Moth club

Incredibly his new songs were the best songs: Lindsey Buckingham, at the London Palladium, reviewed

Lindsey Buckingham, at 72, still has cheekbones that cast shadows. He has the upright shock of hair, too, though now it makes him look less like the kohl-eyed pop god of 1980 and more like Malcolm Gladwell’s cooler, angrier brother. He still has fire, too. A couple of solo renditions of Fleetwood Mac songs won the crowd over, but it was the following run of three numbers from his newest album, played with his three-piece band, that put the spark to the show. It proved he’s not yet a heritage act. He had no choice, really, but to forge ahead. In 2018, he was booted out of Fleetwood Mac, for

A terrible joke gone wonderfully right: Rick Astley and Blossoms Perform the Smiths reviewed

Many of us who grew up loving the Smiths have rather shelved that affection in recent years. Many of us, being lily-livered liberals, have rather taken against Morrissey’s politics and his public support for the far-right For Britain party. Even those inclined to agree with him might have tired of his unrelenting self-pity and his inability to say anything nice about anyone, ever. Yes, we’ve still got lovely Johnny Marr playing the songs in his solo shows, but with the greatest goodwill in the world — and Marr gets granted the greatest goodwill in the world by being such an obviously decent fella — he’s no one’s idea of a

The joys of musical comfort food

I’ve given up comfort food. I’m trying to shift lockdown pounds that have left me with the physique of the kind of ageing second-string wrestler you used to see on World of Sport early on a Saturday afternoon in the 1980s. It’s all eschewing oils and measuring portions round these parts, and so I have been seeking my comforts in music. Enough with your Lithuanian drone and your polyrhythmic technical metal from Indonesia! Bring me verses and choruses and melodies and vocal harmonies! Katy J. Pearson — a young woman from the West Country who perhaps wishes she were, instead, from the American west coast — was true comfort food.