Not really. Waking at 4:30am IS NOT FUNNY. Do not want, etc. OK. So get off plane, sit in traffic from airport for 45 minutes and $50 later arrive at Crown Towers. Seeing the inside of places like this is not something that would ever normally happen to me. Part casino, part Dune interiors set, there are pillars and split spiral stairways and black marble floors lit from beneath somehow and bellhops in hats. And milling incongruously in amongst all this are all the media parasites waiting for KISS.  (More)

Perhaps chastened by his performance the night before, Ryan Adams played the kind of set the long-suffering fan deserves. Wantonly flaunting the state-wide smoking ban onstage, he talked to the audience, (“I love open mouth country” was how he kissed off Tim McGraw after a gorgeous take on ‘When The Stars Go Blue’), rocked the mic sans guitar and generally reinstated his rockstar credentials - without resorting to any of the antics which earn him the reputation as an unreliable, but more often brilliant live performer. But let’s talk about the band: The Cardinals clearly love playing together, and exhibit that enviable mix of spontaneity and exquisite musicianship. To witness the four part harmonies on ‘Cold Roses’ is a truly spine-chilling experience, and you could hear the reverential silence descend over the Enmore. Lapsteel, piano and duelling guitars all laid over the brilliant solidity of drummer Brad Pemperton – who, is equally adept at driving grooves, a solid four on the floor and the delicacy of brushed playing, whispering like a ghost beneath tender tracks like ‘Friends’. Again the show didn’t feature lights on the players for most of the evening, though a purple-tinged red bathed the band from time to time. Somewhere along the way to almost writing himself off completely, Ryan Adams has become a singer of rare par: tempering his range with screaming, sliding into falsetto and fitting huge amounts of words into on-the-fly deliveries which recalled early comparisons made between he and Bob Dylan. The band played an almost completely different set from the night before, as a cache of over 100 songs to choose from will allow. Reaching back to Heartbreaker stopping off at Gold and 29 along the way, the night drew heavily again from Cold Roses - which is looking to be the masterwork of his oeuvre so far. The incomparable ‘Let It Ride’ from that record, with its self loathing (27 years of nothing but failures and promises that I couldn’t keep) and self belief (But I wasn’t ready to go/ I’m never ready to go/ Let it ride) in equal measure summed up the contradictions in Adams which make him such a powerful songwriter. The only complaint would be that it was short by Mr Adams’ standards, at and hour and a half. But to see he and the band having fun onstage for the duration of that time was reward in itself. This is the kind of music that reassures your faith in Rock N Roll.

Ryan Adams is one tetchy motherfucker. You would be too if you were playing your first ever sober tour, having thrown in the towel on your quest to out-do Gram Parsons. But you didn't know that before you went to the show, did you? That's why you yelled for the lights to go on, over and over until he stormed off stage 40 minutes into the set. Awesome. All was not lost. Even when the house lights went on and everything seemed doomed. The Cardinals came back and hit us up with a truly schizophrenic set representational of the disjointed genre-genius of songwriter Adams: a slew of tracks from the famed Suicide Handbook bootleg (to be released in a rareties box set later in the year) – which as the title suggests, is shit even heavier than the opiate drenched Love Is Hell duo. From there the band reached back to Gold for a quickened, but no less lovely take on 'Wild Flowers', and a version of 'Mocking Bird' from the well trodden and glorious Cold Roses featured a solo which made Ryan Adam's Black Sabbath t-shirt make perfect, perfect sense. The crowning moment of the show for me was Jacksonville City Nights' 'Dear John' – which in the absence of on record duet partner Norah Jones, was a none-the-less gorgeous death hymn with harmonies provided by the stupidly talented Neal Casal, also on guitar. So yes, he stormed off the stage ("we're playing two sets. When we come back, perhaps you'll learn how to act.") Yes, he gets the shits with idiots calling things out in the quiet (though none dumb enough to call for 'Summer of '69'), and no, you couldn't see the players for almost the whole night (though the lanterns illuminating the stage looked sweet) – but genius excuses such petulant demands. While genre darlings come and go with people falling over themselves to declare the next big thing, Ryan Adams will continue (in his wish, as just one of the Cardinals) to make records until he's no longer breathing, and even his cast offs will be better than 90% of anything else around. So next time you see him, if you could shut the fuck up and appreciate the fact you're hearing one of the most talented musicians to every draw breath – whether you can see him or not doesn't matter.

When Elvis Costello famously said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, I thought he just really hated journalists that day. Which is understandable. But no! He merely meant to negate our entire profession with one enviable sentence! And in truth he was right. All I could think through three plus glorious hours with the Cure was, there is no way I'll ever be able to describe this in the review. But I can try. The sound of the Cure is the truly sublime – the melancholy ache in your bones at the end of three hours, which leaves you certain of the endlessly heartbreaking, but none the less beautiful crap you are going to put yourself through in the quest to feel right. (How am I doing here? Emo enough?) These songs are so immediately sad on the one hand, and unbeatably life affirming on the other. I don't know the last time music made me feel that alive. Perhaps it was to do with the deafening volumes at which everything from 'Pictures of You' to 'Friday I'm in Love' (Yes, on a FRIDAY! Brilliant!) was pumped through the Entertainment Centre PA. A good five tracks off Wish, 'Hot Hot Hot', 'Why Can't I Be You?', 'Fascination Street', 'A letter to Elise', 'A Forest', 'Disintegration', 'Let's Go To Bed', 'Never Enough', 'Plainsong' – do you want me to list the whole 34 song setlist? No. Just let me say that they closed with 'Boys Don't Cry' and the collective elation of the place made it pretty much the greatest moment of my life. The highlight of an evening of practically consecutive highlights, had to be the final encore, which, opening with 'Close To Me' had every person in their seat up and dancing til the end and singing along until their throats bled. I'd never seen the Cure before, and hearing that Robert Smith's voice has only improved with age and grown in power was the cherry on the sundae of awesome that was hearing those arena sized songs live. I'm sorry if you missed this show. I'd say that they'll be back again, but I don't know if that's true. Though Robert Smith, smiling beatifically through his lipsick smear, did wave to us all goodnight saying, "See you again."

There are times when an artist will cover another's song, and the rare thing happens that it somehow eclipses the original. Whether it injects some new, unseen meaning, or reinvents it sonically into something entirely different. Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah' drew praise from Leonard Cohen, and Trent Reznor likened Johnny Cash's break-taking cover of 'Hurt' to losing his girlfriend – saying that it just wasn't his song anymore. So what if one of rock's most incendiary, influential pioneers took on an entire record of covers, among them the Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter', Neil Young's 'Helpless' and no less than that minor hit, Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'? What happens is Patti Smith's new album, Twelve.   (More)

The Magnolia Electric Co INTERVIEW Magnolia Electric Co Jason Molina on touring for all eternity By Elmo Keep Is there some great, lost, connection between country music and metal? This is a legitimate question. Two of the genre's most prolific contemporaries – Ryan Adams and Jason Molina of Magnolia Electric Co – both started their most illustrious careers playing in heavy metal bands as young'uns enamoured with Black Flag.  (More)

Editors Metro Theatre August 1st Editors fans have waited over two years to hear well loved Back Room tracks live. Following up with a fine sophomore effort, An End Has A Start , Editors’ cache of killer is well stocked. The Metro is very, very packed. Mercy Arms play their set to a pretty full room, but when the crowd continues to file in and file in from the bar, it’s clear that Editors are really too big for this venue.  (More)