Yard Act live @ Sound City 2022 (Gary Mather for Live4ever)
July
July began with the hitherto unlikely pairing of Yard Act and Elton John, who recorded a new version of 100% Endurance.
The standout from this year’s debut album The Overload now had the inimitable backing vocals and piano from its number one famous fan, brought together by producer Ali Chant.
“Within our camp we have a saying: ‘Mad shit happens when you do art’ – it means what it means,” James Smith explained. “You make stuff because you want to make it, and you throw stuff you’ve made into the world because you’d rather share it than not and then you leave it alone and let it do its thing.”
Loyle Carner returned with his new single Hate; one of the few songs of his, he said, to have been made from such a place.
“I was angry at the world, frightened and overwhelmed. It’s unfiltered. Really just a stream of consciousness that builds to an understanding that hate is rooted in fear. It reminds me of times the red mist takes over, and how alone you feel when the rest mist passes.”
“Arrogant and self-righteous but at the same time vulnerable and somber. I listen to this one in my car, at night. Especially after an argument when you need to get space and take a breath.”
The Music planned to preserve the legacy of their big homecoming reunion show at Temple Newsam in Leeds a little earlier in the year by releasing the gig as a live album.
“11 years is a long time,” Rob Harvey reflected. “We had to put a lot behind us, raw emotions and fears – what would it be like? Who will come? Can we still do it? But it really was an unbelievable few days.”
“The shows were incredible and the crowd gave it their all and that helped us to do the same. What we have with the four of us is unique and special, and I think you can hear that again on this recording of a day we’ll never forget.”
Christine and the Queens‘ initial plans for ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles‘ were unveiled.
The album’s announcement followed the previous month’s ‘Je te vois enfin’ single, when the Redcar persona was introduced on the track mixed by Kanye West collaborator Mike Dean.
Its wider music production was at this point set to be performed at a ‘show in the name of poetry’ during two nights at Cirque d’Hiver, Paris on September 22nd and 23rd, after which it would be brought across the English Channel for a concert at Royal Festival Hall in London.
Alvvays unveiled the details of their long awaited new LP, which would go on to be one of our top picks of the year.
Blue Rev was to be released on October 7th, previewed with its opening track Pharmacist.
After an appearance at Courtney Barnett’s Here And There festival in Chicago the next month, the band would tour North America in the wake of Blue Rev hitting the shelves – starting back in Chicago at the Riviera Theatre on October 14th.
Gilla Band confirmed the details of Most Normal, the first album from the group since they switched from Girl Band in the wake of 2019’s The Talkies.
Due via Rough Trade on October 7th, it was produced and mixed by Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios and was being previewed with Eight Fivers.
“Eight Fivers is about 40 quid,” Dara Kiely explained. “It’s about being out of touch with modern circumstances while feeling socially limited. Never fitting in and kind of proud of it. Stuck with what I have and happy for it.”
Young Fathers returned with a new track entitled Geronimo.
“Trying to make music and all of the other stuff that comes along with it,” the trio said in a statement. “Trying to forget all the bad bits, just trying to get somewhere. And that’s where we are right now, trying to get somewhere.”
“It’s the tenderness in toil, we had expelled a bunch of stuff with a lot of drive and wilder energy beforehand but this one had focus. It widened the scope again for us personally, that’s where the real high comes from. We grew another arm. We surprised ourselves.”
Bruce Springsteen added UK dates to his 2023 touring.
The Boss will play Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh and Villa Park in Birmingham, while he’s also confirmed as the first headliner for next year’s BST Hyde Park in London.
“As we wave goodbye to BST Hyde Park 2022, the most successful Hyde Park series ever, there is no bigger and better way to welcome in our 2023 edition than with another of the world’s greatest artists,” Jim King of AEG Presents said on that booking.
A three-year break after the release of your debut album is worth many lifetimes in this modern musical climate, but July finally brought the return of The Murder Capital with their first bit of new music following 2019’s essential When I Have Fears.
Frontman James McGovern described Only Good Things as an example of the ‘exciting evolution’ which the band had undertaken during their time away, adding light and colour to the weighty monochrome of their maiden record.
