LISTEN: Jack Savoretti - 'Cry Me A River' (plus HMV gig announcement!)

You wait months for a Jack Savoretti show and then two come along at once... I've had my ticket to see Jack headline the massive Hammersmith Apollo on 9th November for months now, and he recently announced a set at HMV Oxford St to play tracks from his new record Sleep No More and sign copies of the album! The show should be pretty special for me as, back in February last year, its where I first saw Jack play and met him when he was launching his last album Written In Scars - who knew how successful that was going to be?! Jack was on Dermot O'Leary's BBC Radio 2 show at the weekend, performing his new single When We Were Lovers and a cover of JT's Cry Me a River as he was going to be a guest on the show - can't get enough of the cover! Listen below or click here for the full feature on the show. 

The show at HMV Oxford St is a week on Tuesday (25th) and you can secure your spot by pre-ordering a CD here. You can also catch Jack on his UK tour, kicking off at the start of November in Leeds!

LISTEN: King Charles - 'Find A Way'

In the midst of a run of probably too many shows (is there such a thing?) to be good for a university student with lots of work to do, King Charles has released a new track, just another beautiful distraction among many! I'm finally taking a chance to properly listen to it, and really digging it's upbeat vibe and the lyrics, a huge strength of Charles' artistry (see Ivory Road....), and other fans seem to be really loving it too - a lovely unexpected surprise! 

Charles is currently off playing a solo tour in the US, supporting Allen Stone and playing a handful of headline shows, so if you happen to be over there, check the dates here.

LIVE: Four gigs in four days... 7th-10th October 2016

It feels odd to be sitting in for the evening procrastinating over dissertation work, following a run of four shows. The first was Friday evening's stunning Sofar Sounds Oxford living room show which I've already written up a little post about. On Saturday night, I ran the door for a Tigmus show, with Wille and the Bandits, who are in the middle of a UK tour, headlining. With a lot of sales in advance the show sold out on the door and although it was pretty crazy trying to keep on top of everything, it was a really rewarding experience and the guys were really lovely! 

On Sunday was a show I've been waiting months for, rock legends Biffy Clyro playing an acoustic show in Kingston. It was my first time seeing the band, and when tickets went on sale they were available in Banquet Records and an extra show was added (and sold online) due to demand... tickets sold out in under a minute, apparently, so I feel pretty lucky to have got a couple! The two shows had different setlists and while there's a couple of tracks they played in the later show that I wish I could've heard, mainly Howl from the latest record, I was really chuffed to hear one of my favourite tracks from Only Revolutions, God & Satan. It probably sounded closest to its recorded version compared to some of the other tracks, all stripped back to acoustic guitar, cajon, various shakers and bass.. and sounding beautiful! Don't just take my word for how special an evening it was... NME posted an article labelling the shows as 'unlike anything we've seen from them before'. 

Travelling back from London on Sunday evening, after a morning of a little work and a supermarket stock up, I hopped back on the coach to London yesterday afternoon to catch a free Bear's Den set I'd won tickets for through Amazon when their latest album was released a few months ago. The show was due to be in September and had been rescheduled, but it was absolutely worth the wait. Playing totally unplugged and without microphones, lead singer Andrew Davie described it as terrifying, but they had no reason to be worried, the audience, an intimate crowd of around fifty, and all those watching on the live stream, loved it. Hearing them in such a raw setting, from a metre or two in front of me, was beautiful. It was also lovely meeting up with a few friends (and making new friends) at the show, and chatting with the band after. The set was a lovely mixture of old and new tracks, including a cover of Bryan Adams' Heaven which they performed on a recent radio show and you can listen to below (it's seriously incredible!) If you'd like to watch the whole set (although they don't seem to have recorded a couple of songs at the start and one at the end of the set) you can watch back the livestream on their Facebook page.

Essentially I am having a blast with some truly amazing gigs at the minute... and after tomorrow night, I've got another stretch of four shows with two Tigmus shows, The Eskies on Thursday and Little Brother Eli on Friday, Oxjam Festival on Saturday and (if I'm not terribly behind on work by this point) All Tvvins on Sunday evening. 

