CityLife

Whilst I wouldn't call 100 minutes a "marathon" gig, it was still value for money, even at

Nice to see a review in the MEN that isn't just a sycophantic four-star job, as they usually are, but I'm afraid you misfired on this occasion. Your review perpetuates the myth that people just want to hear the hits - speaking personally, that couldn't be more wrong. I like to hear obscurities, rarities and see a band stretch out on something they don't play in their sleep. If I never hear Smoke On The Water again, I'll survive. The Rapture of the Deep material was welcome, though I did miss Perfect Strangers. I'm not a Purple fanatic, just someone who enjoys live music, so my review is quite objective. Compared to the last time I saw Deep Purple, I thought Gillan was in fine voice. Last time, he looked ill, retreating behind the speakers to take medication and lean, exhausted, on a table (I was overlooking the side of the stage at the NEC). He looked tanned and fit, a lot slimmer than the chubby, immobile youth who hid behind a greatcoat and mass of hair on TOTP to sing Fireball a lifetime ago. He was in good form, obviously enjoying the occasion and thanking the city of Manchester twice for a great start to the tour. Similarly, the band was all smiles (no trace of Blackmore gloom here) and at times a little Spinal Tap-like, with the plectrum flicking, gurning and posturing, but never less than enjoyable. Ian Paice deserves special mention - much paunchier than of yore but still a powerhouse, economical drummer - a rarity in a "classic" rock band such as Purple. They were brave enough to play Mk I songs like Wring That Neck and Hush, but thankfully the Seventies excesses have been trimmed off - no marathon drum solos and relatively short showcases for Airey and Morse. Everyone in the audience seemed to have a whale of a time, the band enjoyed themselves...job done?

I agree word for word with the MEN review, but this was Prog Nation 2009, and I feel the other bands on the bill should get a mention. Unexpect and Bigelf did half an hour each - the former were crazy and noisy, a great visual treat with a violinist in amongst the death metal and a female singer thrashing her long hair, whilst Bigelf made a tremendous noise but were frustratingly truncated at 30 minutes and four songs (I went to see them at Club Academy last night where they did an incredible 90-minute set). I didn't have great expectations of Opeth but their hour flew by. They described themselves as death metal but this may have been tongue in cheek as there were long, pastoral, almost folky sections in their set. Great stuff. Dream Theater didn't disappoint - a huge, loud, visually exciting spectacle performed by musicians so technically adept they must qualify as geniuses. Not just that - there's plenty of passion here too. Everything about this night was great - the timings (everyone came onstage and went off at exactly the published times), the music, the crowd - enthusiastic and creating a great atmosphere without being invasive (a la an Ian Brown or Arctic Monkeys audience, say). Five stars for a flawless, marathon evening.

"Countless two minute hits dispatched"? If only. I can't say anything negative about Green Day - they obviously love what they're doing and have a genuine rapport with their huge audience - does any band play for so long with such energy? It's just that this was more vaudeville than rock show..songs that SHOULD have clocked in under three minutes were stretched and stretched while the band larked about, getting people up on stage, dressing up - all great fun but how I longed to hear those classic short sharp punk numbers or even the more thoughtful songs from the last couple of albums played as they were meant to be heard. The sequence where Tres Cool came out from behind his kit to "dance" to Shout while dressed as a woman again...and again..just went on and on and frankly bored this reviewer. When they came, the Dookie era songs were great, and the atmosphere (apart from the obnoxious crowd habit of beer chucking) was wonderful, with the moon coming up and planes criss-crossing a beautiful summer sky. A great night out, a great laugh and value for money - but musical history was not made.

