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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Some of the world's best bands play Scotland in June: Here's our pick
But can we point you in the direction of this Glasgow gig by our favourite Fifer Jacob Alon? The singer-songwriter has often been called Scotland's next big thing (we said it ourselves in The Herald Magazine back in January), a debut album, the sublime In Limerence, out May 30, is the next step on the journey. Alon's delicate vocals and searingly honest lyrics have drawn comparisons to Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley. Heady company, but Alon doesn't sound out of place. This will probably be one of the quieter gigs this month, but it will possibly resonate the longest. Iggy Pop 02 Academy, Glasgow, June 3 Iggy Pop (Image: PA) Maybe the drugs do work. Or maybe he's indestructible. So many of his contemporaries are no longer with us, but Jim Osterberg's still around, still singing Lust for Life and The Passenger and showing off his aged torso as he reaches the fag end of his seventies. It really is quite something. Still a street-walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm, in other words. Spectacular Shostakovich: Royal Scottish National Orchestra Usher Hall, June 6; Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, June 7 Marking the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's death, the RSNO performs his epic 11th Symphony, inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1905. Thomas Sondergard conducts and cellist Daniel Muller-Schott is the soloist. Pulp OVO Hydro, Glasgow, June 7 Getting the jump on Oasis, Britpop's finest (well, it's them or Suede) mark their first album - entitled More - in 24 years with another round of live gigs. Last seen in these parts ushering in 2024 at Edinburgh's Hogmanay, the band have had a new lease of life whilst mourning the loss of bass player Steve Mackey. Will the new album live up to its predecessors? That remains to be seen (the precursor single, Spike Island, is OK but maybe not much more). Still, any excuse to sing along to Do You Remember the First Time and Babies is always to be welcomed. Abbie Gordon The Poetry Club, Glasgow, June 19 New blood. Abbie Gordon is a teenage singer-songwriter from Irvine who was named Young Live Artist of the Year in December after headlining King Tut's. The future starts here. And while you're at it, maybe check out Theo Bleak (Canvas, Dundee, June 20), another fresh singer-songwriter with an ear for a tune. Diana Ross OVO Hydro, Glasgow, June 25 Diana Ross (Image: Newsquest) Yes, that Diana Ross. Now in the foothills of her ninth decade on the planet, Ross has a back catalogue that stretches back to her Motown pomp in The Supremes, and takes in her imperious disco era working with Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, her Bee Gees-fuelled Chain Reaction chart ascendancy and even collaborating with the name producer of the moment, Jack Antonoff, on 2021 album Thank You. Not sure she'll have any time for deep cuts. The question is, which of her 100 plus singles will she leave out? Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band Mono, Glasgow, June 25 The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band (Image: free) In the mood for some country blues? This might be the gig for you. Big voice, big beard and guitar picking. The good Reverend, who hails from Indiana, leads a trio including his wife Washboard Breezy (on washboard, you might not be surprised to hear) and Jacob Powell on percussion. Can't deny, they make a noise. Lana Del Rey Hampden Park, Glasgow, June 26 Lana Del Rey (Image: free) Gone are the days Lana used to hang out in Glasgow's south side, but she is back in the city for this arena gig towards the end of the month. Del Rey's shtick - established as early as her first single Video Games - is the society girl with an eye for bad boys, as played out in a Mogadon haze. On paper that doesn't sound like a recipe for filling arenas but it's turned out to be surprisingly moreish. Del Rey is currently the 25th most streamed artist in the world. Hopefully she will turn up on time this evening and not risk getting the power turned off as happened to her at Glastonbury in 2023. Simple Minds Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, June 27 Part of this year's Summer Sessions programme (preceded by the Sex Pistols and Sting on June 21 and June 25 respectively), Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill return for a hometown gig. We can argue over their back catalogue (my cut-off point is 1982; given the commercial success of what was to follow clearly few agree), but the truth is they remain a formidable live act. As frontman, Kerr both looks his age and acts like he's still in his twenties. It's quite the combination. Macy Gray Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, June 27 Macy Gray (Image: Newsquest) Want to feel old? It's now been 26 years - yes, 26 - since Macy Gray's breakthrough single, I Try, which introduced us to the gorgeous rasp of her voice. It remains her best known song, but she has never stopped making records. Quick question. Is her cover of Radiohead's Creep better than Billie Eilish's? Discuss. Kid Creole and the Coconuts Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, June 28; Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, June 29 To be honest, there is a corner of my head where it's always 1982. The year I left home, the year I started fending for myself, the year I fell in love. Kid Creole and the Coconuts were part of that year's soundtrack, a heady mix of disco, Latin rhythms and New Pop, amped up by August Darnell's larger-than-life ego and Zoot suits, and gilded by the Coconuts themselves, all backcombed blonde attitude and harmonies. It was pop panto back then, probably more so now, but, admit it, you're humming 'Ona-Ona-Onamatopea' even as you read this. (Who cares if that's not the real lyric? It's a better one.) Lucy Dacus Usher Hall, Edinburgh, June 30; Barrowland Ballroom, July 1 Fresh from her time as a member of Boygenius and being namechecked by Taylor Swift in her song The Tortured Poets Department, the American singer-songwriter is touring in support of her latest album Forever is a Feeling. It contains a track called Limerence, by the way, which takes us back to Jacob Alon and where we came in.
