.
YouTube: I’ll check
Company: Romain + Stéphanie (Mrs Romain) for the Pip Blom part. We’d talked about this concert at the NewDad one, I knew Benoît was a maybe, I didn’t realise Romain was a definite.
Pre-gig: nothing, work Thursday, enough time to be there on time, straight to the venue, maybe a few minutes later than I’d wished, because of some delay on the metro, a bit of queuing at the entrance also, which I didn’t expect. Website said 7.30pm, ticket 8pm, maybe that didn’t help.
Support: Roshâni and Automatic. Now, this time I took just a few minutes the day before to try and listen to what these were about. Roshâni I immediately liked, there was the appeal of something different, a very dancy beat with rich sound. Automatic was more meh. So in terms of music, I thought I’d be curious to see what Roshâni sounded liked but probably would investigate their records anyway (just one single and one EP so far), while for Automatic, it was more like ‘I’ll see if their live performance tempts me into checking their recorded output’. Either way, it meant I was slightly annoyed by the order of play, as if I were a little late, I’d miss some of the first band’s set.
As it is, I got into the already fairly packed venue only at about 8.15pm (due to aforementioned Metro issue and queuing), but I’m not sure they’d started at 8pm sharp as I thought they would (I say that because they finished at about 8.40pm or so), straight downstairs, thought a pint would be fine, and then tried to find a spot while the powerful music was there in the background. Yes, I really liked it as I expected I would. On stage, one girl with the keyboards/synth, the other with a guitar (though she went to some keyboards for the last song). The rhythms are good, the sound powerful (at some point I think there could be a case for putting the melodic guitar a little more forward), the voice is fine, singing in different languages (they are nominally from Geneva – hence the French speaking between songs) but sing in Spanish, English (maybe?), French and…. Farsi (their name means ‘Lumière’ in Farsi), they invite everyone to dance (with various degrees of success). Before the last song, Inès (the synth-mistress) asks ‘est-ce que vous aimez les basses qui vous en mettent plein la gueule?’, and that is obviously followed by fairly heavy synth-bass sounds, but not actually violent. All throughout, there remains a sense of not just beats, dance and rhythm, but also a certain melody. Roxane says they’ll be at the merch stand later as they’ve brought some T-shirts (she shows one and really like the design so hope to get hold of one), but unfortunately and for whatever reason, I never see them there, despite being close to that most of the time in fact (I was standing at the very back there, slightly on the right of the mixing desk). So I might never get that T-shirt, as, annoyingly, I don’t see it online either. Equally annoyingly, I don’t spot them anywhere so no chance to thank them.
So, Automatic next, again two girls, this time one with a bass, the singer on synth/keyboards (but not the same sound as Roshâni at all), but with an actual drummer this time. Seems like they are very popular. I am more or less in the same spot as for the first band, maybe a touch further close to the wall (partly as I felt I’d be less interested), but struggle more for a view, especially when one third through the set, a bunch of tall fuckers kind of appear from nowhere and settle in my line of sight, meaning I have to shift a bit. The music? Unfortunately they don’t win me over and I feel bored after about 15 minutes (they do come on stage at 9pm, which I am impressed with, the interval between the first two bands was very short – maybe that explains the merch confusion to some extent? – only Automatic and Pip Blom stuff were on display all night, maybe Roshâni simply didn’t have the time, that could also tally with the ‘later than 8pm’ start theory for the timings). The music is not unpleasant as such, but they look a bit ‘too cool for school’. The bass sound while very clear is a bit dated, and without variation during any one song. Sure, they have a couple of more dynamic numbers that I find myself enjoying more, but when after what I thought was a fairly slow song, the singer announces ‘we’re going to do a slower song now’, well it’s just also more boring. We’re not into ‘slower but actually very lovely too’ Ruth Radelet territory there. They do seem very popular though, but that’s probably because there are a lot of ‘hipsters’ here. Cool, retro, whatever, but for me essentially boring. I get to the loo when the last song is announced, and that’s where I remember we are on a boat, as the place is actually bouncing. I get back to my spot just before the end of that song, and well, this is it, I am glad it is over.