Pearl Jam don't sell bucketloads of CDs, but their concerts are like gatherings of the faithful. The reason for this is easy to see - they're a band that really connect with their audience, and last night's huge crowd at the MEN (who all, like me, presumably had to go to a lot of trouble and expense for their tickets) created a fabulous atmosphere - there was no hint of the boorishness or aggression that certain other mega-bands seem to get at their shows. Everyone was there for the music and the passion, and every pair of eyes was trained on the stage. Whilst there were one or two dull song selections, in the main this was an energising, emotional show - all the favourites were there - Alive, Daughter, Rear View Mirror (with extended jam), a phenomenal Even Flow, with the aforementioned hendrix showboating, World Wide Suicide, Black - and a couple of new songs which sound much better live than the online studio versions I've heard. The only jarring moment was peacenik Vedder having a screaming fit at his guitar tech because his axe wasn't in place on time. Not cool, Eddie, 20,000 people didn't mind you being twenty minutes late onstage, we certainly aren't going to grumble about waiting another 15 seconds for a song to begin. That small gripe aside, an amazing gig, well controlled as usual by the understated MEN staff.

Good review. I've always thought PIL would be the best band in the world if only they had a decent singer - in the studio they get away with it, a la Ian Brown, but live Lydon makes Brown sound like Sinatra. This was a long, long show, with some surprising choices - the set list is almost totally different from the more user-friendly 1992 show at the same venue. It's a challenging evening, with some great highs - Poptones works to a fantastic, cacophonous climax which makes great use of Lydon's discordant wailing, and the band is fabulous throughout. A great, straight-up rock song like Annalisa, however, is ruined beyond recognition by Lydon's inability to carry what tune there is. Lydon is great value, of course - his exchange with the lager-thrower is much more obscene than the quote featured here, and his other pronouncements are never less than interesting - though being lectured about how weak we are for "losing the country" seems a bit rich from someone who has lived in LA for decades (and he made the same speech in 1992). When these gigs were announced it was the most exciting news of the year for me - the reality didn't quite match up, but seeing PIL in 2009 is still something to be grateful for.

Not the most flattering of photographs of Ms Vega there, but she never has one to trade on looks. Her songs do all the work, in their understated, subtle way. The fact that her new album is a re-recording of old material is concerning - she has released a string of great albums since the turn of the century and doesn't need to fall back on a "Greatest Hits" tour. All the smash hits are here and a smattering from those recent albums - the one new song played, the previously mentioned Man Who Played God bodes well and gives hope that a creative block has not been encountered. The distorted opening chord of Marlena On The Wall is a bad start, Suzanne's two-man band overpowering her delicate skeins, but the sound improves thereafter - they are a talented twosome. The guitarist weaves nice patterns around the melodies and words, while the bassist, looking like a smaller Ben Stiller, is incredibly intense, agonising over every run as though he were backing Frank Zappa or underpinning the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Together, the three of them make a wonderful noise. Suzanne always leaves her audience wanting more - I would like to have heard more of her rich trove of 21st Century songs, but it's always a pleasure to spend ninety minutes in her company.

I didn't go this year for the first time because I too had grown tired of the travelling freak show. I'd be more than happy to see the MacGowan-less Pogues play a tight, professional set again, as they did when they toured the Pogue Mahone album. But of course that band wouldn't sell out the MEN, where hordes of ghouls come to laugh at the antics of a man who is killing more than his band's reputation. I'm not surprised Spider and the rest are getting fed up - no amount of money is worth the damage being done to these great old songs. Spider and the boys - come back next year and play a smaller venue. leave Shane back in the pub with his blurred memories.

