Musical highlights of 2024…

[TrevorR]

It is that time of year when you look a back of the last 12 months. So here are the last of my personal musical highlights by theme. 

 

Albums :

• The Last Flight - Public Service Broadcasting: a wonderful album charting the last flight of Amelia Earhart. A perfect synthesis on music and narrative but a truly innovative yet accessible band.

• From the Beginning - Big Horizon: a bunch of top UK session players having fun on their days off and producing an uplifting set of ‘70s West Coast/Yacht Rock influenced pop songs.

• Fires reissue box set - Nerina Pallot: this album has a big place in my heart so getting to delve into it in a luxuriant box set format was wonderful. So many great songs on this lesser known gem.

 

Gigs:

• Public Service Broadcasting - Pryzm, Kingston: effectively an album launch gig but in a more intimate venue than their usual. They translate their audio-visual music so brilliantly on to stage.
• Adrian Snell’s The Passion - All Souls Langham Place: a prog rock opera about the Easter story that I’ve loved for over 40 years. Amazing to see it performed with a full orchestra.
• Big Horizon - Pizza Express Live, Holborn: their debut gig in their own right (ignoring the fact they’d been playing Madison Square Gardens a few weeks before as Jeff Lynne’s ELO backing band). Such a fun night out and lovely so see a couple of old chums there too!
• Pete Roth Trio - The Old Court, Windsor: a jazz trio led by the excellent Pete Roth and featuring drum legend Bill Bruford’s return to live. Amazing to see these musical maestros in action in such an intimate setting.

Not a bad set of musical high spots for a 12 month period. What about yours?

Edited December 26, 2024 by TrevorR
Bad typing

[NancyJohnson]

I'd concur with Public Service Broadcasting.  A fine release.

 

Genuinely struggling to list anything else of merit from bands that I follow.  The new studio/live Tears For Fears album.  Umm.  One band I adore (Momma) released one new track.  

 

Looking through my main playlist on Spotify (which we just add stuff to constantly), I reckon we've added 150 new songs, but I haven't really been arsed to investigate these bands too much.  I suppose being cast adrift because of the legal case brought by WB/Sony has restricted my listening to a bunch of decent US indie stations.

 

 

 

[SteveXFR]

Julie Christmas's Reduculous And Full Of Blood album was my highlight of the year. Just absolutely brilliant. Her performance at Arctangent Festival was also my live highlight. She just takes the audience to another world. 

 

 

 

Another highlight was seeing my daughters band play to audiences of a few hundred multiple times and then finish the year with their first headline show and fill the local live music venue, a proud dad moment for sure as well as a night of great music. 

[miles'tone]

Sierra Ferrell - Trail Of Flowers has been a welcome highlight. She's the real deal, and has an old soul from another time. Love her.

 

 

Gruff Rhys - Sadness Sets Me Free.

It came out at the beginning of the year but is still on repeat in my car, setting me free.

A beautiful record.

 

[PaulThePlug]

My Son suggesting we go to the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard acoustic gig at Brighton.

Edited December 24, 2024 by PaulThePlug

[Mudpup]

I discovered Haley Reinhart and subsequently Post Modern Jukebox. Totally not my normal bag of fish but oh my word, what a singer!

 

(And the second video is of PMJ with Morgan James singing one of my faves)

 

 

 

[TrevorR]

37 minutes ago, Mudpup said:

I discovered Haley Reinhart and subsequently Post Modern Jukebox. Totally not my normal bag of fish but oh my word, what a singer!

 

(And the second video is of PMJ with Morgan James singing one of my faves)

 

 

 

Love PMJ! Have you heard their take on “The Final Countdown” by Europe? Brilliant and laugh out loud funny at the same time!

 

And their “Mr Blue Sky” is just sublime.

 

[Mudpup]

Check out the bass solo at about 2.25 in. It made my eyes go funny until I could figure out what was happening!

 

 

[Owen]

Seeing Rickie Lee Jones play in Manchester, with my wife and daughter. I had never really thought about it but her work is among that which I know best as a listener. It was sublime seeing her re-work it with a drummer/vibes player and a pianist/accordianist on the fly. Accordians get a lot of stick, but a well played one is astonishingly expressive and when you are bouncing off RLJ's delivery then it gets no better for me. The textures and sonority of the whole ensemble were sublime. And it was a thrill to watch my daughter hearing it and going "wow, what is even happening?". She is pretty familiar with RLJ's output, but to watch her experiencing an artist flying so close to the edge and still nail it was beautiful. We shall not see her like again. 

[Roger2611]

Seeing Poorly Trained Radicals in Brighton, Diablofurs in Leicester, Holy Youth Movement again in Leicester and catching The Dollheads again in Northampton, each gig was utterly brilliant and each gig was under £10.00 to get into!

[LowB_FTW]

+1 for a shoutout to Postmodern Jukebox, I never knew of them before they did their cover of Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me (which I think was last year? Maybe?), anyway, been listening to them now and again through the year and really enjoy what they do.

 

Terrorvision released a new album this year! We Are Not Robots. This band has been a part of my musical landscape since their first album in '93, and I was very happy to get new music from them again after a (checks the Internet) 13 year break!

 

Dea Matrona released their first album this year, For Your Sins. "Dea WHO?!?" you might be asking? Local band from over here (NI), I really like their stuff, and they released an acoustic EP as well earlier this month.

 

Mark

[MichaelDean]

Started gigging with my band this year after quite a few years of not gigging. Played some sh¡t shows (lineup wise) and some great ones, which isn't bad for having played about 8 this year, but it's been memorable. Three were out of Bristol too, so I don't think that's bad for a doom band.