I keep looking back at the merch stand in case Roshâni appear, but they still don’t, so I decide it’s time to give up and maybe find a decent spot for Pip Blom. And that’s when I spot Romain. At this point, the places has emptied (a lot more than between the first two bands), so I don’t have to go through anyone to just join the spot he is in (shortly rejoined by his spouse), just by the end of the ramp on the right, right on top of the couple of stairs. Perfect spot, really. The Automatic chanteuse goes to (wo)man the merch stand while the stage is being set up for Pip Blom (it all seems ready before 10pm so good timing I think, wondering how late this will go), still no sign of Roshâni (which Mrs Romain had appreciated too, also vainly hoping to see them at the merch, while Romain liked Automatic more) so we carry on with our chat until the lights dim and Pip Blom finally come on stage at 10.15pm.
Crowds: varied? Honestly I didn’t pay much attention to that aspect today, maybe because I was mostly at the back in a crowded room initially. Usual white indie crowd I’d say. More Dutch people than usual, obviously.
Standing location: for Roshâni, back behind the mixing desk, ok but not great view. For Automatic, practically at the wall, not great, but wasn’t bothered. For Pip Blom, just at the top of the stairs by the end of the ramp. Perfect really, maybe the best place to be in Petit Bain while not in the moshpit.
Setlist: None available, maybe later but somehow I doubt it. So, what I didn’t know was that when Pip Blom played at Point Ephémère last year, their drummer had just quit so it was first time as a trio and apparently they were a little uncertain (Romain told me all that). Maybe they’d be more settled today with a new drummer, but in fact, no, when the stage was set up, there was no drum kit, so it was clear they had decided to remain as a trio. Which probably goes some way to explaining the more electronic recent numbers. But so, at the start, Pip Blom (for it is the name of the lead singer/guitarist, not just that of her band), her brother (on guitar for now), and the bass player run with a few ‘classic’ numbers I seem to recognise. These songs could probably benefit from a drummer, but the rhythm machine will do. What is instantly evident, probably more so than on record, is that their songs are eminently danceable. In fact, taken in the bigger context of tonight, you wonder what Automatic were doing in the middle of the two other bands. Not much talking between songs, though Tender (that is the brother) does the odd ‘Merci Beaucoup’ and occasionally seems to want to speak a bit more. He is the most energetic here on stage, and they all look rather happy. And then something else happens, when all three musicians go to their synths and start playing something a lot more electronic. The first such number is slightly unconvincing perhaps, but as they repeat the feat over a few songs (Tender says it’s going to be a few dance songs), sometimes only one or two synths with bass and/or guitar, there are some actually excellent ones among the lot, great sounds, great vibes, sometimes veering towards New Orderish, and I am actually also enjoying this part of the show very much. I can’t really name songs as I haven’t got the set list, and my history with them is not big enough for obvious associations, but it doesn’t matter, it’s good shit really! They come back to the more classic set-up towards the end of the show (hell they even have one song that I think sounds a bit like….BRMC, weirdly), but when Pip announces the last song (another amusing detail, at some point during the set she says ‘we are Pip Blom’, whereas before the last song, her brother points at her and says ‘the one and only Pip Blom’), she says it’s her favourite, I like to dance to it, and you can dance too if you like, it starts with the two guitars and one bass combo (plus drum machines, obviously), but then naturally again all three move to their synths and it evolves into a bit of a different song, to the point I am not even sure it is the same song. And the end has to come. One hour of solid music to dance to, not one boring moment. Very unlike with NewDad, whether it is because of the timing (it’s just gone beyond quarter past eleven) or people ‘knowing’, there is not even two minutes of applause or hoping for an encore. If they’d have come back then, the room would already have been half-empty. Mind you, that’s the other thing: the room was already a lot emptier than for Automatic, so it seems most people (the event was sold out) came for the band I was not interested in. And while there was a lot of dancing (maybe not quite moshing) down there, the density of people in the moshpit was indeed not very high, on top of our spot being comfortable too, with less people behind than earlier in the evening. My tendon was aching a fair bit, this also made me realise I’m still a long way from feeling comfortable dancing in a moshpit, annoyingly. With the room emptying rapidly, and still no sign of Roshâni as we walked back past the merch stand, we just left straight away. I think I’d probably have waited and hoped for a few more minutes if on my own (despite the late hour, but I was sober and working from home the next day), but I expect it would have been in vain too. As I chatted with Romain, I said Pip Blom were like two different bands tonight, which he felt too. He is less convinced by the heavy synth stuff, but I have to admit that, despite it being perhaps more hit and miss and being unconvinced by the first such number, I was won over, and they could go somewhere good with this ‘new direction’ if they pursue it further. There’s definitely potential that way too.
