As I emerge at North Greenwich tube, I’m in the mix with two very different tribes. They’re each going to one of the two shows and it’s pretty clear which is which. I look around me and to be brutally honest, am reassured and relieved that I’m with the Harrison/Belew crew.

Jerry Harrison, Adrian Belew and Cool Cool Cool @ O2 Indigo, London

Jerry Harrison (Simon Reed)

The pair are performing their Remain In Light show, which was born in 2022 following the 40th anniversary of Talking Heads’ critically acclaimed fourth album. Three years later, the tour is showing no signs of losing popularity and I’m really excited to be at this, the final date on the 2025 UK and European leg.

Jerry and Adrian are backed by funk, house and R&B ensemble Cool Cool Cool, who themselves are an exceptional nine-piece featuring some outstanding musicians in the genre. We’re fortunate to experience the ‘backing band’ an hour before the main act come out because Cool Cool Cool are actually also the support. Songs such as Made Ya Look, Dynamite and Never Noticed fairly race along with twin vocals from Shira Elias and Sammi Garett soaring over a backdrop of pumping basslines, stabbing horns and Latin percussion. It’s a fabulous warm up for what is to follow.

When the lights dim again, the main event is signalled by a pulsating sequencer that’s banging out bass notes, the majority of which are making my trousers flap. It goes on for some time; so long in fact that an image of the band getting lost backstage, whilst Harrison and Belew shout: “Hello London!” gets stuck in my head and can’t escape.

But soon enough, the members of Cool Cool Cool reappear and they’re shortly followed by the two names above the door. The band open with Psycho Killer, perhaps the best known of all Talking Heads songs. It’s a slight surprise, as (a) you might think they’d save it for the end, and; (b) it’s not on Remain In Light. In fact, the tour nomenclature is a little misleading. Whilst the majority of songs tonight are from the only Talking Heads album that both Harrison and Belew appeared on together, the band do raid the wider discography too.

That said, we don’t wait long for Remain In Light material. Crosseyed And Painless and Houses In Motion follow. They’re both new wave funk masterpieces from what is generally considered Talking Heads’ finest work and they give the now 11-piece band an opportunity to flex every inch of their combined musical muscle.

One thing that immediately stands out is how impressive it is that a band not containing David Byrne can have no less than three singers that sound like David Byrne. Belew kicks the vocals off on Psycho Killer; sounds like David Byrne. Harrison takes up the main vocal on Houses In Motion; sounds like David Byrne. But it’s not until vocalist and baritone sax player Josh Schwartz picks up the reins that the ears really prick up. Bloody hell, he really sounds like David Byrne. His vocals on Crosseyed And Painless and Once In A Lifetime among others are amazingly authentic.

It’s not exclusively Talking Heads material on offer tonight. There’s time for some other songs more personal to both main artists too. Belew leaves the stage whilst Harrison plays Rev It Up from his second solo album Casual Gods. It’s got a great chunky guitar riff and it’s an opportunity for the full horn section to shine. It also allows stage left guitarist Craig Brodhead (who to this point has been a fairly anonymous third wheel) to rip an incredible solo and demonstrate that just like Belew, he is a consummate lead guitar player.

Adrian remains off stage for Slippery People, which is a musical powerhouse featuring the sublime lead vocals of Elias and Garett, a fantastic keys solo from Harrison and a truly epic building tenor sax solo from Greg Sanderson. Whilst this plays out, the other musicians including Harrison sit on stage and extravagantly cross and recross their legs Moulin Rouge style.

When Adrian returns, it’s to play King Crimson’s Thela Hun Ginjeet from the 1981 album Discipline. Belew introduces it as “Something that sounds a little bit different”. To my ears, it sounds broadly similar to be honest. It has brilliant Latin drums and percussion from Mikey Carubba and Yahuba Garcia-Torres respectively and plenty of harmonics and whammy bar/neck bending pyrotechnics from Belew.

It also includes a spoken voice recording, made by Adrian shortly after he was confronted by a 1980’s street gang in Notting Hill: “I couldn’t see his face. He was holding a gun against me and I was thinking: ‘This is a dangerous place’”, says Belew in a masterpiece of understatement. Thela Hun Ginjeet (an anagram of ‘heat in the jungle’, itself a euphemism for urban crime) is what you’d get if you put Talking Heads, King Crimson and Crimewatch UK in a food processor and gave it a spin.

