Home What's On Music & Gigs

What's On NE website

NEW! What's On in the North East

Your great new home for Sunday Sun entertainment news, pub & restaurant guides, music, cinema reviews, reader reviews and star ratings.

THIS week’s video sees Detroit Social Club playing a packed-out show at the Head of Steam venue in Newcastle. Although the band have only been together just over a year, the phrase “next big thing” has been following them everywhere for months now, and a recent London show saw members of Oasis in the audience. Their limited-edition debut single, Silver/Rivers & Rainbows, is released later this month. See it at www.sundaysun.co.uk/ettvid

Read

THE SOUND EX — PALOMINO (DR2): Formerly known as the Sound Explosion and with a reputation as one of the North’s most explosively thrilling live bands, The Sound Ex’s career hit the doldrums when their original, Sony-backed label went belly up. While it’s undoubtedly great news for Sound Ex fans that Palomino is finally getting to see the light of day, it all seems a bit subdued and polite, and a long way from the MC5-styled sonic meltdown that I was expecting. The songs lack bite and immediacy, often coming across like long-forgotten Ash B-sides.

Apparently, the Sound Ex’s aim is to create a sound that’s a perfect fusion of punk and soul, but they’re some way off achieving that goal with Palomino, which is big on rocked-out bluster but definitely lacking something in terms of soul.Read

THIS week’s video was shot in Newcastle’s Riverside venue, circa 1988, and features Newcastle power-poppers 16 Forever blasting through their debut single, Rockin’ Time. Frontman Dave “Ratty” Campbell is still going strong 20 years on and these days you can find him singing for the delightfully named country-punk trio, Ratty and the S***kickers. See it at www.sundaysun.co.uk

Read

JONAS BROTHERS — A LITTLE BIT LONGER (Hollywood): This is the second Jonas Brothers album I’ve received so far this year, and, with the recent cinema release of their Camp Rock movie, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was another one along before Christmas. Springing to fame on the back of Disney’s incredibly successful High School Movie franchise, Jonas Brothers peddle a tried-and-tested brand of inoffensive power-pop that’s already worked wonders for Avril Lavigne and Hannah Montana. The brothers seem to have taken over the Osmonds’ mantle of squeaky-clean all-American pop idols, albeit a slightly edgier version, and you could definitely buy this without any fear of it corrupting your kid . . . although it might corrupt their future appreciation of music.

VARIOUS ARTISTS — KERRANG! THE ALBUM 08 (Rhino): I’ve never had any time for Kid Rock, having long marked him down as one of those rock/rap hybrid blokes that can’t do either well . . . but that was before he released All Summer Long, which kicks off this 42-track compilation. It’s a perfect example of how music divides people. I think it’s genius — the new Summer of ‘69 — while several people I work with find it painful to listen to. Kid Rock aside, Kerrang’s latest release showcases the best of what’s happening in Metal and Hard Rock today, with strong tracks from the likes of Green Day, Funeral for a Friend and My Chemical Romance, among others. The album closes with Gallows’s furious Orchestra of Wolves, a song that’s as far from Kid Rock’s chirpy feelgood vibes as you can get.Read

THIS week’s video sees two of Tyneside’s favourite sons — Mark Knopfler and Jimmy Nail — join forces to record a tribute to the River Tyne.

Jimmy Nail was never fashionable, but let’s not forget what a great voice he has . . . he nails a high note in this song most vocalists couldn’t get close to.Read

THIS week’s video comes courtesy of former Toon Army hero and Sunderland player, Andy “Andrew” Cole, seen here singing his not-very-successful 1999 single Outstanding. It’s actually pretty far from outstanding, but lyrics such as “The son of a miner, the funkiest rhymer” will surely have you in stitches. See it at www.sundaysun.co.uk/ettvid

Read

Joan As Policewoman heads for ‘crazy’ River Tyne

KNOWN for her rich, delicate vocals and skills as a songwriter, Joan As Policewoman manages to combine the voice of sultry jazz singers with soul and indie-rock.Read

THIS week’s video illustrates perfectly what happens when a limited budget meets two over-active imaginations. Haunted House Party are Newcastle’s Tom Straughan and Glasgow’s Steeev Livingstone, seen here taking a holiday from their usual day jobs . . . Tom plays keyboards for Sh*tdisco, while Steeev makes up one quarter of celebrated student disco dancefloor-fillers Errors. See it at www.sundaysun.co.uk/ettvid

Read

Back on the block

WHEN Take That chose to call it a day in 1996 pop fans and the media mourned the loss of one of the most famous boy bands to have graced Top Of The Pops.Read

WHO says scientists don’t have a sense of humour? The boffins at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland have been making news around the world with a ground-breaking experiment that aims to uncover how the universe was created. But they took time out to record this humorous — and educational — rap song. See it at our website www.sundaysun.co.uk

Read

FOLLOWING the grand old tradition of America’s travelling Bluesmen, Gypsy Dave Smith left his hometown of Newcastle, Australia, and eventually settled in Newcastle, England.