Post-gig: straight to the metro and RER, home just after midnight, not so bad given the finishing time. I am very glad I had that chance of a catch-up gig more than a year and half later, I expect they were better than for the one I missed (for the reasons mentioned above), and big bonus with discovering a new band like Roshâni that I actually liked a lot.
Distorted, Nouveau Casino 28/11/2025
Context: that one was decided on the evening of the Johnny Marr gig. Normally, I’d have gone to see CIEL or Swim School at Supersonic Records or Club, but an evening at a gig with John and his mates’ band was the appeal. I had no idea what music they played. Actually they had said they were playing covers, I think, but I’d totally forgotten.
Company: John, Shaun, Phil (for the old gang I knew), and a few others.
Pre-gig: meeting was 7pm at Café Charbon next to the venue, but I thought it was going to be a heavy evening so decided that closer to 7.30pm would be more reasonable. It was probably the first time I went to Rue Oberkampf in over 20 years. John was there, along with Shaun and a bunch of (French) people I didn’t know. Beers were ordered and drunk. The ticket said 7.30pm, we had no idea what time Distorted would be on, assumed 9pm, so a few pints later (3 or 4 in my case? I think three, but not sure, I didn’t count), after a good chat about this and that, work and guitars, and music, we moved next door (the venue was literally next door, in fact the same address, weirdly). Just before 9pm, but the gig had in fact already started, oops. Anyway, going through the long corridor (with different lighting?) the place came back to me, that little entrance as it was, though I am not sure if all was the same inside, the way you get to the concert room, etc. But it still had an upstairs with metal staircase (though we didn’t get there, so not sure if it was still the same), and well, I cannot tell you if the stage was the same. Somehow, I had a different memory of it, perhaps of a smaller stage really, with some access door to the side, but I really can’t be sure now.
Crowds: mostly old, maybe some with their grown-up children too? Either way, as I didn’t know the band, I had no idea it would be that busy but it was (another sold-out event in fact). They must be popular somehow as they were also selling T-shirts. Guessing it’s a case of word spreading between mates or something. After all, that’s how I ended up here too!
Standing location: at the back, at the bar. I wasn’t too bothered, so it was really kind of a night out with live music on the background. Phil joined us a couple of songs in, with his also Canadian mate who I knew from Pure Malt/Auld Alliance days. But the stage is high up and so even from there the view was OK in fact.
Setlist: Obviously no chance of finding that online, I think, but it was mostly (or exclusively) covers. Some I didn’t know or recognise. Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out was first when we arrived, a relatively faithful version. But there were some highlights, notably a somewhat sped-up version of Radiohead’s Street Spirit (Fade Out) that I thought was very good. London Calling made a nice appearance too. And the conclusion, somehow as I thought it would be, (based on absolutely nothing but intuition?) was A Forest, excellent. A somewhat much extended version, possibly added lyrics and stuff, I was already well drunk by then, but it was great and got a big reception. I’d also switched to Planteur cocktail in the meantime, which felt like a good idea, but not so much the next day. We lingered on, chatted with some of the band too (I think) before we got ushered out. Not sure what time it was: sometime between 10pm and 11pm I’d say.
Post-gig: I have a feeling we went back for a drink or two in Café Charbon, but I’ve really got absolutely no idea, perhaps my credit card will tell me. The IDF Mobilités app shows me I entered the metro station at 11.50pm so fair to say that yes, those drinks were had. I was very much on autopilot, pretty much blacked out all after leaving the venue. Not good, but at worst I just talked some shit, I guess!
The Raveonettes, O2 Academy Islington, London 8/12/2025
Context: me missing them earlier in the year in Paris, when I was close to being able, but not quite good enough. Tickets still available for a gig in London in December? Bring it on. With bonus Mew gig the next day for a double dose of Danish happiness (well, that was the plan, but news got out just a few days earlier that the Mew gig would be postponed), and added company, excellent. As you will see below, it all turned out to be much better than just a catch-up gig.
External review: not found any, not getting any luck these days!
Photos: same.
YouTube: given the number of phones that went up every time, I’d have expected a lot to be available, but maybe they’re all mostly private. So I only found a couple and you’ll be treated to the finale with a cover of The Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored from these ‘scruffy-looking cunts’. Not a bad choice anyway.
Company: Ally (that is ‘Scottish Ally’ from Ally&Ally, not Allyboy) and his sister.
