Graham Nash at the Union Chapel

Graham Nash
Union Chapel, 24 May 2016

First, this show had to have had the longest line I've ever seen at the Union Chapel before, stretching all the way back past the houses beside the old church. I guess that's what you get when you have a legend of Graham Nash's stature playing a relatively small venue for his first solo jaunt in the UK in years (in fact I'm not even sure he has toured solo here before). Secondly, the majority of the audience were of an older vintage, which I loved, it's nice to feel you are one of the young ones at a concert for once.

Goodbye Guy Clark

Yet another great gone far too soon but at the very least he and his beloved wife Susanna, who died back in 2012 and inspired his beautiful and final album, My Favorite Picture Of You, are together again, and of course his dear friend the late great Townes Van Zandt. Rest in peace dear Guy.

Bat For Lashes at the Union Chapel

Embed from Getty Images

Bat For Lashes
Union Chapel, 16 May 2016

This was a no phones show so I wasn't able to capture Natasha Khan in her striking scarlet bride attire (thankfully Getty's embed feature has come in handy here to give you a taste) but believe me she looked like an amazing cross between Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice, a Hammer Horror bride and Kate Bush in that early Wuthering Heights video. All of this was due to the fact that Bat For Lashes forthcoming new LP is a concept album called The Bride, telling the story of a woman whose husband-to-be dies on the day of their wedding, and these few preview shows - all held in churches - gave us the chance to hear the story performed in a beautifully atmospheric and evocative setting.

Lush at the Roundhouse

Lush

Pixx

Roundhouse, 6 May 2016

For some reason I never listened to Lush back in the good old 90s and only really discovered their music about ten years ago. But even though I stupidly ignored their music, just the image of Lush, especially that of Miki Berenyi's postbox red hair and Emma Anderson's cute black bob (it's all about the hair for me obviously), brings back waves of nostalgia, probably because they were ever-present in the pages of my favourite music paper back then, Melody Maker.