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Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
June tunes: The best gigs to see in Sydney this month
Warren Ellis City Recital Hall, June 8 Yes, there will be a short solo set from the Dirty Three and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds member at this event (billed as 'An Evening With Warren Ellis'), but the real draw here will be a conversation with Ellis covering his life, music and work in animal conservation, all topics covered in the new documentary film Ellis Park, which will screen before this Q&A as part of the Sydney Film Festival (a separate ticketed event to this one, it should be noted). 10 Years of NLV Records Metro Theatre, June 8 Australian DJ and music producer Nina Las Vegas (born Nina Elizabeth Agzarian) started the electronic music label NLV Records in 2015 (on the same day she left her gig as a triple j presenter), with this mammoth anniversary show set to take over both rooms of the Metro. Acts set to appear include rising EDM star Ninajirachi, Trinidadian-born Australian singer and rapper Gold Fang, afro swing vocalist Big Skeez, Korean boyband 1300, South Florida ravers Jubilee, plus a host of others. Black Star C arriageworks, June 10 Yasiin Bey - the rapper, singer and actor formerly known as Mos Def - was at Carriageworks last year to perform both a solo show and a show covering the work of late rapper MF DOOM. He's back this year with Talib Kweli, his rhyme partner in hip-hop duo Black Star. They'll be performing music from across the decades, including the aptly titled 2022 album No Fear of Time, which arrived almost 25 years after the pair's classic 1998 debut, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. Supergrass Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, June 10 Although a champagne supernova's worth of hype has been directed at the upcoming Oasis reunion tour, more discerning Britpop fans will be excited to see Oxford quartet Supergrass back in action for their first headline Australian shows in 17 years. The band will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of debut album I Should Coco, featuring hit singles Caught by the Fuzz and Alright, by playing it in its entirety; expect bandmates and brothers Gaz and Rob Coombes to behave better than the Gallagher siblings. Mel Parsons The Vanguard, June 15 New Zealand singer-songwriter Mel Parsons has proved herself a master of indie-folk and alt-country over half a dozen celebrated albums, including last year's excellent Sabotage, which has been nominated for three Aotearoa Music Awards. A seasoned live performer with a spellbinding voice, Parsons will be playing old favourites and a few new tunes; if recent singles Brick by Brick and Post High Slide are anything to go by, her winning streak shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Cloud Control Enmore Theatre, June 20 2010 feels like a lifetime ago, but anyone paying attention to Australian music at the time would be familiar with Blue Mountains four-piece indie band Cloud Control. The recently reunited group will be touring to celebrate the 15th anniversary of debut album Bliss Release, which was everywhere in 2010: Five of its 10 songs were singles, it scored two ARIA Award nominations, took home the Australian Music Prize and, bizarrely, had a song that wound up in Channing Tatum stripper flick Magic Mike. Jimmy Barnes State Theatre, June 27 Fifteen solo number one albums in Australia - more than any other solo artist - and an induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame as both a solo performer and as part of Cold Chisel: at 69, Jimmy Barnes has nothing left to prove. It's a pleasant surprise, then, to discover his 21st solo album, Defiant (out June 6), is an absolute belter, featuring some of his strongest songs in decades. Head along to her Barnsey belt them out live, along with the classics. June is jam-packed with great gigs, including visitors from the US (indie rockers Soccer Mommy and DIIV, astronaut Katy Perry, hip-hop producer Knxwledge), the UK (septuagenarian rappers Bas & Dave, much younger rapper Central Cee, alternative rockers Palace), South Korea (rapper Sik-K, girl group Nmixx, rockers Boohwal) and Europe (James Vincent McMorrow and Inhaler, both from Ireland, and Germany's Tangerine Dream). Australian artists doing the rounds include indie pop band Spacey Jane, Ngaiire, debuting her new show PAIA (provocatively described as 'an eruption of rage, sex, ecstasy, ceremony, ancestry, and cleansing'), Skegss, Polish Club, Short Stack, The Superjesus, Straight Arrows, Parkway Drive, Chasing Ghosts, Eggy, Kisschasy, The Beautiful Girls, Ruby Fields, Party Dozen, The Ferguson Rogers Process, Bachelor Girl and Killing Heidi.