Pre-gig: easy Eurostar journey (left 15 min late, arrived on time, which is not so impressive, it’s just that their timetables have changed so that they allow such shit, so the actual travel time was just over 2h15 min, as used to be normal, rather than the advertised over 2h30 that was advertised….), so time to check-in and relax at the hotel before organising meet-up time. Going up and down stairs after the morning run was a little painful as I’m going through a little setback in my rehab, so I’d decided to take no chance with long walks or timing, so went a little earlier to grab a sandwich before waiting just a few minutes outside the venue, when the ever fantastically lovely Ally turned out with his pregnant sister, having themselves had a nice pizza a little further up the road. I did and did not remember his sister, she looked familiar, but I couldn’t be certain, as last time we met was that Mew gig at Flèche d’Or in 2015 (weirdly I now see that I had not mentioned it in the reviews, so I may have missed a few gigs from these fallow years when I didn’t go to many), when I extraordinary met Ally outside the venue, having absolutely no idea he would be there. That was magical. I seem to remember he’d mislaid his ticket and had to buy a new one on the spot, but I forgot to ask him if my recollection was good. Either way, his sister was also there that day, but I can’t be 100% sure that is why her face looked familiar or if it is just the family resemblance (but I do think it was memories coming back). Anyway, so we got in at about 8.30pm, when support was already playing, tried to see if upstairs was a good spot, decided it wasn’t, I decided to buy a beer, but Ally opted against (he was also back from a bit of illness), and his sister declined any (non-alcoholic) drink too, so back downstairs, at the back behind the mixing desk, figuring we might get an opportunity to move between bands.
Support: I’ll find the name. Sound didn’t feel great upstairs or downstairs, so I was briefly worried about later, but thankfully The Raves sounded great.
Crowds: hard to tell, mostly oldies, but not that old, a few younger ones too, obviously Ally is also more than 10 years younger than me anyway, but there seemed to be a decent spread even if the vast majority were probably around 40ish.
Standing location: well, we did manage to move forward a fair amount and ended up pretty much in the middle of the room both in terms of depths and width. Ally’s sis tried her chance back upstairs after all and told us afterwards she’d had a pretty good spot with a great view from the stage (offering an interesting perspective, notably on Sune checking his notes all the time :-)). So yeah, I’d say pretty good, especially for the encore after the couple in front of us moved out, as well as a couple of other people, enabling a better view a couple of metres forward. But the stage is high enough anyway, and the configuration with Sune on one side and Sharin on the other side meant the view while not completely full, was good enough.
Setlist: It is here. The band were due to start at 9.15pm and were only a couple of minutes late. So we had ample time to chat about Arsenal, music, Ally’s excellent trip to Norway review to see Mew the week before already, and a lot of other gigs. Time with Ally is always quality time, whether we drink or not (I remember a Jagerbomb fuelled encounter, maybe last time I saw him before tonight actually?), so I’m always happy in his company.
So yeah, it started with a few songs from the new record (BLACKEST opened), both sounding even better than on the album that is a bit of a grower already. KILLER, already excellent on the album was a particularly powerful treat, the ‘quieter’ end bit also sounding totally excellent. Sharin started the gig on guitar (the guitar looking exactly the same as Sune’s in fact, Jazzmaster I think), and all along, there were a few pre-recorded bits, but that didn’t detract from the actual live performance and the powerful sound. There wasn’t too much talking between songs, but there wasn’t isolation either, enough acknowledgment of the crowds, thank yous, and Sharin expressing how it was great to be back in Islington (in fact last time they play ed in London was in the same venue, where Ally had seen them too). Sune announced they’d be travellign back to 2023 next while Sharin finally got hold of a bass guitar (her original instrument in the band) and they started That Great Love Song to rapturous applause. We moved on to a track from Pretty In Pink, maybe not the best from there, but somehow, everything sounded so good tonight, and well, better tunes from that album followed, with Sleepwalking and the classic single Love In A Trashcan that caused the raising of many mobile phones. While Sharin had moved back to the guitar during the Pretty In Pink sequence (four titles from that album tonight, played in a straight series), Sune annouced now moving further back to 2002, so I wondered if we’d get Attack Of The Ghost Riders, or perhaps My Tornado, and in fact we got these two in that sequence, woohoo! Well, trusting the set list, Veronica Fever was played between these two, and I do