The Guardian
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
I Ate the Whole World to Find You by Rachel Ang review – an unforgettable graphic novel
In Rachel Ang's first full-length graphic novel, I Ate The Whole World to Find You, the inability to truly communicate with those closest to you – in a modern world rife with disbelieving doctors, unstable work, surveillant bosses and mundane bursts of violence – is depicted as a soul-annihilating failure. Across five loosely related stories we follow Jenny, an Australian woman in her late 20s, through her interactions with lovers, friends and family, against evocatively drawn urban backdrops. Narrow townhouses, public swimming pools, leafy pockets of nature and Melbourne's iconic trams form the terrain of Jenny's life, with these locales doubling as cosy spaces for gathering and sites of trauma. Often cast in shadow or sketched in impressionistic pencil, they seem to echo the protagonist's tumultuous interior world. Ang, adroit at dialogue, gives Jenny and her loved ones lengthy conversations in which they banter about a viral cow ('the Yao Ming of cattle'), commiserate over shit jobs and attempt to move past old wounds. Yet even with those closest to her, Jenny rarely digs into the heart of matter, instead talking around her true feelings. In the electrifying opening story, Hunger, she and her burgeoning crush sensitively debate the morality of his 'feeding fetish' – only for Jenny's feelings to be sidelined when they begin a relationship. In subsequent stories, Jenny avoids talking about her own problems while her ex-lovers vent, or she lies about her troubles at work. Jenny's crises of communication are evoked with blank speech bubbles that alternately swarm her uncertain face, shatter like plates or twist into noodles. Ang is a master at capturing these infinitesimal moments, where a character flinches away, feels frozen, or is flooded with self-disgust. Much of the pleasure of reading this book is witnessing Ang's experiments in form, which often function as a cathartic release. In the novel's fantastical centrepiece, The Passenger, Jenny's railway day trip with her ex and his wannabe-life-coach girlfriend is derailed by a train crash – vaulting them into a hallucinogenic dreamscape. The polymorphic wackiness of this chapter showcases both the absurdity of our social platitudes and Ang's darkly comic voice. During an uncomfortable conversation in which Jenny's ex criticises her while his girlfriend shoots off pop psychology aphorisms ('The power to change is within you!') the three characters transform into different cartoon forms, including chess pieces, dogs, and Aardman trio Wallace, Gromit and villainous penguin Feathers McGraw (of course, Jenny feels like Wallace, the dog who cannot speak). Through this artistic flexibility, Ang leans into the fresh possibilities of the graphic novel: creating surreal dimensions where truth can be fully unleashed, memories painfully accessed and alternate paths can be embraced. In Ang's comic for the Washington Post, Age of Autobiography, they write of 'the manifold self' that is 'molded by those around [you] – other selves, lives, impulses, now sent through the screen', and ponder the nebulous concept of 'inner self':'Does it need to be seen to be seen and recognised? Can I live an emotionally honest life without sharing it with others?' I Ate the Whole World to Find You appears to be a continuation of this exploration. Ang's shifting, distorted depictions of Jenny's physicality are a visceral expression of her incoherent self-understanding – whether it's a carefully placed panel where Jenny is drawn with a doubling effect, or a splash page in which the detail is suddenly stripped from her face (as in the story Swimsuit, at the exact moment when Jenny witnesses a racist attack at a swimming pool). Ang's wide-eyed, scratchy faces are often drawn very similarly; while this was initially confusing, it ultimately added to the experience, with the collection's recurrent imagery building into a universal tapestry of fragmented identity. It's fitting that the cosmically themed final story, Purity, follows Jenny as she shares her body with another life, one that is wholly new: her baby. This chapter features the most rendered illustrations and fluid linework, as Jenny is able to 'jettison the old, broken codes' of communication. While her conversations with her partner break down, she can speak privately to the 'co-pilot' inside her, with her fears existing alongside hope. In this lovely coda, the barrier between two beings is simply a translucent veil, one that will eventually part. I Ate the Whole World to Find You is a confronting expression of the desire to connect. In a world where it feels like speech bubbles distort and shatter as soon as they leave our mouths, Ang's speculative vision of transcending language, and finally being understood, is potent and unforgettable. I Ate the Whole World to Find You by Rachel Ang is out through Scribe ($39.99)
