live: gillian welch at shepherd's bush empire, 29 july 2004: a new definition of goodness: the middle-aged middle-class husband who buys my spare ticket and presses on me a tenner more than I've requested. bless him. welch and rawlings stoop over two guitars, nod and cluck each other into songs harsh like harvesting in a drought, tunes of beauteous gloom pulled out of imaginary prairie winds. back to back come "april 14th part 1" and "ruination day", the same words of national melancholy run through different mangles; extravagant solos are fingerlicking showcases; harmonies are haunting or tender as it lays. what thumps still harder are the covers. I'd rather hear them play "black star" than radiohead any night—but the serendipity of "tonight I'll be staying here with you", in the wake of its sudden prominence on bob's rolling thunder rerelease, stuns, and leaves me torn between two thoughts: golly, this is magnificent, and darn—now we can't cover this. joe

live: lloyd cole and the commotions at hammersmith apollo, 15 october 2004: just after nine five men, the same five as in 1984, walk on stage, pick up their instruments and head into business with the opening riff of "rattlesnakes". that's almost all anyone need hear or know. the crowd is impassioned, no dry dinner-party gang but fervent to the point of embarrassing our hero. I'd like him to tell us a little of what it means for them all to be reunited, not writing about golf or running a pub; I'd love to know how the other commotions feel to be back in the medium-to-big time for one last trance. but the signs that show are in the music, where neil clark's tremolo attack on "my bag" might be a tribute to a departed hero, robert quine. let the world now grant these songs their status, postcards from a decade of a different colour that I hope to spend my life rereading. joe

live: the heavy entertainment ticket: the emergency, the bites, wagons, the royal dave graney show melbourne arts centre, 1 feb 2004: dave graney got a lot of mileage at this event out of the fact that so many people were unlikely normally to be seen performing or even just spectating at something that was occurring during daylight—luckily it was not real daylight exactly but more that strange sunless dankness that melbourne can do so well and which in fact some present were celebrating as real melbourne weather. we had the strangest january, the coldest in decades according to the papers, and it's been wonderful. henry wagons announced the formation of a wet arse club of which he was clearly a member. both wagons and the bites did songs about adelaide. wagons' song was, henry wagons said, about a concrete eagle a metre high that he considered the worst tourist attraction he'd ever seen. the bites' was the one new song they played and boded well for their rejigged line-up—they have just lost guitarist gen to comedy theatre outfit your wedding night—now they are a three-piece and of the band that created one of the top 5 albums of 2003, white lines and runways, now only rene and kirsty remain, monika having been replaced by simon (referred to by dave graney as "unit on drums") a few months ago. kirsty made pointed remarks about the apartments overlooking the arts centre lawn which are of course not only revolting examples of soulless commerce-oriented netherexistence, they are also just ridiculously surreal, looking very much like something from the beach at rio cut out of a magazine and stuck behind us. it has been a while since I saw the emergency, I don't know why as I have always liked them, and they are more like the human league than ever, particularly now they are singing, and the last song had the rhythm to "open your heart" but was a much, much, better song (wouldn't be hard for it to be a much better song, but this was much, much better). I saw the human league late last year and it was brilliant, I still love them, and I want to see the emergency all the time. dave graney, apropos of something—um—something to do with gamblers, told us that for a gambler luck is time you can see. this was adele pickvance's last show with the royal dave graney show. she will still be touring and recording with the go-betweens but is looking for something new in her adoptive hometown of melbourne. the rdgs did a solid selection of material from their last few albums, the best of which were great songs like "there's the royal troll" and "midnight to dawn" from the most recent album the brother who lived. the rdgs have just finished a french-language record which will only be brilliant. dave wore a grey suit, he convened the whole day, and did karate kicks. bill miller's guitar, as our friend shane pointed out, was very dirty and appeared covered in mould. I said "so does bill miller" which I thought was massively humorous, but you know me, I need to have an answer for everything. then we went to the pancake parlour. david