remember hearing it. Mind you, the whole album being in B flat Minor, songs segue into each other nicely. The sound there was maybe a little darker in that sequence (well, all minor indeed and with the real bass in play, no big surprise), but really the whole gig was a colourful wall of sound. The light show was not necessarily spectacular in conception, but again, naked coloured lights, sometimes flashing rapidly, definitely not fo epileptics, but essentially managing to be both sober and extremely colourful. Sharin and Sune’s voice mixed perfecty when combined, it quickly became evident that this gig was not jumping straight into my top ten of the year (even if it was a year of less gigs), but right to the very top. We pretty much got a bit of every album (bar Observations, oddly), not always ‘best song of the album’, and yet, I found myself thinking the songs selection was just fantastic and then realising that, you know, pretty much ANY combination of Raveonettes song would make a great gig. I told that to Ally later who opined. And in fact, this gig reminded me why I always considered them as one of my absolute favourite bands (and yet, oddly, it was only my second time seeing them live???): they have very very few ‘weaker’ tracks, and by the sound of today, even these would sound brilliant live. And yet, even after I made myself that reflection, they managed to surprise me further. Thankfully, I don’t generally check setlists before gigs, although I did check the specific Paris one earlier in the year, but May was the same tour without being the same tour. Last year, The Raves had released, unexpectedly, an album of covers rather than originals (that came this year with Pe’ahi II, a whole eleven years since their previous actual album, Pe’ahi – I am not counting 2016 ‘ATOMIZED’ which has some good tracks but feels like a little musical project rather than an actual album). But they didn’t play anything live from it in Paris earlier (I wasn’t sure, I rechecked later, to be fair, it’s not like I remembered the setlist, and yet I correctly felt this hadn’t been played), whereas this time, The Velvet Underground’s Venus in Furs made an appearance. A little more quiet than most of the songs tonight, but it sounded truly excellent and beautiful, I’d say much better than on the album, so it was a real joy. The classic Aly, Walk With Me closed the main set in suitable fashion, before the band came back a few minutes later following lengthy shouts an applause (but no ‘wowohohoho’ French-style, as I jokedly remarked to Ally), and another magic moment happened. I said the band came back, but the drummer in fact didn’t just then. Sharin, sans instrument, moved to the same side as Sune (as I wrote earlier, each of them had pretty much stuck to their side of the stage earlier, just getting within a metre of each other during Aly, Walk With Me, really, a big departure from the interactions I remembered from 12 years earlier), and, in the month of December, treated us to their Christmas Song, I Wish That I Could Stay (a B-side of Heartbreak Stroll, originally), Sune with the Guitar, and Sharin an him singing in the same microphone, with a spotlight shining red on them. Beautiful and intimate. With the drummer back, a triumphant Last Dance was next, another joyous moment in the set. And then Sune handed his guitar to….the drummer for Recharge&Revolt, which was therefore played with pre-recorded drums, and with Sune just moving around the stage and doing hand gestures while singing. Very good, but somehow, while I like the song, I felt maybe this was a slightly weaker interpretation and I’d have preferred real drums and Sune on guitar. But was it the finale as I remembered it was in Paris and thought was just now the classic/standard final song? Thankfully not, as Sune picked his guitar back, Sharin dropped her own, took the microphone again, asked if anyone here was from Manchester (plenty were, I think), mentioned the recently deceased Mani, and an anecdote about him calling them ‘scruffy-looking cunts’ that made everyone laugh, and the band launched into a cover of The Stones Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored. Without a bass, which I thought was a perfectly apt tribute to a great bass player, maybe a way to say : we can’t do the bass line because it is actually Mani’s and he was so great. Sharin ended it not quite in the crowd, but at crowd level going down the stage to be just in front of the fence. Now the funny thing is I’d completely forgotten that they had actually released that song as a cover nearly 15 years ago or something (even though I have it and acquired it much later in fact), so the choice of song should not have been a surprise to me, but when it happened it was, and just made for a fitting end to a wonderful gig. And I was very glad that I hadn’t checked the setlists, because all the ‘extra’ treats had been played in fact maybe since the summer more or less, including spookily, that final song, so quite a few months before Mani died, and he died unexpectedly, not of a long disease, so while ours was a real homage, it had been played a few months earlier when he was still alive.