The Age
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
June tunes: The best gigs to see in Sydney this month
Warren Ellis City Recital Hall, June 8 Yes, there will be a short solo set from the Dirty Three and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds member at this event (billed as 'An Evening With Warren Ellis'), but the real draw here will be a conversation with Ellis covering his life, music and work in animal conservation, all topics covered in the new documentary film Ellis Park, which will screen before this Q&A as part of the Sydney Film Festival (a separate ticketed event to this one, it should be noted). 10 Years of NLV Records Metro Theatre, June 8 Australian DJ and music producer Nina Las Vegas (born Nina Elizabeth Agzarian) started the electronic music label NLV Records in 2015 (on the same day she left her gig as a triple j presenter), with this mammoth anniversary show set to take over both rooms of the Metro. Acts set to appear include rising EDM star Ninajirachi, Trinidadian-born Australian singer and rapper Gold Fang, afro swing vocalist Big Skeez, Korean boyband 1300, South Florida ravers Jubilee, plus a host of others. Black Star C arriageworks, June 10 Yasiin Bey - the rapper, singer and actor formerly known as Mos Def - was at Carriageworks last year to perform both a solo show and a show covering the work of late rapper MF DOOM. He's back this year with Talib Kweli, his rhyme partner in hip-hop duo Black Star. They'll be performing music from across the decades, including the aptly titled 2022 album No Fear of Time, which arrived almost 25 years after the pair's classic 1998 debut, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. Supergrass Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, June 10 Although a champagne supernova's worth of hype has been directed at the upcoming Oasis reunion tour, more discerning Britpop fans will be excited to see Oxford quartet Supergrass back in action for their first headline Australian shows in 17 years. The band will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of debut album I Should Coco, featuring hit singles Caught by the Fuzz and Alright, by playing it in its entirety; expect bandmates and brothers Gaz and Rob Coombes to behave better than the Gallagher siblings. Mel Parsons The Vanguard, June 15 New Zealand singer-songwriter Mel Parsons has proved herself a master of indie-folk and alt-country over half a dozen celebrated albums, including last year's excellent Sabotage, which has been nominated for three Aotearoa Music Awards. A seasoned live performer with a spellbinding voice, Parsons will be playing old favourites and a few new tunes; if recent singles Brick by Brick and Post High Slide are anything to go by, her winning streak shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Cloud Control Enmore Theatre, June 20 2010 feels like a lifetime ago, but anyone paying attention to Australian music at the time would be familiar with Blue Mountains four-piece indie band Cloud Control. The recently reunited group will be touring to celebrate the 15th anniversary of debut album Bliss Release, which was everywhere in 2010: Five of its 10 songs were singles, it scored two ARIA Award nominations, took home the Australian Music Prize and, bizarrely, had a song that wound up in Channing Tatum stripper flick Magic Mike. Jimmy Barnes State Theatre, June 27 Fifteen solo number one albums in Australia - more than any other solo artist - and an induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame as both a solo performer and as part of Cold Chisel: at 69, Jimmy Barnes has nothing left to prove. It's a pleasant surprise, then, to discover his 21st solo album, Defiant (out June 6), is an absolute belter, featuring some of his strongest songs in decades. Head along to her Barnsey belt them out live, along with the classics. June is jam-packed with great gigs, including visitors from the US (indie rockers Soccer Mommy and DIIV, astronaut Katy Perry, hip-hop producer Knxwledge), the UK (septuagenarian rappers Bas & Dave, much younger rapper Central Cee, alternative rockers Palace), South Korea (rapper Sik-K, girl group Nmixx, rockers Boohwal) and Europe (James Vincent McMorrow and Inhaler, both from Ireland, and Germany's Tangerine Dream). Australian artists doing the rounds include indie pop band Spacey Jane, Ngaiire, debuting her new show PAIA (provocatively described as 'an eruption of rage, sex, ecstasy, ceremony, ancestry, and cleansing'), Skegss, Polish Club, Short Stack, The Superjesus, Straight Arrows, Parkway Drive, Chasing Ghosts, Eggy, Kisschasy, The Beautiful Girls, Ruby Fields, Party Dozen, The Ferguson Rogers Process, Bachelor Girl and Killing Heidi.
Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The celebrity holiday homes that you can stay in
Who hasn't stayed in a holiday rental and sniffed around looking for clues about the owner? It's even more fun if you can critique the tastes of public figures by staying in their villas. It can pay off even if you aren't a fan. Fashion designers and film-makers — with practice in constructing elaborate fantasy worlds — can make bold, imaginative decisions when it comes to their own holiday homes. And often — thanks to hit albums or top-line billing in films — they don't have the cost considerations that the rest of us face. Or much in the way of self-doubt. Most of these properties are Big Vision stuff, with price tags to match. David Copperfield doesn't just own one private island in the Caribbean, he has an archipelago of 11 and his personality is writ large across them. Sting has 900 acres of prime Tuscan landscape to call his own. But celebrity holiday lets can also provide some surprises. These houses and villas, available to rent, anywhere from California to the English countryside, can also show a gentleness and an affinity with both nature and classic architecture. This article contains affiliate links, which can earn us revenue Best for Britpop fansPearl Lowe and her husband, Danny Goffey of Supergrass, turned a 19th-century gothic-inspired mansion into a boho-accented party pad after buying it in 2017. Now a fashion and textile designer, Lowe has adorned each of the nine bedrooms in her 1920s-inspired image, with brass bedsteads, velvet sofas and exuberant wallpaper mixed in with maximalist beading and tassels. You can walk to funky Frome from the end of the tree-lined drive but also ramble straight into impossibly lush Somerset countryside from a garden that has a hot tub and a gypsy caravan. With its mix of art galleries and very trendy restaurants, Bruton is a 20-minute drive away. This was the couple's family home when their children were growing up, but you may need to make a booking fast. Or think of it as a try before you buy — Pearl's Place is on the market for £ Seven nights' self-catering for 18 from £10,995 a week ( Best for modern-day MedicisSelf-sufficiency, celeb-style. The music legend Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, bought their estate in Tuscany in 1997. The family tend to take up residence there in the early part of the summer but it's available to mere mortals the rest of the time. There's also a large private swimming pool, tennis court and yoga pavilion amid acres of olive groves and serried rows of vines. Perched on a hilltop, Il Palagio is near the medieval town of Figline Valdarno and a 40-minute drive from Florence. The main house, which dates from the 16th century, has nine bedrooms with a further six bedrooms split between two cottages while cellars have been turned into dining rooms and a meditation room. With guitars and mandolins sprinkled around and its own recording studio, there are plenty of clues to the ownership (although to be fair, Il Palagio's website spells it out pretty clearly too). Details Seven nights' all-inclusive for 29 from £188,003 ( Fly to Florence/Pisa Best for architecture loversThis sprawling compound gives guests the choice of two celebrity owners to boast about. Located in the very smart Old Las Palmas area of Palm Springs, 432 Hermosa was built in 1964 by the architect Donald Wexler for the singer Dinah Shore. In 2014 Leonardo DiCaprio snapped it up. While the actor is said to stay regularly, you won't find much trace of him — instead, this sprawling single-storey building majoring in glass and glamour has been sensitively updated to showcase its mid-century heritage, with carports a built-in bar and more than a sprinkling of shag-pile carpet. This means that all the 1960s Palm Springs essentials are here to get starry-eyed about, including six bedrooms, seven (and a half) bathrooms and a swimming pool with a guest cottage, and views onto the San Jacinto mountain range