LIVE: Sofar Sounds Oxford at Sarah's house (7/10/16)

Last night I went to another brilliant Sofar Sounds Oxford, hosted beautifully by Sarah in her lovely living room! This time around I didn't take my camera along (pretty distracting in such a tiny space... it was definitely my first gig sat on a fireplace), and I was instead in charge of social media... tweeting photos and posting to Facebook, as well as my first ever live videos. It was a lovely evening with great artists and a bunch of wonderful people, raising money for Oxfam through their Oxjam Festival (the main Oxjam Takeover in Oxford takes place on 15th October, tickets here for a huge number of bands playing venues up and down Cowley Road.) 

If you don't know the history of Sofar, it was set up by a couple of guys who were sick of going to gigs with the audience talking during the sets, going to the bar etc (I know the feeling), so they started to host shows in their living room and as more people came, it spread and is now in over 270 cities worldwide. In the majority of places, most shows are still in living rooms, however Oxford Sofar takes place in so many brilliant locations (art galleries, cinemas, cafes) so last night was my first proper Sofar house gig, which is pretty cool. 

The show last night kicked off with country brothers Loud Mountains, who are from the USA but now based in Oxford. It wasn't until after the show that I figured I'd seen them before supporting Neverlnd almost a year ago at the O2. Last night, rather ironically as they both played our Oxjam show a year ago, the duo reminded me of a mix of Adam Barnes and Chris Ayer. They play the proper Oxjam takeover a week today so you can catch them then, and check out this beautiful track She's A Fire, performed for the Green Chair Sessions.

Loud Mountains

Next up was another American artist, Meredith Baker, a singer-songwriter who studied her MSc in African Studies at Oxford University and who has played a few Sofar shows around the world, but not in Oxford, so it was a pretty special one for her. Her album Maybe I Won't Come Home Tonight features many of the tracks she played last night, including Reggae My Blues Away (video from another Sofar) which encouraged a big sing-along!

Meredith Baker

After Meredith, we were lucky to have Nigel Powell, AKA The Sad Song Co., who is a drummer for his day job, touring pretty relentlessly with Frank Turner. With a new album to promote, it was his first solo set in eight years, the opening night of a mini tour (including a free London show, details here), so we were very lucky! I hadn't listened to his music before but he had me at that name... we all love a sad song, right?! 

The Sad Song Co.

Finally, I was very happy to see The Fusion Project play for the first time, having missed their performance at another Sofar Oxford in Worcester Chapel  previously. Usually far stronger in numbers they played a fairly stripped back but impressive set, opening with their cover of one of my favourite tracks, Ed Sheeran's track for The Hobbit, I See Fire - which you can see in its full glory here! With the mission of taking "the immense depth and beauty of Indian Classical music to a wider audience in the West", they are headlining a huge show for Tigmus at The Sheldonian Theatre, the first night of its kind to take place in the venue, which is traditionally a venue for Western classical music. It's going to be a great night and tickets are available here - please come and join us! Also a little mention to Josh, who plays bass for the guys as well as Little Brother Eli, who are playing as part of our Tigmus season at the O2 Academy Oxford next Friday - it'd be great to see some of you there too!

The Fusion Project

All in all a brilliant show - the next Sofar Sounds Oxford show is free as part of a family fun day at the New Theatre on 15th October, with the next regular show on 4th November (I won't be there as I'm seeing Dawes that night but can guarantee you a great evening if you choose to go along!) 

LISTEN: Richard Walters - 'Where Were You?'

While I drastically try to get work done on my only evening in for a stretch of 7 nights (gigs for the next four days and I've been in London the last two evenings for a TV audience filming and Letter's Live) I'm getting slightly sidetracked finding music to listen to and something to share on my blog... as he's on tour with the lovely Stornoway guys at the moment (what a line-up, wish I could've made one of the shows) it feels fitting to share the new track from Oxford's Richard Walters.

