the GIG
l a dy h aw k e @ O2 shepherd’s bush empire Ladyhawke: blinding
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Grimes: not actually grimey
GRIMES @ BERKELEY SUI T E , GLASGOW
Beneath a mirror ball hangs Ladyhawke’s huge new logo – a Top Gun style graphic hawk glinting silver. Below, the Kiwi pop-dance sensation sits centre stage, her long, blonde hair flowing from her head, her mic stand wound in fairy lights. Shy and understated, even nervous (perhaps because her mum is in the audience tonight), the guitarist enters into first album hit ‘Back Of The Van’ before rolling through some equally catchy new numbers from her brand new ‘Anxiety’ LP. Throughout the show, as beaming lights flood the ceiling and smoke swirls about her live band, tunes like ‘Sunday Drive’ and ‘Vaccine’ continue where her self-titled debut left off, igniting the crowd’s appreciation. This erupts into bedlam for classic jams ‘Magic’ and finale ‘My Delirium’, as a swathe of light bulbs flash the words LADY and HAWKE behind her. An outage of the house speakers before the end inspires a ‘show must go on’ singalong from both band and crowd, a goosebump moment that’s sure to make Mummyhawke proud. Phil Dudman
h a p p y m o n day s @ o 2 ac a d e m y, birmingham
DREAM CATCHER
Grimes delivers a spellbinding show Grimes – grime not included. Indeed, 24-year-old Canadian Claire Boucher’s music has nothing to do with Dizzee Rascal, East London or pirate radio. It’s the polar opposite of the grime genre’s macho swagger, offering rich, textured, girly dream-pop which has won Boucher comparisons with The Knife and Fever Ray. It has also seen her recent breakthrough album ‘Visions’ hailed as one of the year’s best so far. Tonight, Glasgow’s Berkeley Suite is the perfect venue to hear Boucher’s otherworldly futurist sounds. Its interior features an unsignposted doorway that overlooks the rushing
LIVE BITES Somerset House kicks off its Summer Series with performances from Katy B (July 8) and M83 (July 16) … Chase and Status
[[1L]] july 2012
will play the Eden Project on July 4 with Plan B and pop punk royalty Blink 182 also set to play ... Madonna brings her M.D.N.A
traffic of the M8 motorway, plus a striking art deco basement bar (like something out of The Shining) crammed with the ghosts of a hundred hipsters. The living are out in force too, with Boucher, the lone hostess, near invisible through a horizon of dark silhouettes and nodding heads. Glimpses in a long mirror behind the bar reveal flashes of a zebra print arm hitting switches and dials or a pink and blonde haired head looping and hollering her way through ‘Vanessa’, its tripping beat and synthesised vocals so box fresh you can hear the bubble-wrap pop. At odds with the supreme confidence of ‘Oblivion’ and its hypnotic Heaven 17
Plan B
tour to Hyde Park (July 17) after Barclaycard Wireless Festival takes over with performances from Drake and Rihanna on July
synth clank, for example, Boucher gives a running commentary that’s nervous and almost apologetic, asking for louder keys here or increased volume in her monitors, “so I can get a bit more, like, energy on stage.” She needn’t worry: in just 45 minutes her set transports us to a dreamscape, somewhere between Chicago and Tokyo, with a sublime new number sounding like an oriental electroclash serenade and the gorgeous ‘Genesis’ playing like Madonna through water. Ultimately, she tells us she’s got no more songs and stops abruptly, but not before pointing toward the future of pop. David Pollock
7 … Promoting their new album ‘A Joyful Noise’, The Gossip are will play Shepherd’s Bush on July 5 before dizzy rappers Foreign Beggars perform at the Mau5trap Warehouse Party at the Great Suffolk St.
Warehouse July 7 ... Finally Madchester legends The Stone Roses will be finishing off their three date takeover at Manchester’s Heaton Park (July 1) with more dates rumoured throughout the month.
Happy Mondays: Mad as ever A rabble of intoxicated Brummies impatiently jostle for position at the front of the overflowing O2 Academy when a thick Manchester accent sparks the entire place into eruption. “To all the Birmingham rudeboys and rudegirls,” booms Shaun Ryder as he swaggers out, cool as you like, dressed in black and sporting a pair of Rayban Clubmasters for ultimate effect. Surrounded for the first time since 1992 by the original Happy Mondays line-up, Ryder introduces a beaming, wide-eyed Bez to hants and applause just as Rowetta breaks into her luscious soulful wails on the iconic ‘Step On’. Taking brief intervals between tracks to engage with the crowd of young and old (but mostly old), Ryder sweeps and grooves around the stage, mimicking Bez’s trademark moves which are collectively imitated by the ocean of bodies that flex like tripped-out zombies.Surfing through a catalogue of classics, the acid house legends perfectly recapture the spirit of Madchester, bringing it alive once more for an elated audience. Mike Roberts
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gemma burke, barney khan
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