“This is a part of the narrative of the overall record that we feel reaches a real place of inner calm, inner peace but at its core, it’s a love song,” McGovern said.
Rumours of a big return reached fever pitch at the end of July when Jarvis Cocker seemingly confirmed Pulp would be back for a second reunion in 2023.
Speaking at a Q&A, Cocker was widely reported as responding to question about a recent Instagram post by revealing:
“It was deliberately cryptic. It’s a line from This Is Hardcore. Next year Pulp are going to play some concerts.”
Rina Sawayama shared the title-track of her new album Hold The Girl whilst confirming the details of a US tour during November.
“Hold the Girl was the first song I wrote for the record at the end of 2020,” Sawayama said. “I had gone to therapy and had a revelation, so I decided to write this song. That was the start of it. I was crying before going into the studio to write about it.”
The US tour, meanwhile, would open in Brooklyn at the Great Hall (Avant Gardner).
Wet Leg, Yard Act and Little Simz were among the shortlisted artists for this year’s Mercury Prize.
“It’s been just over a year since our first gig and we are all still in shock at where this journey has taken us,” Wet Leg responded.
“When we started the band, we never really thought we’d get the opportunity to make any recordings at all, let alone a whole album…and now to have that album nominated for a Mercury has left us absolutely lost for words.”
Also this month, Adele announced the rescheduled dates for her Las Vegas residency which was postponed to much publicity in January 2022.
“Words can’t explain how ecstatic I am to finally be able to announce these rescheduled shows,” a social media post read. “I truly was heartbroken to have to cancel them.”
“But after what feels like an eternity of figuring out logistics for the show that I really want to deliver, and knowing it can happen, I’m more excited than ever! Now I know for some of you it was a horrible decision on my part, and I will always be sorry for that.”
Arctic Monkeys by Zackery Michael
August
The Killers’ new single Boy was out, continuing the band’s run of new material which brought the Imploding The Mirage and Pressure Machine albums in the summers of 2020 and 2021 respectively.
“I had recently moved back to Utah and started to make trips to Nephi, where I grew up,” Flowers said. “I found that the place I had wanted to get away from so desperately at 16 was now a place that I couldn’t stop returning to.”
“I have a son approaching the age I was at that time in my life. With ‘boy’, I want to reach out and tell myself – and my sons – to not overthink it. And to look for the ‘white arrows’ in their lives. For me now, white arrows are my wife, children, my songs and the stage.”
The Mars Volta confirmed the details of their new, self-titled album, the follow-up to 2012’s Noctourniquet.
After entering an indefinite hiatus in the wake of Noctourniquet, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala had returned back in June with Blacklight Shine, and now shared another cut from the 14-strong tracklist entitled Vigil.
Also on the horizon was an autumn tour of North America which would open in Dallas, Texas.
Arctic Monkeys made their first post-pandemic live outing at Zorlu PSM in Istanbul, Turkey.
It was the first of two shows in the city and included a very rare performance of Potion Approaching, the Humbug album track aired along side much firmer live favourites such as Brianstorm, 505 and I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, all bookended by the riff-tastic 2010s pair of Do I Wanna Know? and R U Mine?.
The show began a month of European festival appearances for the band with Reading/Leeds coming up at the end of August.
The death of Pogues bass player Darryl Hunt was announced. He was 72.
Hunt was remembered as a, ‘great friend and a great bass player’ by Shane MacGowan, who added on Twitter: “I am very very sorry that Darryl has passed on. We will all miss him.”
Spider Stacey also responded to the news on Twitter: “This is wretched. See you around the way, Daz. ‘It’s in the fridge’.”
August also saw Arctic Monkeys confirm the details of their seventh studio album.
The Car was recorded across three studio locations – Butley Priory in Suffolk, La Frette in Paris and RAK in London – with the band’s regular producer James Ford, and includes I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am which had been handed that live debut in Zurich.
It followed Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino – a Live4ever album of the year in 2018.
Coldplay added more dates to their 2023 European tour.