The band are remarkably tight, not only in the impeccable musicianship but also in the coordinated dance moves that accompany the whole performance. During Life During Wartime, they ape the ‘running on the spot’ choreography so brilliantly played out by the frontline of David Byrne, Tina Weymouth (bass), Alex Weir (guitar), Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt (backing vocals) during Stop Making Sense. It must be as knackering as it is technically difficult.

Those around me in the know follow suit and I soon find I’m surrounded by fans manically sprinting whilst not going anywhere. A few really brave souls even copy Byrne’s most extreme workout routine by hareing around at the back of the auditorium. The whole experience is as mad as it is captivating. It helps that the song itself has a hook so catchy that once it gets lodged in your head, the Kray twins would have a job evicting it.

The band close the main set with Al Green’s classic soul tune Take Me To The River, a song that Talking Heads covered on their 1978 album More Songs About Buildings and Food. It’s another one where the horns and the backing vocalists really shine.

When they come back out, they play Drugs from Fear Of Music, the other Talking Heads album that gets its legs stretched tonight. It’s quite understated compared to everything else we’ve heard, but to be fair the band deserve a rest. They’ve collectively been going at it at 1000mph for the last hour and twenty minutes. The concluding song fittingly is from Remain In Light: The Great Curve. It’s a final up-tempo tour de force for the whole band and just about everybody I see around me is throwing shapes. At this point, if you’re standing up and not at least tapping your feet to it, your shoes must have been nailed to the floor. I can think of no other explanation.

The whole thing builds to a climax with some more of Belew’s face melting guitar and when the music stops and the applause starts, the band meet for a photo call with the audience. It’s the last date of the tour; who wouldn’t want a memento?

The two shows in the O2 tonight terminate at roughly the same time and the separate tribes meet once again as we head to the tube. I hope the Kill Tony crowd had a good time but I’m in no doubt in Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew I picked the right event to be at this evening. We’ve been celebrating music from four decades ago that will still be heralded four decades from now. If Kill Tony is still being talked about in forty years’ time, I’ll eat Adrian’s hat.

Live review of Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew Remain In Light at O2 Indigo, London on 7 June 2025 by Simon Reed. Photography by Musical Pictures.

The Gulls

The Gulls (Sandro Gromen-Hayes)

The band (Will Fairhead, bass and vocals/Kilian Aubertin, guitar/Tali Knight, drums) live permanently on the road and are known for their stunt performances. If you happen to be strolling down Camden High Street and a rock ‘n’ roll band drives past on an open sided trailer, there’s a better than average chance it’s The Gulls.

If you’re at Stonehenge and/or Glastonbury Tor on the solstice and a rock ‘n’ roll band turns up for an impromptu gig, there’s a better than average chance it’s The Gulls.

But what we really love about the band is their annual Robin Hood Tour performing free open-air gigs in iconic places to raise money for The Trussell Trust (UK food banks).

The Gulls have just released their newest single, Life Goes On. Written during a challenging winter, the song serves as a resilient anthem, reminding listeners to keep pushing forward. It’s both a message of hope and a call to fuel dreams, no matter the obstacles.

Last year, the band played major UK festivals (Boomtown, Victorious, Beautiful Days), joined Kula Shaker on tour, and headlined their own sold-out UK & Ireland tour.

2025 looks to be a breakout year for The Gulls. There is an upcoming album, Lavender and Tobacco, set to be released on vinyl in April, a UK and Ireland tour planned with the Buena Vista Orchestra, plus plans for an American tour with SSK Records.

Bilk

Bilk (Marie Lehman)

The title of course is an homage to one of Dury’s finest works and the similarities don’t end there. The lyrics, written and spewed at warp speed by frontman Sol Abraham, contain much of the verbal dexterity that Ian brought to The Blockheads and they’re delivered in a similarly monotone Thames Estuary drawl.

Whilst the first, eponymously titled album resided unashamedly at the punk end of the punk rock spectrum, the new one swings the needle in varying directions. Opening track RNR starts life with a guitar riff more glam than Audrey Hepburn, but soon puts on twenty years and resolves into a thinly-veiled pastiche of Britpop’s Royal Family. In fact, making the opening track on your album sound this much like Oasis, calling it ‘RNR’ and singing about being a rock ‘n’ roll star is bordering on taking the piss. Bilk have balls, I’ll give them that.

But it’s not all music to piss off mum and dad. Summer Days is such a lightweight jangly pop tune you’d be forgiven for thinking it had been inspired by The Housemartins. This is a comparison that the band might not entirely approve of, assuming of course they have the slightest idea who The Housemartins are.

