At a gig like this it’s easy to be sidetracked into watching the audience rather than the band. Firstly because you want to know what the audience is for a singer-songwriter whose first hit (“Doctor My Eyes” in America) was in 1972. Secondly, you want to know if any celebrities have turned up (I saw one of the cast of “The Green Wing”). The bulk of the audience was made up of the expected forty to fifty-five age group but with a surprisingly high proportion of teens and twenties who weren’t with their parents (I even saw some on the Central Line after the gig).

Jackson Browne’s latest tour, the first in the UK for many years with a band, is in support of his latest album “Time the Conqueror” which was released last year. It’s always a difficult proposition for an artist with nearly forty years of back catalogue to introduce new material in their live set, but the obvious way of doing this is to play for two and a half hours without a support act. The mid-set interval is almost a necessity for the majority of the audience (when the Eagles played Twickenham, the queue for the toilets was longer than the queue for the bar) but I’d love to know what the musicians do in those 20 minutes. Read more

Last Friday the hugely successful U2 played a (mildly) secret gig outside Broadcasting House in Central London. Despite being secret the short session was watched by ….. fans, some of whom had been waiting around for hours beforehand waiting for a glimpse of their heroes.

Here is some footage from the gig. The next two parts are access by clicking the “read the rest of this entry” link.

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Gary Go is confirmed to support Take That on their record breaking UK tour playing to over a million people including the venue at the end of road that he grew up – Wembley Stadium.

It has to be the most enviable support slot a new artist or band could ever dream of…  To play live in front of over a million people in the space of a month, at venues like Wembley Stadium and Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. This is about to become a reality for 24-year-old Wembley raised singer-songwriter Gary Go who has been confirmed to do just that when he joins Take That on their entire record breaking UK summer stadium tour.

It’s even crazier for Gary Go seeing that he grew up in Wembley on the road that leads to the Stadium and spent many a day with the window open hearing the huge roars from various concerts or football matches. Now he’ll be watched and heard by 72,000 people a night for four nights at the very same place. Read more

MusicRiot favourites and early “MusicRiot Presents.. ” podcast featured band Flamboyant Bella are continuing their inevitable journey to the big time with a headline gig at London’s Islington Academy.

The gig on 19th February is being helped to be promoted by FB’s fanbase who are able to get free tickets by demonstrating how they have spread the word about the gig.

Check out Flamboyant Bella’s website for full details, or just get some tickets to the gig.