Fans in Manchester will now get four nights at the Etihad Stadium with new gigs on the 3rd and 4th of June, and there’s a second concert in Cardiff on June 7th.
Around mainland Europe, there’s also additional appearances in Barcelona, Naples, Milan, Zurich, Gothenburg and Amsterdam.
Muse announced a clutch of outdoor UK concerts during the spring of next year.
They’ll start on May 23rd back home in Devon at Plymouth’s Home Park venue and continue on to Huddersfield, Glasgow and Milton Keynes in June.
Before then, European and North American shows are booked for this autumn, including a New York date at the Beacon Theatre.
Sam Fender by Jack Whitefield
September
The big live concerts for 2023 continued to take shape as Sam Fender announced a huge hometown show at Newcastle’s St James’ Park stadium.
Having already cemented a close association with the city and its football club, Fender told NME the gig marks the culmination of a dream which he and his band have been discussing for years.
“No actual Geordie band has ever done it,” he said. “Brian Johnson did it with AC/DC, but they were already an Australian band that were doing well. For the whole band to be from the area and to play there, it’s a really, really big thing for us.”
Bob Dylan added more shows to the UK tour which was due to begin with four nights at the London Palladium in October.
It was now to move into November with gigs at the Manchester Apollo, Oxford’s New Theatre and finally the BIC in Bournemouth.
The UK visit was a part of the legendary songwriter’s touring behind 2020’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – an album on which, ‘Age has not tempered his view of life’, according to Live4ever’s review.
An expanded, special edition version of The Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver was set for release on October 28th.
To go with the remastered original tracklist, this package would also put an official stamp on more of the Fab Four’s studio outtakes and alternate versions, while the Revolver EP was to present the era’s Paperback Writer single and its legendary B-side Rain.
The vinyl and CD special formats would also come with a book featuring a foreword from Paul McCartney.
Gabriels confirmed the first instalment of their debut album Angels & Queens would be released on September 30th.
Part two is expected in March 2023, both produced by Sounwave who aimed to, ‘push the boundaries sonically that matched the intense and vulnerable feelings of each song’.
“Our debut album Angels & Queens is a unique exploration of love and loss from each of our differing perspectives,” the band said.
Suede and Manic Street Preachers were to embark on a co-headline tour of North America during November.
The announcement came with Suede marching towards the release of their brand new studio album Autofiction, and the Manics on their latest reissue via the reimagined edition of Know Your Enemy.
“I can’t think of a band I’d rather share a stage with than the Manic Street Preachers,” Brett Anderson said.
The release of Christine And The Queens’ new album ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles‘ was delayed after an injury suffered during rehearsals for its accompanying ‘shows in the name of poetry’ in Paris and London.
“At the end of rehearsals for the show ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles’ on Thursday night, Red injured himself on stage while dancing,” a statement read.
“The doctors have forbidden him to return to the stage for at least 3 weeks, the time to recover. We are therefore obliged to cancel the concert in Arles on 17 September and to postpone the concerts in Paris and London.”
The Murder Capital confirmed the details of their second studio record Gigi’s Recovery.
The band worked with producer John Congleton on the follow-up to their 2019 debut When I Have Fears, the results of which were first made public back in July with Only Good Things.
That single was added to with A Thousand Lives and news of a European tour next year.
Stormzy unveiled his latest single Mel Made Me Do It.
The promo features a stellar list of cameos – including Dave, Headie One and Little Simz – with the star’s follow-up to Heavy Is The Head expected then before the end of the year.
“Opener Big Michael sets up a narrative that reminds these would-and-could-be’s how far he’s come, played out over a nifty bass that links him to his south London roots, but the ante has been raised, he’s pumped up and throwing all the envy and suspicion back in the direction it’s coming from,” our review reads.
September ended with more sad news as the death of rapper Coolio was announced by his manager Jarez Posey.
In a statement quoted by Rolling Stone, Trinity Artists’ Sheila Finegan said:
“We are saddened by the loss of our dear friend and client, Coolio, who passed away this afternoon. He touched the world with the gift of his talent and will be missed profoundly.”