The track, a slow-burner which totally shows off his beautiful vocals, is taken from his upcoming album A.M, released next Friday (14th). Looking forward to hearing tracks from the record (especially the wonderful U) at his  intimate Oxford show with Waylor in a couple of weeks time - just a handful of tickets left for that one, and they're also playing St Pancras Old Church in London a couple of days earlier. 

GIG NEWS: Sofar Sounds Oxford does Oxjam (7th October)

I'm looking forward to a really busy weekend (and month) of shows, all kicking off this Friday with a special Sofar Sounds Oxford at a secret venue (of course). The show is unique because its an Oxjam show, fundraising for Oxfam, and the show we did last year for the charity featured Adam Barnes, Chris Ayer, Hattie Briggs, Okina and Lail Arad, a line-up packed with talent, playing to a wonderful crowd in a primary school hall (amazing.) 

I've no idea what the line up will be this time around, but the element of surprise is what makes Sofar amazing, which is the same with the venue - but as our last show was in a cinema, you get the idea! Here's a couple of videos from our Oxjam show last year...

Tickets for the show (with all the money going to Oxfam!) are available here, please come and join us!

LISTEN: September 2016 playlist

I moved back to Oxford this month for my third and final year of university (quite scary) and I've already been to some cracking gigs... but October is looking particularly busy (we'll get to that when it happens!) Here's my playlist for the month, a snapshot of the music I've been listening to this month, whether live or otherwise - hope you enjoy!!

1. Dawes One Of Us - the most exciting thing to happen in music for me this month was that one of my favourite bands, Dawes, released their fifth studio album. We're All Gonna Die is the follow up to last year's All Your Favourite Bands, one of my favourite records of all time so this one had a lot to live up to and I haven't been disappointed. Feels only right to kick off the playlist with the opening track of the album!

2. Jack Savoretti When We Were Lovers - my favourite artists are the gift that keeps on giving, as this month another big favourite, Jack Savoretti, announced his new record Sleep No More which is set to be released on 28th October, and released the first single from the album which is an absolute corker. Less than a month to go, very excited to hear more of the album - you can also hear a lot of it debuted live on his upcoming UK tour.

3. Slate Hearts Take Me to the Green - in a busy first week back in Oxford I went to a few gigs, one of which was the fantastic Lucy Leave hometown headline to round off their debut UK tour. These guys were supporting and they're pretty exciting, love this track.

4. Fil Bo Riva Killer Queen - I was sent Fil Bo's track Like Eye Did last month and loved it, so was glad to hear that this month he's released another. The studio version is pretty cool but I'm also digging this live version, his voice is really something special.

5. Bastille Power - another of the gigs I went to this month was finally seeing Bastille in Kingston, where they played much of their new record Wild World, a lot for the very first time which was cool to see/hear. It's been a while coming since their hugely successful debut album back in 2013 but the new record is definitely worth the wait and has just seen two weeks at the top of the charts (and it's looking like it'll be a third week tomorrow!)

6. Bon Iver Minnesota, WI - a much older track than the rest, I've been in quite a classic Bon Iver mood this month after security a ticket to one of the upcoming London shows in February. I bought this record entirely on a whim a couple of years ago because I had just bought a record player and wanted more to listen to and I adore it from start to finish. 

7. homeplanetearth Find Me - these guys are a superb local Oxford band who have just toured the UK to celebrate their debut EP (which this track is taken from) including a huge show for Tigmus upstairs at the O2 Oxford which was the day before I moved back to town, very gutted to miss it!

8. Laurel Life Worth Living - a couple of days after moving back I attended my first Oxford Sofar Sounds in 6 months (absolutely crazy that it's been so long!), one of our acts was London based singer songwriter Laurel who had the crowd absolutely mesmerised. A beautiful stripped back set in the stunning venue, an independent cinema just up the road from me.

9. Tom Speight Falling - Tom was announced as support for Bastille the day before the show so I didn't get chance to check out any of his music before the show apart from a snippet of this track which went down pretty well on the night. The hardcore Bastille fans at the front were absolutely loving this guy who seemed pretty overwhelmed by all the loving, and by the fact he was using in-ear monitors for the first time. 