beyond. Details Two nights' self-catering for 16 from £5,568 ( Fly to Palm Springs • 13 of the most luxurious villas in Europe Best for party tricks Think that owning a private island is pretty aspirational? In 2006 the American illusionist David Copperfield bought a chain of 11 islands in the Exumas, a district of the Bahamas made up of more than 365 islands and cays. Today it's the most high-octane private property in the Caribbean, sleeping up to 24 guests across a main house and a series of smaller properties. The turquoise waters and creamy sand have been augmented with all the ultra-luxury aquatic toys you can want, including jet skis and water trampolines. Copperfield has also added plenty of trademark touches. There's a secret village, a full-scale cinema called Dave's Drive-In and sculptures on the ocean floor to bring a bit of extra fun to snorkelling. Meanwhile the 30 staff have the magical ability to appear with cocktails and gourmet meals at any one of its 40 beaches. Details Five nights' all-inclusive for 12 from £211,590 ( Fly to the Bahamas Best for proper relaxationGentler than most celebrity holiday rentals, this three-bedroom villa is proof that the bad boy of rock has a very mellow side. Set on the beach (obviously), there's a touch of Balinese contemplation in the wooden decking and infinity-style swimming pool. Decorated in soothing creams and whites, the vibe is so serene, Richards has said that he'd like to see out his days here, but if the Rolling Stones tour again in 2026, there should be plenty of time to nip in. And you may get a starry neighbour thrown in. Just along the beach, Lucky House is owned by 1980s supermodel Christie Brinkley. Both villas have access to the hotel facilities of Parrot Cay, a short wander along the white sand beaches of this Caribbean island and come with butler service. Details Seven nights' B&B for six from £84,000, including flights, transfers and butler service ( Best for immersion in natureFrom the masks on the wall to the family photos and Illy espresso machine, this is the surprisingly low-key holiday hangout of one of the world's most famous film directors. Not content with winning five Oscars and starting a series of acclaimed vineyards, Coppola has also opened hotels in Italy, Guatemala and Argentina as well as Georgia, USA. But the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now has a special affinity with Belize and recently made a collection of villas on the island available for exclusive hire. Blancaneaux Lodge, which he bought in 1980, was originally a family home, becoming a hotel in 1993. Deep in the rainforest, surrounded by ancient pines and palmetto trees, his own two-bedroom villa overlooks the Privassion River. Nature has primacy here; toucans drop in, a plunge pool and hammock beckons, and you can even rustle up a meal in the kitchenette, although a walkie-talkie means you're in constant touch with Blancaneaux's staff for meals and service. Details One night room-only for four from £817 ( Fly to Belize
Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Pulp: More review — an unpretentious, honest and frequently funny comeback
If at the Britpop Comprehensive class of 1995 Oasis were the hard nuts, then Blur were the snarky sixth-formers, Supergrass were the naughty kids and Elastica were the scary girls smoking behind the bike shed. Meanwhile, Pulp were the misfits. Though Jarvis Cocker and his gang were too style-conscious to be dismissed as nerds, you do feel they might have spent a lot of time in the art room or the chess club, before running home as fast as they could for fear of being beaten up by the local thugs. Such a background provided ample material for Cocker's Alan Bennett-style social observation classics Common People and Do You Remember the First Time?, leading to something that doesn't usually happen to misfits from Sheffield:
The Herald Scotland
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Does Glasgow face losing reputation for having best crowds at gigs?
