CityLife

Yes, it's called a preview. It's common practice for magazines, newspapers and websites that position themselves as entertainment guides for forthcoming events - a great deal of CityLife's remit. Our reviews are carried on our reviews, rather than our news, page.

HIATUSES are a tricky business for most musicians, especially ones who go on an extended break with much still to prove. Fortunately for Liam Frost, affections for the Mancunian singer-songwriter have glowed warmly since he first hit the live circuit, and not just because he’s one of us. His inspirational hymns of heartbreak and reminiscence won us over, but his shy demeanour and self-deprecating interlude banter made us fall in love. It’s three years since he last had a go at the live game in his home town, though, and he returns a little battered and bruised from life on a major label, after it left him high and dry and clutching his finished but unreleased album last year. A four-week residency back in Manchester’s bosom, then, sounds like an infinitely sensible way to get back in the saddle with his band, The Slowdown Family - now a new bunch of pickers who’ve grooved up their guitars and chucked out the violins. Doing it at The Ruby Lounge is a braver choice; it’s one of the city’s more bijou venues, but it’s also suitably sprawling enough to feel vast if the crowd isn’t on side. Hairy moment And there’s a hairy moment when it looks like it might not go Liam’s way. The band arrive to an awkward silence, only sporadic whoops sound out when Liam greets the crowd, and his expression suggests he should have gone with his gut and called the whole thing off. Instead, though, he opts for proving why these people have kept the faith. Confidently, he starts with a newie, Held Tightly In Your Fist, which suggests a sea change in his musical leaning – less folk, more pop (only the sweet, three part harmonies expose his folk roots). Mystery Jets rejecting crusty indie for '80s electro-sheen this isn’t, but it is an intriguing twist on Frost’s distinctive autumnal melodies. Shall We Dance His first rusty moment trips him up during oldie Shall We Dance, but he recovers well for three more new offerings: Shipwrecked, complete with delicious, tumbling guitar riff, Good Things Are Coming Our Way and Sparks. But just as it was back at the Academy 2 in 2006, it’s Liam’s solo spot that really wins everyone over. Skylark Avenue’s deliberately minimal guitar leaves plenty of space for Liam’s huge voice to soar, while Try Try Try and The City Is At Standstill are powerful reminders of why everyone first paid attention to the then 22-year-old troubadour. Favourites and first time tracks see the night out, with a standout new song - the massive Division Street – stealing the show. It’s a setlist full of peaks and troughs, but that really is the point of a residency – allowing Frost to iron out a consistent set before his record gets its official send off. And, with any luck, the side effect will be to convince him to keep a higher profile in future. Liam Frost plays the Ruby Lounge again on March 11, 18 and 25. £8. Call 0161 832 1111.

A STUNNED volunteer in the Buxton Opera House lobby tells me that tickets for The Mighty Boosh’s first north west shows are changing hands on eBay for a handsome £160. Which is not quite as surprising as it sounds, because the Opera House has scored something of a golden goal with these gigs. It’s two months before Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt bring their surrealist comic creation to Manchester, and even then a fan’s best chance of catching them will be in the characterless surroundings of the MEN Arena. Facing that prospect, a mixed gaggle of supporters have plumped for Buxton’s intimate old theatre. And it’s exactly the sort of place that typifies the comic friction between Barratt and Fielding’s alter egos; you can almost hear Howard Moon sniffing in the smell of grease paint while Vince Noir comments on the ‘well vintage’ boutique décor. Three series and one live show into life as The Boosh, and the question on everyone’s lips is where they go from here. The narrative of this latest live performance shows that Fielding and Barratt have had some of the same concerns, and coherence is often left on the back burner in favour of giving the love in the room some space to swell. Cheeky grin And there is plenty of love. All is takes is a cheeky grin from Fielding to get the whole room hollering these days – evidence, if you needed it, that the men behind this once cult BBC3 comedy are now bona fide superstars writing stadium-filling entertainment. The transition shows a little in the structure of the new stage version, too. The first half acts as a sort of refresher course on the show’s hit characters – the crack fox, the hitcher, Bob Fossil, Naboo The Shaman, The Moon and Tony Harrison, now a Michael Parkinson-style chat show host, steal their five minutes each – and there’s notable progress in the show’s polish with the addition of a live band and shiny set. Conversely, the second half taps into the storytelling techniques that sustained the concept through three series: bizarre, leftfield and full of ‘tiny twisties’, and not a million miles away from their early Hen & Chickens material. This time, Howard is allowed to indulge his lofty am-dram aspirations and pen a pompous, apocalyptic play set in 2009 about the destruction of the planet – from which he (unsurprisingly) is the only survivor that isn’t left hideously malformed. Delicous pokes There’s some delicious pokes at amateur theatre as Noir and The Boosh’s talking ape, Bollo, wave around pieces of red and blue fabric to represent fire and water and cheap props are wheeled awkwardly on and off stage. It takes flight, though, when Vince Noir breaks off script and blasts Moon’s bleak vision with a skip-full of glitter, emerging as Sunflash, a winged gladiator in the shortest of gold lame skirts, from the “future future” who speaks in his own dialect of ‘Chavese’ – a mixture of Chinese and chav. Like an Ernie Wise ‘play what I wrote’, it’s on a par with the Eels or Nanageddon TV episodes for testing the imagination, but it’s also full of peachy one-liners: “Leeds is a state of mind,” chirps Howard when his gaggle of freaks ask him where he is from, and then there’s Noir’s typically vacuous closing thought on the moral of his rebellious tale: “If you look a bit strange,” he replies, “learn to accessorize." Crimping style As always, though, the best moments are the front-of-curtain verbal spas between Howard and Vince: Moon the Stuckist jazz lover, Noir the fashionista with the upper hand. His Kings Of Leon impression and the duo’s crimp about the recent Sugar Puffs advert that mimicked their crimping style are both rib-aching moments. They close with a musical set from the Nanageddon stars and the Boosh live band, the Ungrateful Dead, turning the exquisite theatre into a bouncing gig. Which is probably the only way to sign off for the night when you’re comedians that are worshipped like rock stars. The Mighty Boosh play Manchester Apollo and MEN Arena from December 1-6. Tickets are still available for some shows.

Oops... apologies for these oversights. Occasionally I am asked to write about bands I know little about and clearly this time I made a few errors. One mistake was a typo (I meant to write American-influenced), one was a misunderstanding (Boz having been originally brought in as vocalist for King Crimson and continuing to provide vocals through the band's history) and the other issue mentioned below actually came from the band's own website - that being the claim about not having toured in this format for 30 years. All points noted and thanks for registering your issues with this preview. Best wishes, Sarah

I can only apologise - in our interview with Phil, he told us Roxy first visited Manchester 10 years ago... Next time, I promise not to take it from the horse's mouth.