Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Blancmange

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The Sisters of Mercy, Rock City, Nottingham

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The Cure, Wythenshawe Park, Manchester

Supported by Slowdive & Slow Readers Club

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Splendour Festival, Wollaton Park, Nottingham

 

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Los Campesinos!, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

 

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Thomas Dolby, Palais, Nottingham

Supported By Martin McAloon 

Tonight I am at the Palais for a gig the first time since 1986. In fact, it is almost 40 years to the day from when I saw Gary Glitter on 26th May that year. The less said about that the better but this was the venue for Tuesday's Student Night when I was at Trent University and they had several gigs there. 

Looking around, it hasn't actually changed much. The layout seems pretty much the same, even the stage is in same place as 40 years ago. The Palais, which opened in 1925 so is now over 100 years old, later became Ritzy, before reverting back to being the Palais, before becoming Oceana, PRYZM and now saved from administration by Rock City's owners, it's the Palais once again. One design fault they've added is the hand dryers in the toilets seem really loud and drown out the quiet moments on stage but... that aside... all good. 

Support tonight is from Martin McAloon who comes onto a stage where there are six guitars lined and for a man playing solo, he impressively uses four of them. He announces that he’s from Deacon Blue and his first song is called 'Real Gone Kid' before he lurches into 'Faron Young'. 

He is of course from Prefab Sprout whom he formed with his older brother Paddy and they were later joined by Wendy Smith. I'm not sure what happened to her but Paddy now suffers from a detached retina and tinnitus brought on by the hearing disorder Meniere’s Disease. Prefab Sprout rarely toured back in the day and are a band I never managed to see live. Now with Paddy unable to, Martin is the sole purveyor of their music which he has played live since 2023.  

Tonight he is lively, chatty and funny, which I wasn’t expecting but I'm not sure why I thought he wouldn't be. His set is impressive because these are difficult songs to play solo even though his guitar playing is exemplary and to his credit he doesn’t reach for any backing tracks. Some work better than others. 'Cowboy Dreams' for instance is excellent and surprisingly so to is 'When Love Breaks Down' which is epic. 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll' is fantastically ambitious and he needs help from the crowd, which isn’t that numerous, but it’s a fabulous effort. 

Seeing him is a novel but great experience and tonight he is supporting the man who produced many of Prefab Sprout’s albums, Thomas Dolby. 

Dolby opens with a cover of New Order's 'Blue Monday'. I’m not sure why. It’s ok but why would you? When you’re a revered artist who plays live so infrequently and has an acclaimed back catalogue that has a cult following and loads of material you rarely or never play. Why? Just why? Just saying. 

Thankfully after that he settles down and plays three of his own tracks including 'One Of Our Submarines', where he tells a great story about how the song was inspired by the World War II experiences of his uncle, and an exceptional 'The Flat Earth'. 

Unlike McAloon he is using backing tracks and sampling but which you'd expect because he's a self-confessed electronics geek. 

After a brief career as an artist, Dolby mainly became a producer but he also performed with David Bowie at Live Aid and Roger Waters at The Wall in Berlin. He moved to the USA in 1986 and is now head of Music for New Media for the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This brings us on to his new project 'Iconic ’80s: My Personal Recollections'. He explains why he's doing this or tries to but... again, why would you when... I know, I’m such a pessimist and a sceptic. 

He brings on two guests for this, Jakko Jakzyk of King Crimson on guitar and Mat Hector on drums, but not his Ukrainian bass player Ana Pshokina who they wouldn't let into the country. She performs on pre-recorded video instead. 

They perform three symphonies called numbers Two, Three and Four which are supposed to explain the 80s to those too young to be there. Right. I think recollections may vary. Number Four does at least seem to have a theme running through it but of course the others may have done as well and it's just that I missed it. 

He asks us what we think of his experiment and... well, some people seemed to like it but it's really not my thing and it was a really long haul but now we are through it and we're back to his originals with the band remaining on stage to help him out. 

Next though is 'My Brain Is Like a Sieve' which is another oddity as it features lead vocals performed by Jason Mraz, who like his Ukrainian bass player appears on pre-recorded video. 

Thankfully our stamina to have made it this far is rewarded with the excellent 'Europa and the Pirate Twins' and then 'She Blinded Me With Science'. 

He comes back for an encore of his only big hit 'Hyperactive!' (number 17 in 1984) which features Martin McAloon on guitar and then the band leave him to close the night solo with the classic 'Airwaves'. 

Overall, a very odd but entertaining night with so much to unpack. 

The Rose of Avalanche, Mist Rolling Inn, Nottingham

 

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Frank Turner, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

 

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Vaccines, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported By Brigette Calls Me Baby 

Tonight’s support band Brigette Calls Me Baby are from Chicago and they played us songs from their upcoming second album ‘Irreversible’ which is to be released in the next few days. They start off with band introductions during their very first song but then have to stop after the second one because the bass guitar wasn’t working. Once that is fixed, we resume. They are very early 2000s era Killers, White Lies etc maybe with a touch of 1980s A-Ha. All very dated but then so am I. I liked them. 

The Vaccines are persisting with their pinkness e.g. their stage deco themed for their last album ‘Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations’. They take the stage and open with ‘Blow It Up’ as they embark on playing all twelve tracks from their debut album ‘What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?’ in a slightly readjusted order with every word sang back at them. This is, of course, upon the occasion of its 15^th birthday. 