Once upon a time it's a question you would never have thought to ask. Not if you were even halfway versed in the city's rock and roll lore. After all this is the home of the storied Apollo, the Renfield Street venue with the famous bouncing balcony, a place so loved by touring rock bands that many chose to record their live albums there. Status Quo were one. Their three-night residency in October 1976 became the double platinum-selling album Live!, regarded by some critics as one of the best of its kind ever. Two years later AC/DC's entire set was filmed as they opened their Powerage tour at the Apollo. The audio of that gig became If You Want Blood You've Got It, another iconic live album. King Crimson, Rush and Roxy Music all recorded live albums at the Apollo while punk legends The Ramones said it was their favourite venue. Like, ever. I never made it to the Apollo but I've been to gigs at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut and on Glasgow Green. I've been to Barrowland and the SECC. I've been to lots of other Glasgow venues in between, small and large, and have generally found them bouncing. I have also interviewed plenty of musicians over the years who speak warmly and honestly about the Glasgow crowds, so I have some (albeit second-hand) insight into how things look from the stage. Or how it did look, once upon a time. So why the doubts now? Could be a blip, but in a recent review of a gig at Barrowland by 1990s Britpop act Supergrass, The Herald's Gabriel McKay was none too impressed by the audience. 'The legendary Barras crowd hasn't brought its A-game,' he wrote. 'Save for some game younger fans, resplendent in Adidas tracksuits down the front, it's mostly pint-supping, head-nodding and, most egregiously of all, chatting.' Chatting? Surely not. I did encounter something similar at a Coldplay gig - many years ago – but that was in Edinburgh. Supergrass at the Barrowlands - where the crowd spent too long chatting, according to our reviewer (Image: free) In truth, I don't think this diminution in atmosphere at Glasgow gigs is a one off. If you've been to a big concert recently, I dare say you will agree. More and more heritage rock acts are pulling on the compression socks and taking to the road, so it follows that the gig-going demographic is shifting accordingly and that is going to have an effect. This week, for instance, Dinosaur Jr played Barrowland on a 30th anniversary tour. Next month it's Leftfield on their 35th anniversary tour. A week on it's The Waterboys. In August it's Nile Rodgers and Chic. In October The Boomtown Rats hit Barrowland to celebrate 50 years in, er, show-business. Factor in ticket prices which can easily hit £50 (plus booking fee, in my opinion as egregious an imposition as chatting is an offence) and you can see why the churning, roiling, free-wheeling Glasgow crowds of old might have less va-va-voom than in decades gone by. That's not to say there aren't underground venues where the sweat drips off the ceiling and the noise from the audience is thunderous. But increasingly it's the grey hairs who are turning out to populate the live music landscape in the city. What they want is nostalgia, value for money – and nobody jostling them as they film their favourite bits for their social media feeds. Or their grand-kids. Still, even if I'm right perhaps there is yet time for redress. In July Glasgow Green hosts the TRNSMT festival and at the time of writing raucous rap phenomenon Kneecap are still on the bill. That will be one to see. So go on, Glasgow – show them why maybe you do still have the best audiences in the world. Read more Numbers game It's rare – actually make that never-happened-before-in-the-history-of-audience-ratings – for the BBC to talk down the digits where viewership is concerned. Any massaging of the figures is usually aimed at inflation rather than the opposite. But following the cancellation of BBC Scotland soap River City there has been quite the kerfuffle, and the BBC finds itself having to rebut the claim by acting union Equity that half a million people regularly watch the show. Not so, says the Beeb. It's less than half that. To say otherwise is to spread 'mistruths'. Neutral observers will, you know, observe that the BBC should have the correct figures. They may also note that a figure of 500,000 does seem on the high side. EastEnders, networked to a potential domestic audience over 10 times that of River City, only pulls in around 3.2 million viewers. On the other hand, those in Team River City will claim that it suits the organisation's narrative for audience ratings to be on the slide. As union and broadcaster square up, it looks as if this one will run and run. Unlike River City. Read more And finally The Herald critics have been sharpening their pens ahead of festival season, which activity has taken theatre critic Neil Cooper to Edinburgh's Festival Theatre and Royal Lyceum Theatre as well as to Pitlochry Festival Theatre. In that last venue he watched Water Colour, the debut play by Millie Sweeney, winner of the St Andrews Playwriting Award, while in Edinburgh he saw The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe and Keli. The first is a touring production of Sally Cookson's 2017 adaptation of the much-loved novel, first staged at Leeds Playhouse. The second is a crowd-pleasing new work by Martin Green, better known as accordionist with Scottish traditional music supergroup Lau. Meanwhile dance critic Mary Brennan continues her survey of the best that Dance International Glasgow has to offer at Tramway, while music critic Keith Bruce was in attendance at the City Halls in Glasgow to hear Nicola Benedetti perform work by Brahms and Greig at the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's season finale. Finally Teddy Jamieson tore himself away from Eurovision to see Daryl Hall at the Armadillo in Glasgow. Definitely no mosh pit at that one. Read our reviews here Review: I went to new V&A gardens show and was intrigued by what I saw
