New Dulli

Tonight I was supposed to be seeing Greg Dulli live but with the lockdown due to Covid-19 understandably everything is cancelled. Who knows when we'll all be able to go to a concert again and write about it here but it's a sacrifice I'm more than happy to make to ensure we all remain safe. In the meantime I'll be listening to Dulli's excellent new solo album Random Desire, and watching his brilliant video homage to Bob Fosse (I watched Fosse/Verdon TV series too, Greg) made for the fantastic track, Pantomima.

My Favourite Albums Of 2011

Best gigs of 2011

Looking back at my list of gigs for this year I feel more uncool than ever because so few would ever grace the pages of NME and a good many are actually in their 50s and 60s. Not that I care anymore because I can say without doubt it's an honour to see some of the legends I've had the pleasure of seeing for the first time this year. Plus I got to see a few exciting up-and-comers too, so I'm not completely without hope in the cool stakes! Anyway, here's my annual list of my 10 favourite gigs of the year.

10. Janis Ian at Cadogan Hall and Judy Collins at Leicester Square Theatre

(Sorry, I can't decide between these two!)

9. Emmylou Harris at the Royal Festival Hall

8. Laura Cantrell at Mondo Water Rats

7. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at Hammersmith Apollo

6. The Twilight Singers at Concrete

5. My Brightest Diamond at St Giles In The Field

4. Jonathan Wilson, Dawes & Jackson Browne at The Borderline

3. Marianne Faithfull at the Barbican

2. Patti Smith at St Giles In The Field

1. Sufjan Stevens at the Royal Festival Hall

The Twilight Singers in London

The Twilight Singers

Concrete, 16 March 2011

The Twilight Singers

The Bookhouse Boys

Alice Gold

Electric Ballroom, 18 March 2011

You know it's funny, until Greg Dulli mentioned on stage that this was the first time the band had played live in five years, I hadn't even realised that it had been so long since The Twilight Singers last toured. I guess between all the shows with The Gutter Twins and Mark Lanegan I had still been getting my Greg Dulli live fix. But still, while it's undoubtedly the Dulli show, there is something special that happens when Greg gets together with the rest of the Twilights. Lucky us then that London got not just one, but two shows, to kick off their comeback tour in support of the fantastic new record Dynamite Steps.

The Twilight Singers at Concrete

I luckily won tickets through a competition on Q Magazine's website to see The Twilight Singers at a tiny exclusive gig at Concrete, a small venue in the basement of Pizza East in Shoreditch. Needless to say it was incredible and Greg Dulli was in top form. I'm going to see the band again tomorrow night at Camden's Electric Ballroom so I'll post more about both gigs in full then. In the meantime, here's a phone pic of the debonair Mr Dulli. We were right at the front as you can tell and were even thrown his drumstick (as the last song he performed behind the drums) at the end of the show. It's funny how stuff like that makes you feel like a giddy, music-loving teenager again, so thank you Mr Dulli, thank you.

Albums of the decade

My favourite albums of the past decade. This has been a really hard task, much harder than I imagined. I've left out some really great albums that I've really enjoyed and loved but after a lot of consideration I think that this is the music that has meant the most to me over the past 10 years.

1. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2. Mark Olson - The Salvation Blues
3. Midlake - The Trials Of Van Occupanther
4. Fleetwood Mac - Say You Will
5. The Twilight Singers - Twilight As Played By The Twilight Singers
6. Neko Case - Blacklisted
7. Lindsey Buckingham - Under The Skin
8. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
9. Joanna Newsom - Ys
10. At The Drive-in - Relationship Of Command
11. Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co.
12. Cat Power - The Greatest
13. Neil Young - Prairie Wind
14. Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
15. Rufus Wainwright - Want One
16. The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium
17. PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
18. Stevie Nicks - Trouble In Shangri-La
19. Neil Diamond - 12 Songs
20. Hawksley Workman - (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves
21. Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday
22. Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
23. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cold Roses
24. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
25. The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cotton Teeth