Whether or not the swing into alternative genres is entirely successful can only be determined by the individual. Personally, I prefer Bilk when they operate at extremes – ear drum shattering chaos or stripped back acoustic; and I especially like them when Sol is rolling out his most acerbic wit.

Skidmark is one of the acoustic numbers, but somehow manages to be one of the most gratuitous diss songs I’ve ever heard and is just fantastic:

“If it became a situation I was locked in a room,
With Osama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler and you,
And I had a gun with two bullets to make shit right,
I’d let those evil pricks live and I’d shoot you twice.”

 The chorus is so offensive I can’t write it here. Suffice it to say it uses the kind of words that Dury himself didn’t shy away from.

There are some absolute bangers on here too at the window rattling end of the spectrum. F Up has lyrics detailing Abraham’s struggles with making toast that made me laugh out loud and This Room Is Caving In On Me is 2:48 of joyous punk-rap profanity.

But the best track without doubt here is Tommy, the harrowing story of a girl with aspirations who got with the wrong guy. It dispenses with the self-deprecating humour in favour of a pumping rock tune and some sharp observation:

“So now she’s bunking off of college, no longer sees her mates,
She’s too busy rehearsing all her lines round Tommy’s place,
And Tommy all he wants to do is get completely off his face,
Her goals and aspirations slowly going down the drain.
He gets her on the soft stuff but of course she upgrades,
And now she’s getting twisted every night she’s forgotten her own name,
And all I can think is how it’s all such a shame,
‘Cos now she’s sat in front of the tele sticking needles in her veins.”

Probably the best way to enjoy the new tunes (and certainly all the old ones) is to join in the manic fun at one of the forthcoming live shows. I photographed Bilk at Omeara a couple of years ago. There’s no photo pit there and the flying carpet of non-stop crowd surfing left me with a few temporary dents in my forehead, one permanent dent in a camera, and one massive bloody smile on my face.

Bilk @ Omeara

Bilk performing at Omeara, London on 18 February 2023 (Simon Reed)

This time around the band were booked to play The Garage, but demand outstripping supply has seen them upgraded to Camden’s Electric Ballroom. It’s a near five-fold increase in capacity from last time and RockShot will be there to witness the ensuing carnage. The EB has a pit and the stage is absurdly high, so unless the fanbase are looking to break a few neck vertebrae, my forehead and cameras should be safer this time. But there are two things of which I can remain certain: I’ll still be retaining the smile and the crowd behind me will still be going bananas.

If you want to be a part of the experience, the dates and venues for the UK tour are below:

JANUARY
24th – Hot Box Live, Chelmsford

FEBRUARY
5th – Thekla, Bristol
6th – The Globe, Cardiff
7th – The Electric Ballroom, London
13th – O2 Academy 2, Manchester
14th – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
15th – Northumbria University, Newcastle
16th – SWG3, Glasgow
19th – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
20th – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
21st – O2 Academy, Birmingham
22nd – The Engine Rooms, Southampton

Tickets are available from the Bilk website.

Palaye Royale Bring Death, Glory, Fire And Musical Mastery To London’s OVO Arena Wembley

Variations on the CCTV logo image from the cover (a piece of marketing brilliance) were absolutely everywhere in post-millennium surveillance state Britain, and for a while at least, so were Hard-Fi. In May 2006, the band played five consecutive sell-outs at Brixton Academy. They remain the only artist to achieve that feat off of a debut album release. Two more albums followed; Once Upon A Time In The West in 2007, and Killer Sounds in 2011.

And then, Hard-Fi went dark. A short break became a long one, and in time the fanbase couldn’t ignore they were in the territory of a fully-fledged hiatus. As the years rolled and the silence endured, it was collectively assumed the band were done.

The Camera is Back!

The Camera Is Back! (@CapriCornetto via X)

But in the Spring of 2022, the CCTV mysteriously reappeared in the capital’s subways, and with it the caption: “London 01.10.22”. A reunion? A long-overdue reunion? As a member of the fanbase, I felt like dancing in the street. The reunion gig (Forum, Kentish Town) was epic and spawned a full tour the following year from Staines’ finest export.

