Rock's Backpages: Search Results

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, 28 April 1979

TWO MEMORIES: recalled first are the days when rock and roll was swamped with failed classical pianists and violinists who knew that they could make ...

Iggy Pop: The Factory, Manchester

Live Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 28 April 1979

THE RETURN of the simian from oblivion: a club tour, much heralded by local media, ensures a leisure factory stretched to the limit of its ...

Ian Dury & the Blockheads: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by David Hancock, Evening News, 6 August 1979

Back to front for Dury's six ...

Gary Numan: Apollo Theatre, Glasgow

Live Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979

THE FACE of '79 doesn't belong to a mod, punk, or to anyone so sectarian, but to Gary Numan, and it's time we faced up ...

Gary Numan: City Hall, Newcastle

Live Review by Ian Ravendale, Sounds, 29 September 1979

Are pin-ups electric? ...

Japan: Ryerson Theatre, Toronto

Live Review by Rosalind Russell, Record Mirror, 5 January 1980

WEST OF JAPAN ...

Iggy Pop, The Psychedelic Furs: Iggy Pop/Psychedelic Furs: Friars, Aylesbury

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 February 1980

THREE BANDS shaped up as good value but that wasn't all. There was an unannounced surprise star guest – all the way from Vegas let's ...

Defunkt: Trax, New York

Live Review by Roy Trakin, Melody Maker, 9 February 1980

EVEN THE decidedly old-wave, uptown industry water-hole Trax has caught the Funk Flu that's hit this borough like an epidemic. People are dancing to progressive, ...

Elvis Costello: Eivis Costello and the Attractions: Pavilion, West Runton

Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 March 1980

Fly me I'm Elvis! ...

Ultravox: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 18 August 1980

IN THE SEARCH to perfect a commodity which is being touted as White European Dance Music, Ultravox now occupy the ground between Gary Numan, who ...

Gary Numan: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 18 September 1980

IF YOU choose to sow in the field of fashion, you must expect to reap a brief harvest. There were empty seats at Gary Numan's ...

Spandau Ballet, Visage: Blitz Night: Hurrah, New York NY

Live Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, May 1981

ARE THE futurists a spin-off of the Star Trek fanatics? Nope, they're just the newest British cultists of individuality, using make-up and dress that amalgamates ...

ABC: Moonlight Club, London

Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981

ABRACADABRA! ABC show up in London. Another banal crew of slight white boys clumsily revising their dance style for the sake of summer attention? A ...

Defunkt: Embassy Club, London

Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, 6 June 1981

Make my funk the D-funkt ...

Defunkt: The Venue, London

Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 20 June 1981

PRESENTING upwardly mobile uptown jazz/funk from New York, Defunkt are a sharp six-piece fronted by the ever-cool Joe Bowie, who plays trombone, conducts the band ...

Kraftwerk: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 August 1981

WHEN KRAFTWERK played the Santa Monica Civic in 1975, the German quartet's electronic music seemed like an academic aberration from the rock norm, and the ...

Grace Jones: The Savoy, New York NY

Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, 22 August 1981

THE FANFARE hardly pronounced itself...when out folds a larger-than-our-life toy monkey with a grass skirt on its bandy thighs and a big tin drum, swinging ...

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 17 March 1982

IT MAY BE impossible for the outsider to decode the arcane rituals which accompany a performance by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and which the ...

Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Roxy, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 1982

KID CREOLE & THE COCONUTS MAKE A DIZZYING, DAZZLING ROXY DEBUT ...

Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget: Ace Cinema, Brixton

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983

SOME OF the many moods of Mute were on show tonight. Label mates Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget would appear to be polar opposites, but ...