If live music is your drug... Gig Junkies is your blog! Our aim is to bring superb coverage of live music events, with brilliant write ups accompanied by stunning photography.
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An evening with Dimmu Borgir, and what an evening it was! The Norwegian symphonic black metal band, graced England for their nationwide tour, which is a rare occasion indeed for this band. The tour marked a rare opportunity to hear their album in its entirety, live 14 years after the release and it was one that neither I, or the rest of the fans tightly packed into the Academy 2 (Birmingham) wanted to miss. Nosiree!
2 Notes
Predictably this gig was so sold out that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Lana herself hadn’t got in. Simply the hottest ticket in town.
Words by Daron Billings
Photos by Wayne Fox
50 Notes
You wait years for legendary post punk bands to come along and then two play the same venue in the space of a week. Yep, hot on the heels of Magazine this week’s heroes of the post punk scene are Wire, arguably even more influential than Devoto and co. First up though relative newcomers Brooklyn no wavers Wire. Drummer Andrya Ambro and bassist Sarah Register have been tickling the sweet spots of hipsters for a couple of years now with their raw as an open wound sound and primal skin pounding. Tonight was no exception with tracks crashing into each other to form one continuous thump round the ears. Quite how they keep up the furious momentum without bursting into flames is a mystery. Some years ago the venerable Kaiser Chiefs predicted a riot…this is what it would sound like.
Words by Daron Billings
Photos by Wayne Fox
1 Notes
There are beards and there are beards. Opening act tonight, Aaron Jonah Lewis has a BEARD. Big, bushy and possibly home to a family of travellers it’s the kind of beard that threatens to take over a room. If the music thing don’t work out this dude’s a shoe in for one of those Father Christmas jobs one day. Ignoring the beard for a moment, as if you could, wow…just wow…our Aaron’s a bundle of banjo and fiddle based loveliness, playing the sort of stuff that no doubt floored the crowds back in the 1900’s. Fast forward 100 years and it’s still a powerful force. There’s something magical about banjo and fiddles, don’t ask me what, perhaps it’s just that joyful hit of sound that makes you want to jig around like you’re auditioning for Riverdance?
Words by Daron Billings
Photos by Wayne Fox
1 Notes
We’re lucky fellows at Gig Junkies. We got to photograph the incredible Red Hot Chili Peppers in Sheffield at the Motorpoint Arena. We hope you enjoy the photos and would love to hear what you thought of the shows. Click here to get in touch and we’ll post the best ones, right here alongside the photos…
Photos by Carl Fleischer
1 Notes
Tonight’s review is brought to you by the words ‘texture’ and ‘soundscape’. Everytime I mention one of these words you’re heartily encouraged to down a shot of Absinthe. TEXTURE! SOUNDSCAPE! TEXTURETEXTURETEXTURETEXTURE! There, now isn’t that better, blurrier I bet, but better.
Words by Daron Billings
Photos by Wayne Fox
There was no doubting Bon Iver’s popularity at tonight’s sold-out event, with the long queues to get in and the fantastic applause for his performance.
A strong support slot was provided by Canadian singer-songwriter, Kathleen Edwards. To Kathleen’s embarrassment, the most memorable aspect of the night was when she completely forgot the words to the second song! However, she was very honest about it and after several hilarious moments, she got back into the song. This really got the audience on her side and disaster tuned to triumph. She has a lovely clear voice and is a good musician, including playing a great instrumental passage with her violin. She was accompanied by two guitarists for most of the show, but was joined on stage by members of Bon Iver’s band for the final number, a cover of Neil Young’s ‘From Hank to Hendrix’. As a big Neil fan, I know this number well, and the interpretation was rather too slow for my liking, and the tune kind-of went into limbo.
Photos and Review by John Bentley
One of the original, and hugely influential, post-punk bands Magazine split up in 1981 after an all too brief four year career only to return nearly three decades later. Now that’s a decent break up eh? That’s how you do it Stone Roses…15 years…pah…that’s barely an intermission. During their initial incarnation Magazine cemented their place in post-punk history with the truly seminal single Shot By Both Sides and a handful of critically acclaimed left field albums before vocalist and ex Buzzcock Howard Devoto buggered off to pursue a solo career then form another band, Luxuria in 1988. There, that’s got to be worth a few points at a pop pub quiz one day eh? Here endeth the lesson.
Words by Daron Billings
Photos by Wayne Fox
This time last year we reviewed and photographed The Black Keys’ superb gig at Rock City in Nottingham…
In a situation resembling that of the Amy Macdonald gig a week earlier, where I knew absolutely nothing about the artist, I had a similar dilemma with The Black Keys. This time however it was at the other end of the spectrum - I’d seen the duo from Akron Ohio, more times than you can shake a stick at! Reason being…. I love em! The fact that they are a two piece with so much more raw power than most four and five piece bands have, gets me every time. Dan with his growling vocal - akin to a young Paul Rogers together with his snarling guitar lines, ably complimented by Pat on the marauding drums is right up my strata. I make no bones about it. I love, love, love em.
Consequently it’s pretty hard to give a balanced, entirely objective view. By the powers vested in me as a professional journo however, by golly I’d try!
Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s simple songs, to gentle refrains that sooth the heart and caress the soul within a spirit of gregarious generosity, are irresistible. Inclusive, subtly persuasive, he’s the redemptive broken-heart mending surgeon of love’s resuscitation - a troubadour dream-weaving balladeer.
Gig Review by John Kennedy
Gig Photos by Ian Dunn
