DJ Pete Rock and CL Smooth from Mount Vernon, New York, graced the seafront of Brighton with their 25th anniversary tour of All Souled Out, their début album from 1991. As with many musical duos, the pair were confronted with creative issues in 1995 and for 15 years it…
Psychedelia is a broad concept that can fit neatly into each artistic form. When done well, it has the potential to create a temporary perceptual distortion and expand the consciousness of the audience, leaving them to enjoy the work on a heightened level. The problem with this exuberant definition…
It’s hard to imagine how Daniel Norgren would approach a live concert, when you know of his far from typical recording habits: he’s well known to dislike most high-tech production techniques, insisting on using stripped-back and outmoded equipment. Often he goes so far as building his own instruments. How…
Friday night brought an amazing opportunity to the centre of Brighton – reggae legend Toots Hibbert, lead singer of The Maytals, was bringing his reunion tour to town after a three years absence from the stage. Toots had suffered a severe head injury when an audience member lobbed a…
Brighton and the surrounding area has been bedevilled by the lack of a successful music festival since Stanmer Park’s Essential Festival folded its wings back in the early 2000s. Beachdown, Meadowlands, Loop et al never made it far, and many others couldn't get past the planning stages, let alone…
The Great Escape Festival was great, no doubt about that. But one of my main regrets of the mammoth three days of music was missing Mothers. Whenever I spoke to fellow music lovers at the festival, time after time it would be, “Have you heard this American band called…
Once a household name, Finley Quaye can still draw a crowd, enough even to fill the room for the support act. It was as if none of his doting supporters wanted to miss a single second of the old chart topper’s acoustic set. The question of whether this tour…
As the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon the Neon Saints Brass Band took to the outside stage at the Fortune of War. This ten-piece marching band have the songs and attitude to win over any audience. Luckily the majority of those in the packed seating area were there…
Almost more than any other genre or sub-genre, hardcore punk is music made by kids, for kids. Which is what makes it slightly strange seeing a band called The Adolescents still going. All of them middle aged and out of shape, with multiple Adolescent-branded fans placed strategically around the…
Wilderness, set in the beautiful Oxfordshire hills just outside Charlbury, is renowned as the most middle class music festival you can find. With glamping tents stretching as far as the eye can see and feasting tents emblazoned with the likes of Hix, Petersham Nurseries and Raymond Blanc, it…