Birmingham
The Tempest Replica, Kidd Pivot, Birmingham HippodromeMonday, 05 May 2014
If, standing on a station platform, your arms want to make shapes in the air; if, walking home, you are mesmerised by the curved toes of your shoes against the pavement; if, in the kitchen, a stray salad leaf on the floor transforms before your eyes... Read more... |
Concert Dansé, Symphony Hall, BirminghamMonday, 05 May 2014
On the back wall of Birmingham Symphony Hall’s great oval space, two musicians are poised on a glass balcony that gives the illusion of not being there at all. A small square of warm light picks them out, vivid against the hall’s darkness. So framed... Read more... |
Quatrain/Kin./Les Rendezvous, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Crescent TheatreSunday, 27 April 2014
It is proof, as if more were needed, of how very right-on Birmingham Royal Ballet’s director David Bintley is, that he chose to open the International Dance Festival currently taking place in that city with two specially commissioned ballets... Read more... |
Drenge, Hare and Hounds, BirminghamThursday, 20 February 2014
Drenge certainly pull in a diverse crowd to their shows these days. Prior to the band coming on stage for this sell-out gig, there was a group of 40-somethings in fairly new-looking leather jackets to my left, talking about Tom Watson MP (who... Read more... |
Suzanne Vega, Town Hall, BirminghamTuesday, 04 February 2014
Suzanne Vega clearly likes her new album, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles. Either that or she’s got this promotional lark down to a fine art. Tonight we were treated to seven of its ten tracks, which is not something you might expect... Read more... |
Depeche Mode, LG Arena, BirminghamTuesday, 28 January 2014
Once upon a time, there was an assumption that the DJs and remixers who emerged in the late 1980s would kill off touring bands like Depeche Mode. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth and 34 years since they first got together,... Read more... |
Benefits Street, Channel 4Tuesday, 14 January 2014
A week ago the first episode of Benefits Street crashlanded on Channel 4. It visited the eponymous area of Birmingham where most residents are on some form of social security. Housing benefit, child benefit, disability benefit: you name it, they... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Love, Poetry and RevolutionSunday, 05 January 2014
Various Artists: Love, Poetry and RevolutionThe subtitle “A Journey Through the British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes” – with “A” as the operative word – suggests this box set isn’t going to tell a familiar story. Most of the bands were... Read more... |
Simple Minds and Ultravox, NIA, BirminghamSaturday, 30 November 2013
Age can do interesting things to musicians who have once been regular fixtures in the media and who reappear in the public consciousness some years later. Time, it has to be said, has been kind to the two remaining members of Simple Minds’ original... Read more... |
Scenes in the City, CBSO Centre, BirminghamSunday, 10 November 2013
This year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of two landmark albums, both of which were composed and recorded by bassist, pianist and all-round jazz colossus, Charles Mingus. Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus is a reimagining of some of Mingus’s... Read more... |
Rudimental, O2 Academy, BirminghamSaturday, 19 October 2013
Without doubt, 2013 has been the year of Rudimental on Planet Pop: a second number one single with “Waiting All Night”; a number one debut album with Home, hugely successful festival appearances, and plenty of TV coverage. It’s no wonder that the... Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, BBC TwoFriday, 13 September 2013
Much hype has been whipped up around this tale of a gang of thuggish, racketeering bookies in Birmingham just after World War One. It's a pretty good cast, with Helen McCrory's Aunt Polly laying down the law within the criminal Shelby family,... Read more... |