And now the band are back again; with another Autumn tour and an EP entitled Don’t Go Making Plans, Hard-Fi’s first new music in ten years. I catch them on the second night of the tour at the White Rock Theatre in Hastings. The White Rock opened in 1927 and is a lovely building, though it has more the whiff of a venue ideally suited to a Showaddywaddy Summer Season than it does a host for a mid-noughties indie-rock band. This, added to the fact that Hastings appears to be closer to France than to any conurbation of note in the UK, could have made it a difficult place to fill.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

But by the time Hard-Fi walk out, there are a commendable number of people filling the floor and the balcony. The band open as they always have (and as I suspect they always will) with Middle Eastern Holiday, second track from Stars Of CCTV and a brilliant political observation regarding the insanity of war in Iraq. At the time, it was commended by Billy Bragg, a man who knows a thing or two about brilliant political observations.

As the show unfolds, it becomes clear that this is an evening designed to deliver maximum nostalgic reminiscence and enjoyment. There are no obscure deep cuts here. Every tune is a maximum banger and the band know what people want.

In the first half, other big standouts from Stars Of CCTV whizz by. Gotta Reason and Tied Up Too Tight are excellent and Better Do Better is outstanding. This latter tune is a song about an unfaithful ex-lover reappearing on the doorstep and seeking forgiveness… but not finding it. The lyrics are visceral. I don’t know if it’s actually autobiographical, but if so, it sure involved a world of pain. Close to twenty years later, frontman Richard Archer still spits the lyric: “Your face makes me want to be sick” with such venom he practically showers the first few rows of the audience.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

No less than nine tunes tonight are from Stars Of CCTV leaving the other two albums from Hard-Fi v1.0 receiving only a minor airing. That said, the songs from Killer Sounds and Once Upon A Time In The West deliver the very best those records had to offer.

From the former, the group play Stay Alive and Good For Nothing, two tunes that really fly. From the latter, there is just one song: Surburban Knights. It comes three-quarters of the way through the set and by this point, the crowd are more than happy to indulge the band in the community singing that the song so richly deserves.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

Of course, the new EP is featured and all four tracks from it get played. To keep things simple, they come one after another and it’s apparent just how well they sit with the preceding material. Hard-Fi might have been silent for eight years, but Archer still knows how to knock out a tune. He takes the opportunity to revisit some old themes too. Don’t Go Making Plans is a political song lamenting the then Tory government butchering the Public Order Act to clamp down on legitimate protest. Billy would be proud. Meanwhile, Don’t Need You is another lambasting of a partner in a failed relationship.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

We close as we began, with some of the finest cuts from Stars Of CCTV. Richard picks up a melodica (keyboard with a mouthpiece to the uninitiated) and anybody who has seen the band before knows what comes next. Cash Machine, an anthem for the permanently impoverished, is a brilliant piece of song writing. It has lyrics just crying out to be belted back to the stage, and belting them back to the stage is exactly what the fine people of Hastings do.

Hard To Beat, an effervescent tale about getting lucky in a nightclub, finishes the show. It’s such an outrageously catchy tune and it must be fantastic knowing you’ve got a song like this in your back pocket to close out a gig before walking off to wild applause.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

The stage lights come up again, but Ross Phillips (guitar), Kai Stephens (bass) and Steve Kemp (drums) get an extended break because Archer comes up to the mic in isolation. He plays Move On Now, the only real ballad from Stars Of CCTV. On the record it’s a beautiful solo piano/solo vocal arrangement. In the White Rock Theatre it’s a solo electric guitar/several hundred vocal arrangement.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

The rest of the band return for a sweet rendition of the Stars Of CCTV title track and the performance finally closes with all-out party anthem Living For The Weekend. It must be fantastic knowing that having already blown your cookies twenty minutes ago with a tune like Hard To Beat, you’ve still got a song like this in your back pocket to close out a gig before walking off to wild applause.

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings

Hard-Fi @ White Rock Theatre, Hastings (Simon Reed)

It’s been another joyous night, made all the more special because it’s not one that a few years ago I could have ever expected to see. So, what follows next? With new music in the air, is the Don’t Go Making Plans EP the precursor to a fourth Hard-Fi album? I surely hope so. And with the twentieth anniversary of Stars Of CCTV on the horizon, might there be a celebratory tour? We’ll just have to sit tight and find out.