‘Blow It Up’ was also the B-side of their debut single ‘Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ which follows next with ‘Post Break-Up Sex’ their second single up third. So there is a strong logic to their reordering of the songs. 

Lead singer Justin Young reflects on those fifteen years and also the history they have with Nottingham. Their first publicity photo was taken in the car park at Rock City and they also played an early secret gig under a false name around the corner. 

After playing their way through their debut, they add another eight tracks from their other albums before ‘I Always Knew’ off their second album ‘Come Of Age’ brings the main set to a close. 

Young returns solo for an acoustic rendition of ‘No Hope’ before the rest of the band return to play a new unreleased track entitled ‘10 Years Later’ before they close with ‘All My Friends Are Falling In Love’. 

What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? Exactly this. 

Suede, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported By Bloodworm

First up tonight are Nottingham's own Bloodworm who were invited onto the whole of Suede’s massive tour by Suede’s guitarist Richard Oakes after he was so impressed when he saw them play. So, it’s a home coming for them and I can vouch for Oakes’s judgement because they are excellent. Exactly my sort of thing, very gothic, very The Cure at times and with a singer in George Curtis who maybe wants to be Andrew Eldritch. 

So where have I been for the last 37 years? That’s a good question because Suede were formed in 1989 and here I am at my first ever Suede gig. How is that forgivable? 

The thumping intro to 'Disintegrate' starts the show and is quickly followed by two others from the new album 'Antidepressants' signalling to those who didn’t already know that the Suede of 2026 are just as good, if not better, than the Suede of the 1990s. Tonight’s audience, who sings all the new songs back word for word, clearly agree. 

 

Then it’s 90s time as they mix it up with the old classics of 'Trash' and 'Animal Nitrate'. From there we get an impressive foray through nine of their ten albums and they even throw in a brand new track 'Tribe'. 

What is even more impressive is that every night on this tour has been unique. With each night throwing up at least one track that hasn't been played anywhere else on the tour as they play some of their lesser known material. Tonight that is 'He's Dead' (a b-side from 1992), 'Down' (off 1999's 'Head Music') and the exquisite 'For The Strangers' (off 2013's 'Bloodsports'). Two of which I'd never heard before and one I'd rarely played. 'For The Strangers' is such a belter that it's now permanently on my Suede playlist. 

I also wasn’t quite aware of quite just how good a frontman Brett Anderson was as he takes us deeply into his world, or ‘Suedeworld’ as he passionately calls it. I'm sure that is all old news to everyone else but please forgive the newbie here. 

He is a man seemingly with constant energy and perhaps a knee brace, which he probably needed the way he bounced around the stage relegating the rest of the band to the margins to give him room. Only bass player Mat Osman dares to occasionally come to the front of the stage. Probably knowing that Anderson will soon have vacated the stage completely and jumped into the crowd, which he duly does. Towards the end of the night, he even dispensed with his microphone and still managed to reach every corner of the venue with his voice. 

While obviously very aware of their earlier material, I only recently became a fanboy when I stumbled across their excellent 2022 album 'Autofiction' with which I because entranced before being just as thrilled with last year's 'Antidepressants'. So, the highlights for me are the likes of ‘She Still Leads Me On’ from the former and the mesmerising ‘June Rain’ from the latter. 

From those albums I have started to work backwards towards their 1990's heyday, having discovered a band whose new music is, as I said earlier, probably better than the records that brought them to prominence in the first place.  

But those oldies have their place as the closing trio of ‘So Young’, ‘Metal Mickey’ and ‘Beautiful Ones’ demonstrates and threatens to take the roof off Rock City. 

They send us home with a solitary one song encore, another belter from 'Autofiction' namely ‘The Only Way I Can Love You’. Quite a night.

Maxïmo Park, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Art Brut

Well, look who it is. Art Brut again. They are clearly still stalking me, not that I mind, and it has actually been five years since I last saw them here, supporting The Subways, and it was way back in 2007 when they last took the stage here with Maximo Park. We have had numerous collisions in other venues in between, some of which have even been deliberate. 

The songs, as always, remain largely the same and the stories between them largely the same with Eddie Argos still telling us all about his brother but they remain just as entertaining as they are odd. 

Something else that remains largely the same is Maximo Park’s Paul Smith, the man never ages and his enthusiasm never dims. Tonight, he and his band, bring us a huge 20th birthday party for ‘A Certain Trigger’, their debut album. 

 

They treat us to 12 of the 13 songs on the album starting with ‘Signal & Sign’ and ending of course with ‘Apply Some Pressure’ via their debut single 'The Coast Is Always Changing' and all the others with a couple held back for the encore. 

We don’t get the full album because 'Now I'm All Over the Shop' and 'Once, a Glimpse' are being rotated and tonight we get the latter. Instead, there’s the rare playing of ‘Fear of Falling’ which was the B-side to ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and which was apparently recorded at Confetti’s studio in Nottingham. Just one of the main anecdotes he gave us between songs. 

There is a disturbance four songs in during ‘My Velocity’ (yes, other albums are available) that sees two kicked out for over aggressive moshing. ‘My Velocity’ is, appropriately, a song about resistance. 

They leave us with the most exquisite of encores. It started with the magnificent ‘Acrobat’, all dramatic and spoken word, before ‘Books From Boxes’ and ‘Going Missing’ finished the night on a high. 

Only one person loved the night more than the crowd and that was Smith himself. Smith seemed genuinely surprised and touched by the reception the band got. So much so that I didn’t think he was ever going to leave the stage as he lingered long after his band mates had departed.