Young and old wait in the shadows for the outsiders. Excited and unsure about what to expect from these strangers, from this contemporary dance troupe from the other side of the world, the other side of governance…
The performance starts in enmeshed innocence, dancer wrapped around dancer, cheek to cheek, limb to limb, ebbing and flowing into one another. Behind these demonstrations of closeness sits a man alone in a chair. Far away from…
Silence, with its lack of apparent weightiness, is often the hiding place for what we don’t want to acknowledge….
Crow are back: they’ve negotiated their crossroads and brought to Arcane the mysterious and intimate musical and lyrical style suggested by the album’s title…
Bodies twirling through the air, gravity defying leaps and rod straight limbs in perfect turns: the Shaolin monks have come to town…
Performers return to the air again and again, supported and not, filling the spaces above their audiences heads. There’s nudity. Rope. Spinning. Roller-skates. Blindfolds…
Is knitting French? The first glimpses of the Goodwill a la Paris show a portaloo covered in crochet and various other styles of weaved wool…
Taking the time out seems to have done Black Label Society a lot of good – the album is blow-your-speakers-out fantastic. A wah and soloing infused ‘Crazy Horse’ has BLS banging out a blistering introduction to Order of the Black…
Rocking great guitar riffs fill the sold out venue, slow notes trembling across the grey walls of a ruined cathedral set, preparing the audience to receive the voice of Tod Strike…
The more you listen, the more you like it until it becomes addictive…
This was the stand out track, a mountain of sound, a blistering explosion that would crack apart even five star cell walls…
‘Rabbit Hole’ is one of the best compositions on the album. It maintains a strong beat throughout and pumps out a fullness of sound not achieved elsewhere…
Waters performing Brel was mind expanding. Experiencing songs without the burden of lyrics but with a poetic description of the intent was a unique experience which allowed both the beauty of the tales and panache and verve of the music to be appreciated separately.
The dancing was the real star of Fame, the energetic performers conveying best the buzz of being young and having hopes and dreams. At the end of the show, that energy stays with you, and it’s carrying that feeling out of the theatre which will make post millennial viewers happy they went along.
Beard of Bees is Jez Mead’s fourth recorded offering to the world, and a record that uses his vocal gift to deliver a striking set of songs…