The remaining dates on the current Hard-Fi tour are:

NOVEMBER
Tue 19th – Portsmouth, Guildhall
Thu 21th – Cardiff, Tramshed
Fri 22nd – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun
Sat 23rd – Nottingham, Rock City
Mon 25th – Glasgow, Garage
Tue 26th – Sheffield, The Leadmill
Wed 27th – Manchester, Ritz
Fri 29th – Leeds, Stylus
Sat 30th – London, Roundhouse

The Roundhouse is sold-out but limited tickets remain for the other venues and can be obtained via the Hard-Fi website. The band are on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Live review of Hard-Fi at The White Rock Theatre on 16th November 2024. Words and photography by Simon Reed.

Wunderhorse Are Champions Of The 1865

In his press release associated with the announcement, Lynne said: “My return to touring began at Hyde Park in 2014. It seems like the perfect place to do our final show. We couldn’t be more excited to share this special night in London with our UK fans. As the song goes, ‘We’re gonna do it one more time!’”

BST Hyde Park (Kalpesh Patel)

ELO were formed by Lynne, Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan in 1970; their popularity rising through the decade and peaking with the release of double album Out Of The Blue in 1977. The iconic Mr Blue Sky from that album remains of course a staple ingredient on music radio the world over.

Following the more disco influenced Discovery in 1979 and the science fiction infused concept album Time in 1981, interest waned in the band as post punk and new romantic acts dominated the charts and Jeff Lynne effectively dissolved the group in 1986.

Lynne went on to be a hugely successful producer and member of supergroup The Travelling Wilburys with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison.

Whilst Lynne chose to put ELO firmly in his rear- view mirror, Bev Bevan kept the flame alive in the form of ELO Part II (latterly The Orchestra), who, as well as Bevan, had ELO violinist Nik Kaminsky, cellist Hugh McDowell and bassist Kelly Groucutt in the lineup. ELO Part II had some success, but without Lynne in the band could sadly only ever be a poor imitation of their former selves.

Lynne briefly re-energised the ELO name in 2001 with the recording of a new album, Zoom, though it mainly featured guest musicians and the only other original member of the band who appeared on the record was keys player Richard Tandy. Zoom received decent reviews, but did not ignite the public’s enthusiasm for a reformation of ELO and plans for a tour were scrapped.

Twelve long years followed. The public may not have been ready for a return of ELO at the beginning of the millennium, but they certainly were when Lynne re-emerged once again with Richard Tandy at a fund raiser for the BBC’s Children In Need appeal in 2013.

Chris Evans, then a Radio 2 DJ, followed the Children in Need performance by asking his listeners if they wanted to see ELO perform at Radio 2’s Festival in a Day in Hyde Park. The answer was a resounding yes. All 50,000 tickets for the event on 14 September 2014 sold out in 15 minutes. Jeff Lynne’s ELO as the new project was now called once again saw Lynne paired with Richard Tandy, plus backing by Take That’s band from the Children in Need concert, led by musical director Mike Stevens. The new band were also joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra.

The Hyde Park performance was a huge success, leading to new recorded material (albums Alone In The Universe in 2015 and From Out Of Nowhere in 2019) and a series of sold out concerts all over the world. Lynne confirmed that the current US tour would see his final live performances in North America, but with an absence of UK dates being announced, this left his home audience in fear of missing out. The 2025 BST appearance changes all that, though it is unclear at this stage whether there will be any other UK or European dates announced in support of Lynne’s final UK performance in Hyde Park.

Jeff Lynne of Jeff Lynne’s ELO performing at the O2 Arena, London on 17th October 2018 (Simon Reed)

One thing that is certain is that Lynne will not be performing with Richard Tandy as ELO’s keyboard wizard sadly passed away earlier this year. Paying tribute, Lynne said: “He was a remarkable musician and friend and I’ll cherish the lifetime of memories we had together.”

Jim King, CEO of European festivals at AEG Presents, said of Lynne’s appearance at BST 2025: “Jeff Lynne’s ELO are loved the world over. The live shows are nothing short of extraordinary and a testament to the incredible catalogue of hits we’ve enjoyed for over 50 years. Hosting their final performance at BST Hyde Park is a true honour. We’re excited to be part of this special moment in music history.”

BST presale goes live at 10am BST on Wednesday 23 October 2024. Access to the presale can be obtained via the BST website.

Tickets go on general sale at 9am BST on Friday 25 October 2024.

VIP tickets, hospitality packages and payment plans are available.

For more information, visit bst-hydepark.com/events/jeff-lynnes-elo-sunday-13-july

Guns N’ Roses At BST Hyde Park 2023: Rock On A Scale Only Legends Could Achieve