Post-gig: well, there’s post-gig, and post-gig. Immediate post-gig, we just had a very quick chat on the way out, all very happy about this gig, then said our goodbyes, knowing we might not see each other before the rescheduled Mew gig, then rumoured to be early Feb (Ally obviously has impeccable direct sources when it comes to Mew things), and confirmed the next day to be on the fifth of February, 2026 indeed. But if you consider the whole London trip, the ‘post-gig’ stuff extends and it was all great really. The next day I just went around Tate Modern as I hadn’t been in years and used to love the place. And well, I still do, I had a great time browsing the free exhibitions there, and the shop (just about resisted buying a second T-shirt…), quite clearly it’s the abstract art that I like most. In the evening, in lieu of the cancelled gigs, I had a couple of drink with Vojislav (ex- of Alcate), talking work, football, and music, all very civilised and reasonable, and on a Wednesday, well, a very unlikely sequence of events happened. I decided to go back to the South Bank (but further West by the Embankment) as I had time to kill before my train. I checked the Winter Market by the Southbank centre, but decided against the expensive food, so just went for a walk round before settling back in Prêt for a hot wrap and a coffee. And as I was drinking my coffee, I got a text from James (Surrey Gooner) who was just….sitting at the next table with his pregnant wife, as they were having a day off around there. Extraordinary coincidence. Very timely too, as we had a bit of a chat that killed more time I needed to kill before they went for lunch elsewhere. But it didn’t stop there. I went to the station, checked in and found a seat in the lounge, and five minutes later ‘Hi Ollie’. Who is there? Sean! Yes, that’s the Sean who was at the gig with us a couple of weeks earlier, our old Man City supporting, Meta-Baron navigating mate. He’d actually blagged his way into the lounge not being in fact eligible (although as I told him, you’re in the clear now as you are my guest!). How incredibly unlikely? Two completely random encounters in London on the same day. It didn’t quite stop there, as, in a slightly more likely given what was already happening, but still not that probable, we both were actually sitting in the same coach! And well that’s it for extraordinary things this week, those three days in London were really blessed and made me feel better again after a couple of less enjoyable days at work the week before. In a way it brought me back to three years earlier, Cure gigs before the one last gig in Paris, but to be fair, there weren’t that many similarities, and going out last night in Paris (Friday), nothing extraordinary happened then, just a good evening with mates.
9/12/2025 Mew, Roundhouse, London
That got postponed to the next year as Jonas (the singer) had lost his voice. Free evening in London instead.
Gurriers, Petit Bain 15/12/2025
Context: great last year, hoping to see them, still not fit, actually went backwards on the day
External review: probably/hopefully
Photos: same
YouTube: Des Goblin, with Bass player on Nico’s shoulders.
Company: Nobody (Nick signed to the Waiting List late, and nothing came off it).
Pre-gig: late enough but not missed a thing, no beer
Support: Theatre, with Gurriers T-shirt 8.35 started probably just as finished just after 9 first song maybe, three very good songs maybe I like that, then a little more boring or maybe tired a bit depressed, great voice still
Crowds: mixed, old-ish perhaps but i was at the back, a lot younger at the front
Standing location: behind mixing desk, not bad at all actually for no moshing
Setlist: available seems ok despite disclaimer, open new songo ah yes indeed, then Dipping out early enough close call, etc, better construction new song after approachable (support dancing), voulez vous dancer avec moi, dédicaces, great energy boat bouncing from the start, two quiet ish with top of the bill and title trac, des goblin but others bass player like a young JB, Nico etc, and encore with a brand nex excellent song, i came out of it in agony for tendon (was from the start not great but k,nowing even from distance and not involved it was a fabulous gig, so yeah won me over again, happy i went
Post-gig: straight home, fast rer lucky just timing and also in pain knee for up the stairs and tendon in agony
Below create new page so need to get this organised over the weekend probably
5/2/2026 Mew, Roundhouse, London
8/2/2026 A.A. Williams, Le Nouveau Casino
21/2/2026 Nightbus, Popup
26/2/2026 Coach Party, Supersonic Club
5/3/2026 Sorry, Trabendo
11/3/2025 Meryl Streek, Point Ephémère
20/3/2026 The Others, The Grace, London
2/4/2026 Stella Donnelly, Hasard Ludique
3/4/2026 HighSchool, Hasard Ludique
11/4/2026 CHALK, Trabendo
27/4/2026 The Twilight Sad, Trabendo
26/6/2025 The Cure, Marlay Park, Dublin
30/8/2026 The Cure, Rock en Seine, Saint-Cloud