Check Check

Seun Anikulapo Kuti and Egypt 80's gig at Melbourne's Hamer Hall was a raucous affair for its entire two-hour duration, with barely anyone in the crowd staying seated.

The setlist was a mix of Fela classics and Seun originals. Fela’s signature song, the military mocking Zombie, closed the show, and it was an obvious highlight, its delirious playfulness pretty much summing up the mood of the night.

There was plenty of sobering political critique to be found in Seun Kuti’s originals, such as T.O.P. and Emi Aluta, but his tack was to take us with him, rather than lambaste from the pulpit.

Full review via the link in the comments. Photograph by Remi Chauvin.

Cate Le Bon's latest album, Michelangelo Dying, deals with many forms of loss – loss of love, familial ties, language, context, hydration – but it never descends into hopelessness, as Le Bon’s radiant performance at Melbourne Town Hall demonstrated.

From the opening song, Jerome, onwards, it was apparent how much life there is in these songs. The show’s two major highlights, Is it Worth It? (Happy Birthday) and Heaven Is No Feeling, found Le Bon contending with the challenge of confidently articulating one’s sense self while still grappling with a relationship’s crumbling edifice.

Meanwhile, her terrific band slathered the Town Hall in a woozy heft made up of warped guitar tones, keys, acoustic and electronic drums, and duelling saxophones and bass guitars.

Full review via the link in the comments. Photograph by Shannyn Higgins.

Sparks’ performance at Melbourne’s Palais Theatre was like a Reader’s Digest of the Mael brothers’ long and discursive career, with a few unexpected picks.

Sparks make music for musical theatre apologists, dorks, and people in the know. The lyrics repeat themselves like liturgical call and responses that appeal to the obsessive and devout.

Full review via the link in the comments. Photograph by Bevan Triebels.

For all their constant reinventions and subversions, the secret weapon of art pop duo Sparks has always been their sly but deep sincerity.

The band's depth of feeling took centre stage at their Sydney Opera House show. The crowd was elated from the moment that the band strode onstage, frontman Russell dressed in a silk polka dot outfit that one heckler referred to as his “pyjamas.” And the diehards – i.e., every person in attendance – only got more energised from there.

Find the full review via the link in the comments. Photograph by Ravyna Jassani

“Bluetile Lounge appeared fully formed to me in a vision at the UWA Refectory sometime around mid 1993,” writes Guy Blackman.

“I was a 19 year old stripling in Perth, occasionally waking up in time to attend uni lectures, when this friendly guy from my English Lit class told me he was playing in a Battle Of the Bands at the Ref at lunch.

“I went along with no expectations, but then Bluetile Lounge took the stage, playing just two songs in their allotted 20 minutes. They were unassuming in dark flannel shirts and murmured vocals, but possessed a magical twin guitar interplay and performed the most languorous, slowed down country-rock ever heard.”

Bluetile Lounge will play their first show in a quarter century, and their first ever show outside Perth, at Melbourne’s Brunswick Ballroom on Thursday 2 April.

Read Guy’s chat with guitarist and singer Dan Erickson and guitarist Gabrielle Stokes via the link in the comments.

The point of view that the world is in grave pain was voiced various times during this year's Golden Plains Festival. Water From Your Eyes, visiting from New York City, spoke about how the USA is a fu**ed up force of evil. During an unexpectedly furious performance, Obongjayar, from London via Nigeria, said that these are dark times, but that there is another way.

Derya Yıldırım spoke of her shame at being a German citizen at this moment in history, but, she said, after observing the Palestinian flags in the crowd, events like Golden Plains give her hope. The Sydney-based DEVAURA flipped the coin of rage to remind us that it’s a privilege to be alive.

Nobody articulated our shared responsibility more succinctly than Basement Jaxx’s Felix Buxton. At the conclusion of one of the most spectacularly entertaining live shows I’ve ever seen – which journeyed through jazzy, kitschy house, rave techno, a string of big beat anthems, and a cover of ROSALÍA’s “Berghain” – Buxton acknowledged how wonderful it is to be here, living together, on Earth.

“Let’s make it good,” he said.

Full review via the link in the comments

Mike Skinner and The Streets' gig at Palace Foreshore, a full album performance of 2004’s A Grand Don’t Come For Free, was more musical theatre than hip hop.

The stage backdrop featured the bus shelter from the album cover. There was no between-song chat from the usually verbose Mike Skinner. Backing vocalist Roo Savill intermittently stepped into the spotlight to play the role of the narrator’s girlfriend, Simone. There were genuine screams of delight during the album’s final song, “Empty Cans”, when (spoiler alert) Skinner located the thousand pounds that went missing in the album’s opening track, “It Was Supposed to Be So Easy”.

Songs like “Get Out of My House” and “Such a Twat” evoked the smell of a musty flatshare, half empty takeaways strewn across the place, several weeks since the electricity bill has been paid, and no one knows whose jacket potato it is in the fridge but everyone knows it’s covered with mould.

Full review via the link in the comments.

Pulp's music feels more relevant now than it ever did. The rallying chorus of “Mis-Shapes” could be copied directly from the internal monologue of a burned out, embattled gen-Zer. “What’s the point in being rich / if you can’t think what to do with it? ‘Cause you’re so bleeding thick,” Cocker snarls on that song. Turns out he didn’t even know the half of it: our ruling class have spent the last three decades accumulating wealth and bleeding brain cells.

So, when Pulp emerged on the Opera House Forecourt for the Sydney leg of their much anticipated revival tour, it wasn’t in the form of a legacy band. Cocker spent the gig spasmodically dancing on the very cutting edge, whirling through a setlist of songs that could have been written yesterday. He achieved the unthinkable: summing up the spirit of the times while dressed like a substitute English teacher in blazer, jeans and spectacles.

Full review via the link in the comments.

The last time Pulp played in Melbourne, in 2011, a feeling of temporariness surrounded the whole affair.

The Sheffield band, led by Jarvis Cocker, were back together for a one-off reunion tour. They hadn’t made music together in a decade, and they didn’t have any plans to do so. But 15 years later, as Pulp returned to Melbourne for their largest ever show in the city, the feeling of temporariness had been replaced by one of generosity.

For all their perceived artiness, one thing that Pulp, and Cocker in particular, have always excelled at is delivering maximum entertainment value. And so the bulk of the Melbourne show was devoted to the most lustrous pearls from Pulp’s peak period in the mid 90s and early 00s.

It was, in the words of a friend, literally a flawless show. And thank god that Jarvis Cocker still lives to drape himself over the floor and give it all with his dancing.

Full review via the link in the comments. Pic by Ian Laidlaw.

Iconic, energetic and anarchic, such was the atmosphere at Grace Jones' gig on a beautiful moonlit night in the Harbour City.

Opening with “Nightclubbing,” the 77-year-old singer hasn’t lost any of her moxie, teasing the crowd with her ever-more revealing costume changes – the hats and head gear that only Jones can pull off – and cheeky comments, while downing multiple glasses of red wine during the 90 minute show.

Highlights included “This Is,” “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango),” and “Love is the Drug.” But the ultimate treat came when Jones twirled a hula hoop around her waist for the duration of “Slave to the Rhythm,” closing the night with a big smile on her face.

full review via the link in the comments.