10. Twin Atlantic The Chaser - I finally grabbed a copy of the new Twin Atlantic record a couple of weeks ago and it's got everything you might expect of their records, including the brilliant first single No Sleep and this recent single.

11. Lucy Leave Fighter Pilot - as mentioned above I saw these guys play in Oxford this month, where I ran the door for the show (an absolute pleasure!) I've heard of them on the scene for a while now and been really keen to catch them live so glad that I finally got the opportunity to do so! 

12. Bon Iver 33 "GOD" - until it came to choosing a playlist for this month I hadn't actually given any of the new Bon Iver record (released today but I haven't had chance to listen fully yet!) a listen, but this track, which samples a bit of Paolo Nutini is quite cool, if a bit of a departure from the other track earlier in the playlist! Looking forward to taking more of a listen to the record and most importantly hearing it live in February!

13. Dawes Roll With The Punches - this is one of my my favourite tracks from the new Dawes record, which Taylor describes as a track which deals with separation not in a personal way, but looking at the consistencies in any separation/break-up, things that everyone can relate to. My enjoyment of the track is probably more in the sound than the deep meaning, but I definitely appreciate the songwriting which as always with Dawes is pretty clever!

14. Bastille Four Walls (The Ballad of Perry Smith) - another of my favourite tracks from the new record, very much a slower tune but still really catchy. As I write this I've just received an email saying my video of Bastille from the show last week has been taken down from Youtube and I've received a copyright strike - had to sit through "copyright school", the joys..

15. The Hoosiers Weirdo (Acoustic) - my first gig this month was my last gig of the Summer, The Hoosiers headlining the O2 in Islington. Though I've seen them over 10 times it was the first time seeing them play in London and was made even cooler by interviewing Irwin and Al before the show for some research I'm doing. Sadly it was Sam's last (sort of) gig with the guys and I love this track from their third album where he takes lead vocals, particular this version on an acoustic album!

TOUR NEWS: Dawes (!!!!!) November 2016

Some of the best news to wake up to is usually a tour announcement and today that came in the form of Dawes... I've been raring to see them live again since I caught them in the intimate Oslo Hackney last August, and they've just announced a tiny run of UK shows to celebrate the launch of their new record, We're All Gonna Die.  

I finally grabbed a copy of the new record at the weekend when I took my first trip to Oxford's new Fopp (simultaneously the best and worst thing that could've opened in town...) and after a few listens I'm totally adoring it. Yes, it's different to the previous record which I totally love and without a shadow of a doubt place in my top 3 albums of all time, but difference isn't always a bad thing and the record is great! I'm really excited to grab a ticket and hear the new tracks performed live. 

Dawes play Glasgow's King Tuts on 2nd November, Manchester's RNCM Concert Hall on the 3rd and finish up in London's Islington Assembly Hall on the 4th. Tickets are available at 9am on Friday here.

LIVE: My week in gigs... Khamsina, Sofar Sounds, Bastille and Lucy Leave (Sep 2016)

I moved back to uni a week ago today and I've already managed a stretch of four gigs in 6 days. First up on Sunday was a Tigmus show, with local band Khamsina launching their album Everything I Am. I hadn't listened to them before the show but was pretty impressed and it was a lovely evening of folk music to ease myself back into the local scene! I took photos on the evening, a few of which are on the blog Facebook page!

Next up on Tuesday evening was my first Sofar Sounds Oxford since March - I can't believe quite how it's been so long but it's always lovely to see the crew, a really nice bunch of people! When I got the email saying where the show would be (as they're secret venues, announced a couple of days before) I could've cried out with joy as it was in the local independent cinema up the road from me. A gig in a cinema! Definitely as cool as it sounds... 