Hailed by many as one of the world’s finest exponents of Dobro Blues guitar, here he tackles the Robert Johnson standard, Love In Vain. See it at www.sundaysun.co.uk/ettvidRead

Borrowed time as Mike heads towards 30

MIKE SKINNER or, to give him his stage name, The Streets, looks a little tired today.Read

BRIEFLY touted as the “Next Big Thing” in the mid-1990s, Newcastle-based Ultrasound made one gloriously-overblown album — Everything Picture — and then messily imploded.

Although their biggest hit, Stay Young, is over a decade old now, it features the remarkably prescient lyric “Gary Glitter’s gone to seed, so who will lead us now?” See this video of a live TV performance of that song at www.sundaysun.co.ukRead

THE CORAL — SINGLES COLLECTION (Columbia): It’s hard to believe that it has been six years since the Coral’s debut album came out, and why they’re not considerably bigger than they are is something of a mystery to me. Noel Gallagher has called them “The best British band of their generation by a very long mile”, and I can’t disagree with that. This collection shows that, despite the strong Captain Beefheart influence that permeates a lot of the Coral’s work, they know a good tune when they hear one. The sublime Dreaming of You kicks things off, with James Skelly’s rasping blues voice sounding like it belongs to a man considerably older. The second CD features live recordings, alternative takes and demo tapes from the band’s early days. All in all, this is an excellent compilation.

NELLY — BRASS KNUCKLES (Island): It’s something of a tradition in rap circles to feature special guests on your album, but Nelly takes it to a whole new level with Brass Knuckles. Every one of the 14 tracks features input from one rap superstar or another. In fact, it would probably be easier for me to write a list of the rappers that aren’t on it than to list the ones that are. Public Enemy’s Chuck D adds his trademarked self-righteous fury to Self-Esteem and Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg lazily drawl their way through LA. Top marks, though, must surely go to Stepped on my J’z, in which Nelly threatens to rain down a violent retribution on some poor soul who has mistakenly trodden on his trainers.Read

Boy band Avenue landed a record deal the old-fashioned route after X Factor exit

WHETHER you love or loathe X Factor, it’s hard to escape the annual TV talent contest and its parade of cringeworthy auditions from delusional eccentrics, not to mention the occasional angelic voice.Read

KATY PERRY — ONE OF THE BOYS (Capitol):

Just when I think I’ll never hear another pop song that’s as supremely dubious as Katy Perry’s current number one single, I Kissed A Girl, I look at her album and find that there’s one called UR So Gay as well.Read

“HOW can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?”, ponders Sting in this video from 1985, with the Cold War obviously weighing heavy on his Wallsend-born shoulders.

Sting recently reformed The Police for a rapturously received world tour, and he also duetted on a single with Nicole Scherzinger of Pussycat Dolls fame. See the video at www.sundaysun.co.uk/ettvidRead

THIS week’s video sees Cheryl Tweedy take her first steps towards fame as she sails through her first audition on Popstars:The Rivals. Their boy band opponents on the show — One True Voice — went down the dumper in record time, but Girls Aloud avoided a similar fate and went on to become one of the most successful girl groups of all time. See the video at sundaysun.co.uk/ettvid

Read

KEYBOARD CHOIR — MIZEN HEAD TO GASCANANE SOUND (Brainlove): This album has been picking up a fair few plaudits recently and it’s not hard to see why, as Keyboard Choir’s original take on electronica provides a thrilling, densely-packed listening experience. Intro track, The Drone Of The Hearse, sets the tone with a lonely accordion wheezing out a tune over a background of explosions and falling shells. Bugs begins with a stern, authoritative voice warning of the need to stay in our shelters, but the album is otherwise vocal-free. At times, it reminded me of Primal Scream’s mid-1990’s dub experiment, Echo Dek, but with a less harsh edge.

SHAGGY — THE BOOMBASTIC COLLECTION — BEST OF SHAGGY (Geffen): From the cocky self-aggrandisement of Boombastic to the bare-faced love rat denials of It Wasn’t Me, I’ve always found Shaggy’s songs hilarious . . . and maddeningly catchy. This collection gathers together all of Shaggy’s most-loved chart smashes . . . and several more I’ve never heard of. Apart from the aforementioned Boombastic, the ones that really stick in your head are the Mungo Jerry-sampling In The Summertime and Oh, Carolina, which is going to have me muttering “jump and prance” under my breath for days.Read

Dublin trio’s success story is going according to The Script

HE may only be 25, but Danny O’Donaghue — lead singer of hotly-tipped trio The Script — has packed a lot in.Read

Browse What's On

Eddy Eats

Eddy Eats

Eddy Eats

The Sunday Sun's Eddy Eats scoures the North East in search of the perfect Sunday scran. Read

Video & Pictures

Videos & Pics

Life in the North

View North East news, features and events through our videos and photo galleries. Read

Newsletter Sign Up

Email alert sign-up

Latest news and sport by email

Sign up to receive the latest Sunday Sun news and sport direct to your inbox - all free of charge. Read

Get involved

We want your local stories, videos & pics.

Contact & Subscribe

Contact Us

View a full list of Sunday Sun editorial contact details plus advertising and subscription information. Read