Live Reviews

• Old Time Relijun & Charlottefield (Brighton)

  Charlottefield are rapidly becoming one of the best bands in Brighton, and their blend of post-hardcore and distorted indie-rock is sure to see them making waves across this fair country's indie-rock bastions, but tonight’s real delight is the headliners.

   
• Sebadoh (Brighton)

  In a world of styled and preened indie bands, Sebadoh stand out. Tonight’s lesson in punk rock marked a welcome return for one of alternative music’s pioneers.

   
• Frank Turner & Chris TT (Brighton)

  Proper political acts are few and far between these days. Idiot bandwagon jumping and U2-style posturing is more the order of the day (how many bands at Live 8 actually offset the carbon emissions it took to perform?), so it’s refreshing to see tonight’s excellent line-up of angry young men genuinely prepared to do something for what they believe in.

   
• Yoav (Brighton)

  The sparse turnout at tonight’s show belies the quality of Israel-born, Cape Town-raised singer-songwriter Yoav’s performance. A beguiling blend of confessional acoustic balladry, euphoric dance beats and Middle-Eastern atmospherics, Yoav himself comes across as somewhere between Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton.

   
• Mystery Jets (London)

  Mystery Jets have always felt like one of those bands that existed only ever in the background of the music scene. Never going to shock or change the world, their music has always been quite harmless and to be quite honest, sometimes, a little dull.

   
• Alec Empire (Camden)

  The last time former Atari Teenage Riot man Alec Empire brought his digital hardcore roadshow to the UK was in 2005, and a lot’s changed since. He’s still got sampler / keyboard / general bleepy noise-maker Nic Endo in tow, along with his trademark anti-authority bile, but that’s about all that remains of the old Empire live show with new band, The Hellish Vortex.

   
• Cut Copy (Brighton)

  Two words: Nathan and Barley. Gig going, in Brighton particularly, hasn’t been the same since Chris Morris’ hilarious TV send-up of everything at the more fashionable end of ‘alternative’ culture mercilessly lampooned the mullet-haired, stupid-hatted buffoons polluting the country’s nightlife.

   
• Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly (Brighton)

  Despite her beautiful lilting vocals, support act Emmy The Great's shy demeanour failed to gain the crowd's full attention and one punter even harshly edited the stage times' poster to rename her Emmy The "Quite Dull". Maybe she didn't have the right haircut.

   
• Yoav (Brighton)

  There is no mistaking Yoav when he takes to the stage. His bare feet and their alarmingly dextrous relationship with the concise array of effects pedals just in front of him, and his approach to the acoustic guitar, as much percussive as tonal instrument, ensures that we can’t really be watching anyone else in this small but well-populated function room above a pub in Brighton.

   
• Interpol (London)

  New York City’s Interpol are the rarest of things - a band that stands to lose, rather than gain, impact from their live performance. You could almost say that their carefully structured brand of propulsive post-punk has already found its spiritual home on the bass-boosted bedroom stereos of the introspective.

   

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