As we were squeezed in after the early evening film, we had less bands than normal, as there can sometimes be up to five acts, but the three that played, though very different in terms of genre, were received incredibly well. First up was Laurel, an acoustic singer-songwriter originally from Southampton and now based in London. She's got almost twenty thousand likes on Facebook so is clearly doing something right and we were lucky to catch her in this intimate environment. Next up were electro-visual duo Enno and Shalti who made use of the cinema screen, showing visuals alongside their set (which I think they were producing at the time using a programme they'd created.... I can't say I understand in the slightest but it was cool!) Last up were local band The Shapes, a 7-piece band who were glad to be asked to play as they reckon it's hard to get gigs if you're not an 18 year-old hipster. They might have a point. Photos from that night are up on the page here.

On Thursday night I ventured a little further to Kingston, to catch the Bastille album launch show, with Tom Speight supporting. I've been wanting to catch them live for a while and, travel stress aside (don't get me started... who's idea is it to finish shows at half 11 when we're a half hour train out of central London?!), it was a brilliant night! I went along with a friend who lives locally who'd mentioned she'd love to go to another show there so it was a great opportunity when I noticed the ticket and CD bundles on sale. As it was a show for the new album (which just got its second week at number one... no big deal) Dan was quick to say that they'd be trying to play as much of it as possible, and they premiered a lot of the tracks (setlist.fm tells me they played 6 debuts!) so that was pretty special to see, but of course it was also great for them to finish off with just a couple of tracks from the first record (Things We Lost In The Fire and Pompeii), they definitely left the crowd wanting more! Below is a little video of Power being played for the first time.

Last up this week I ran the door for the last night and homecoming show of the Lucy Leave Tigmus tour on Friday night at The Cellar, with three other locals bands on the line-up, Slate Hearts, Holy Moments and Kancho, all of whom were lovely and it made for a grungy, rock-y evening loved by all who came (as displayed by the crazy head banging and dancing.) Of course they had to end on the title track of their recent Fighter Pilot EP, but they squeezed in Carry just before (video below), inviting the Slate Hearts lads to play with them, as they'd toured with them as main support for all dates. It was especially lovely seeing how much fun they were all having up there, and seeing the various bands watching each other's sets throughout the night!

A very busy (but fantastic) week and while I haven't currently got anything planned next week, October is looking very busy which should make up for that (also uni starts up this week so that should probably take some priority...)

GIG NEWS: Little Brother Eli in Oxford (14/10/16)

The first time I saw Little Brother Eli play was at the first Tigmus show I attended back in October 2015, the Neverlnd (then Balloon Ascents) EP launch upstairs at the O2 Academy. It was a line-up that sounded pretty crazy on paper, those two, and two more local acts Esther Joy Lane and Loud Mountains, but it worked amazingly and local music writers Ocelot celebrated it as their gig of the year, and I was really impressed by the guys' set as I hadn't listened to them properly before the show. It's pretty exciting then that now, working for Tigmus, I can say that LBE are headlining the same venue on the 14th October! 

When I decided to post about this show (which you'll gather I'm pretty excited for) I searched for a video, and was going to attach an acoustic performance... Little Brother Eli are pretty superb in a stripped back setting but this recent music video really captures their boundless energy which you'll most definitely see at this gig. 

The show is part of the Tigmus season upstairs at the O2 Academy Oxford, which started up with a show I'm devastated to have missed on Friday night, with the lovely homeplanetearth kicking off their debut UK tour with a hometown headline, with a cracking support line-up from Little Red, Roberto y Amigos (local fave!) and Swindon's Polar Front. In November Little Red headline the venue, finishing up with Peerless Pirates in December but now it's Little Brother Eli's turn and I'm really excited about that!

The four band line-up is completed by a bunch of local talent: My Crooked Teeth, WOLFS and Lucy Leave (who also headline The Cellar this Friday 23rd Sep as part of their debut UK tour - come see me as I'll be on the door!!) and while it's probably best to expect the unexpected, I can promise some brilliant music and a very dapper band (although I can't shift the idea of thinking that LBE look like a band of Geography teachers...) 

Tickets for the show are available through Tigmus with no booking fees here, and check out the rest of the site for loads more artists of various genres playing shows in Oxford over the next couple of months!