 

Won a ticket to ATG, where there were many bands I'd wanted to see for a long time. Explosions In The Sky were AMAZING. And So I Watch You From Afar were much heavier at times than I'd expected - loved it. Loads of bands I hadn't seen before too and there was almost always something I wanted to see. And I ran into a mate from an old band and had a few days of lovely catch-up!

 

Taylor Swift at Wembley was amazing. Such a good show. The band were tight AF. About two hours in I thought it was long enough, but then I rallied for the rest. 

 

I've listened to lots of good music this year too. Really getting into some stuff that if not payed much attention to before and revisited some bands that I'd not listened to for a while. 

 

Finally, it's fringe, but I've also had my soldering iron out for making pedals again after getting a couple of kits for Christmas. I've not done that in well over 10 years and I'd forgotten how rewarding it is having something "homemade" on your pedalboard. 

 

Future musical highlights is getting ATG and Glastonbury tickets for next year!

[warwickhunt]

Saturday 28th Dec - Cheat Trick @ Newcastle City Hall.

Sunday 29th Dec - INXS (UK) @ Newcastle City Hall.

 

https://www.facebook.com/100069783566262/videos/2017658328737722/?comment_id=1564112081651006&notif_id=1735571327154841&notif_t=feed_comment&ref=notif

 

https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media?attachment_id=571307735777458&message_id=mid.%24gAF8xHPUB8VaaRgjxnmUFMNfKnHQ2&thread_id=26794123226902870

 

[LowB_FTW]

A couple I missed off my original post above that I think deserve mentions …

Deadlight Dance released an album called The Wiltshire Gothic, which I really liked and subsequently purchased via Bandcamp.

Def Nettle released an album titled DN001, which I again really liked and purchased through Bandcamp.

Both the above bands are from members here on BassChat.

 

Mark

[Cat Burrito]

6 hours ago, LowB_FTW said:

A couple I missed off my original post above that I think deserve mentions …

Deadlight Dance released an album called The Wiltshire Gothic, which I really liked and subsequently purchased via Bandcamp.

 

Mark

Wow! Thanks Mark. Thrilled to have made anyone's list. 

[casapete]

Seeing Paul McCartney in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. 
In over 50 years of going to gigs, this was up there with the best of them. An amazing

evening of wonderful songs, played brilliantly by a superb band with fantastic stage production.

Still buzzing from it.

 

 

 

 

[madshadows]

My favourite musical highlight of 2024 was discovering the band 'The SoapGirls' who have independently released 4 albums so far with a new album due in 2025, they do fantastic and fun live streams on YouTube. The band is two sisters Camille (bass & lead vocals) & Noemie DeBray (guitar and lead vocals) who were born in France but live in South Africa, they write terrific Alternative Pop/Rock music with great melodies, lyrics and riffs, below is their latest video release of the song 'She Don't Wanna' from their fourth album 'In My Skin', terrific band  

 

She Don't Wanna

 

John 😎 

[Lozz196]

Not many real highlights for me, probably the best was Slash’ blues album Orgy of The Damned. Never really been into blues but this is a good album.

[AlexDelores]

My two favourite album releases from this year would be: 

 

Enough of the sweet talk by Lime Cordiale 

 

 

 

Gravity by The Dangerous Summer

 

 

Saw TDS in September and they were absolutely awesome. Couldn’t catch LC when they were in the UK as I had gigs but hopefully I’ll get them the next time ‘round. 
 

Happy New Year all! Hope those out gigging have good shows and safe evenings. May your gigs be drunken heckler, and beer spillage free 🙏

[AlexDelores]

Oh, and…

 

Things were never good if they’re not good now by Donovan Woods also had me hooked this year! 
 

 

[LowB_FTW]

14 hours ago, Cat Burrito said:

Wow! Thanks Mark. Thrilled to have made anyone's list. 

No bother. I also bought Black Glass (live acoustic).

I suppose it would've helped if I could remember the names of the people in the bands so I could've tagged in my post.

I've got your Chapter & Verse EP lined up for a 2025 purchase, together with Money for old Rope by The Inevitable Teaspoons, which is another forum member's band but again I can't remember who so no tag.

My memory's terrible!

 

Mark

[Leonard Smalls]

15 hours ago, madshadows said:

The SoapGirls

We supported them in Nottingham earlier this year - they were lovely! We chatted to them for ages...

I'd initially written them off as a cheap titillation band, but despite being very skimpy in dress, they're decent musicians - and have a horrendous gig schedule!

[madshadows]

1 hour ago, Leonard Smalls said:

We supported them in Nottingham earlier this year - they were lovely! We chatted to them for ages...

I'd initially written them off as a cheap titillation band, but despite being very skimpy in dress, they're decent musicians - and have a horrendous gig schedule!

 

Yes they gig a lot !!, though last year their USA shows fell through because of Visa problems, they paid someone to sort out the paperwork and the company messed it all up, then they toured Europe in October & November and had a lot of problems with their van. I'm looking forward to seeing them live this year as I've not seen them at a show yet, their albums are terrific and they have amazing voices, thanks for the reply  

 

John 😎 

[Leonard Smalls]

8 minutes ago, madshadows said:

the company messed it all up

Shame!

When I was chatting to Camille ( she liked our two bass set up, btw!) she was saying they were just off to That London to try and sort visas, then same day off to do a show in Newquay. They had about 30 shows to do in the US too, driving between all of 'em - none of yer rock'n'roll jumbo jet for the band!

[petebassist]

On 31/12/2024 at 08:55, casapete said:

Seeing Paul McCartney in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. 
In over 50 years of going to gigs, this was up there with the best of them. An amazing

evening of wonderful songs, played brilliantly by a superb band with fantastic stage production.

Still buzzing from it.

 

 

 

 

I caught the penultimate night at the O2. Agree it was an amazing show, wouldn’t have missed it for the world!