Bit late putting this up, but I think it’s worth preserving my Hollies review on this blog. A slightly extended take on April 25th’s show, originally for the Nottingham Post, whose Kevin Cooper took the photo above. Manchester’s Hollies are in their fifty-sixth year. They formed in 1962, around the same time Ringo Starr joined The Beatles. OK, their Paul (Graham Nash) left in 1968 (wonder what happened to him?), and their John (Allan Clarke) retired 18 years ago. But they still have two, very recognisable original members, drummer Bobby Elliott with Tony Hicks on lead guitar and backing vocals. They still have a catalogue of great pop songs most modern groups would kill for. And they still pack the Concert Hall. I first heard…
I wrote the following for my MA students’ annual anthology, ‘Bystanders’, last year, inspired by its title, but got the ending wrong. I only remembered what I’d forgotten to include, which told me how it needed to end, the one time I read out the piece, at the anthology launch. Good example of why I always tell students the best way to work out what’s wrong with a piece is to read it aloud. THE WIRRAL LINE: 1973 Aged fifteen, I spend a lot of my Saturdays in Liverpool, mostly in record shops. Usually Probe, on Clarence Street. I sometimes stop by the store that used to be Brian Epstein’s NEMS, on Great Charlotte Street. Often Hairy Records on Bold Street. Always Virgin Records, also…
I have a confession to make. Even though, after Hamlet, it’s probably my favourite Shakespeare play, I’d never seen Julius Caesar on the stage before last weekend. I studied it for A level. Large parts of it have stuck with me, not least because A levels coincided with my political awakening (I briefly joined the Young Liberals, who, in my neck of the woods, were a small cabal of anarchists. I also got involved in the referendum to join the EU). So why did I miss it? Well, I went to a working class comprehensive that never organised theatre trips (though we did have one daytrip to London, where I bought my first Nick Drake LP, and they put on a Gilbert and Sullivan every…
Franz Ferdinand visited Nottingham seven times in their first three years, building up to a 2005 show at the arena. Since then, two albums, but no gigs. A fine joint album with Sparks recently rejuvenated both bands. Sparks were magnificent here last summer and hopes are high for tonight’s FF return. Fifth album Always Ascending takes the familiar template (influenced by XTC, Wire and even a little Talking Heads) with less of the pop/disco elements which left some of their audience behind. It only came out on Friday, so the busy crowd don’t know opener Paper Cages, which singer Alex Kapranos introduces with a balloon heart. In the old days, Kapranos was a cool front man and the band exuded angular, sardonic wit. These days,…
Serendipity is, I think, one of the keys to a happy reading life. If you only read in a strict order: books by friends, books that you feel you have* to read, books by authors you always read**, there’s no room for happy accidents, or borrowed books that someone shoves in your hand, or, indeed, rereading. We had a long trip planned, with multiple flights and train journeys. With that in mind, I had both Tim Shipman’s big Brexit Book*, Country Overboard (or whatever it’s called – too depressing, anyway) and Paul Auster’s** off-puttingly long and trite-sounding 4-3-2-1 on Kindle. Neither got started. On the other hand, the day before we left for Japan, I found two disposable looking third hand books in the charity…