I love odd-numbered years - there may not be a football tournament in the summer, but there's always a Tori Amos album and tour to look forward to. Five stars are well merited - I'm no fanboy, but Tori has never let me down, from the first sighting of her 17 years ago at the University to this latest outing at the Apollo - a great venue for a gig, with much improved staff, apart from the insufferably small and uncomfortable downstairs seating. First let's put the Kate Bush comparisons to bed, shall we? Kate is a genius but chooses to bestow an album on us once a decade if we're lucky. Tori is far more prolific and has carved out a unique style and musical personality for herself - any comparisons are not only odious, but superficial in the extreme. Her high workrate can mitigate against her at times - her albums not only come out without too much delay, but are also long, complex affairs, sometimes weighed down with too much ballast (Scarlet's Walk, for instance, was stodgy in parts to these ears). However, her most recent album, Abnormally Attracted To Sin, is her best since From The Choirgirl Hotel in 1998 - sadly, it was represented tonight by only four songs in a 100 minute-plus show. That minor quibble aside, this was a contender for gig of the year. From Tori's use of the huge Apollo stage (where artists often neglect to use the space and seem lost as a result), to her beautiful crimson gown (clashing vibrantly with her red hair - mimicked by many in the audience), to her sensual stage presence and of course those amazing songs. The light show deserves a mention too - the best I've seen for years. When Tori first takes the stage, she stands with her back to the audience on the edge of her piano plinth, that gown draped over the edge and her silhouette giving the impression of a crazy witch on the heath. At other times huge shafts of white light reach out into the audience, or the gigantic red velvet curtain at the back is lit up to eerie effect. To the music: Tori has such a huge catalogue to choose from it would be nigh on impossible to play a bad set. Sure enough, she daringly throws out two classics in the first three songs - Caught A Lite Sneeze and Cornflake Girl provide an early high after the brooding intensity of the opener, Give. More highs follow, with Welcome To England, Northern Lad and the rather inelegantly titled The Power of Orange Knickers being this reviewer's favourite moments. Big Wheel was a surprise encore (I didn't think it would appear again after the last tour, but I was glad it did) and the aching Tear In Your Hand brought events to a close, far too soon. Tori Amos is quite simply one of the best live performers working today. Roll on 2011.

Two and a half hours, no support, no interval...the tickets were pricey but these guys give value for money. It's true, if you don't like noodling, stay away - I'm sure there's a mellotron free Susan Boyle album you'll enjoy - but if you appreciate musicians who can PLAY, rather than act stoned (Mr Doherty) or tell us all what we're doing wrong (Mr Bono) then Yes are indubitably the band for you. No po-faced proggers these - during an amazing, extended instrumental passage in South Side of the Sky, tiny vocalist Benoit David with his acoustic and man-mountain Chris Squire on bass indulge in some Quo-style synchronised boogieing. Squire's Nacho Libre-style "stretchy pants" may be ill-advised but he remains the best bass-player on the planet, and I would also put him forward as best back-up vocalist too. His harmonies have always been an integral part of the Yes sound. You can't take your eyes off him and you notice what a difference he makes to the songs, unlike most anonymous pluckers. Squire still bases his look on 1973-era Suzi Quatro, and Steve Howe is still hoping the Max Wall look will make a comeback, but man can he play guitar! He effortlessly peels off licks and solos that a creature with twenty fingers would struggle to match. I must admit that whenever a roadie brought on a SECOND guitar, on a stand, for him to play, I was put in mind of Spinal Tap, but Yes, as I said, are not above laughing at themselves. It's true that Wakeman Jr is not as flashy as pater, but in my eyes Rick has rather spoiled his legacy with laddish tales of curries behind the keyboards during the more boring bits of Topographic Oceans back in the day. Oliver more than gets by, in an unassuming way, and the overall sound certainly does not suffer from his presence. David is an excellent replacement for Anderson - he is a great singer in his own right and gives a slightly new edge to these (mainly) old favourites. His "hello sky, hello trees" interpretive dancing is a little quirky, but what's a guy to do during those lengthy instrumental passages? Eat a curry? Alan White, as usual, defies physics with his drumming - I thought his solo, like all of the others', was just as economical and brief as it needed to be. The drum solo is much derided but I have no problem watching a brilliant craftsman at work. Highlights were the incendiary opener, Siberian Khatru, the aforementioned South Side, which really scaled the heights of skill and, yes, passion, and deservedly got an ovation from the crowd, Starship Trooper still amazes after all these years - a song, unlike, say, Stairway to Heaven or Freebird, that never pales with repeated listens. They may not be in the first flush of youth, but hopefully they'll be "round about" our way many times more. Get it?