Their most anticipated stop of the band’s farewell tour New York fans of The Who can recall numerous Madison Square Garden triumphs by the band throughout their incredible history. Their five night sold out run in 1979 comes to mind, as does the legendary Concert for New York City held a month after 9/11 where most rock fans and critics agree, it was British buskers Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey who stole the show. You can now add one more ionic Who concert to the list. Advertisement It was an unabashed love-fest at the band’s final show at New York...
For Kristin Hersh, songcraft is a bit like surfing. “The surfers, their approach to their boards is like my approach to my guitar,” she says of the associates of her pro-surfer son Bodhi. “Their approach to the ocean is my approach to music itself. And something about their chill vibe is not weed, but meeting the ocean halfway with the board, and I meet music halfway with the guitar, which does about half the work. Your job is then to disappear and not get in a way. If you fight a wave, you’re gonna wipe out. And if I...
“These little things out in the woods are so magical,” says Matt Berninger during his Friday afternoon Uncut Q&A, and all around him End Of The Road takes the challenge head on. Just a short time later, members of London’s Broadside Hacks collective arc out across the Garden Stage, enclosing Mike Heron and his daughter Georgia Seddon. They’re here to celebrate the work of Heron’s psych folk innovators The Incredible String Band – or predominantly their first five albums – and grace it with a kind of fervent fragility. Advertisement The Celtic folk of “Chinese White”, cracked and intricate,...
Matt Berninger is planning to take us to church. “I feel like this is God,” The National frontman turned solo End Of The Road headliner told Uncut’s Tom Pinnock at the first of three Uncut Q&As at this year’s EOTR festival. “This is the community, this is church. The church is supposed to be a group of people who believe in trying to figure out the mystery of love and life and kindness and surviving how hard it is to be a person.” “In many ways,” he continued, “music, rock festivals, rock clubs, Royal Albert Hall, Mercury Lounge, the...
Friday starts perfectly with a welcome splash of sunshine and spot of solo guitar bliss courtesy of crack Texan fingerpicker Hayden Pedigo. He ably transports us to the flat, wide plains around Amarillo, where, as he informs us, “you can see your dog running away for three days”. Ellie O’Neill’s technique is just as dazzling, but her songs have a darker tint, littered with broken bones and emergencies both physical and emotional; she reappears on the Piano Stage later, performing a breathtaking version of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”. Advertisement Cornwall’s Daisy Rickman casts a spell over the...
Neil Young has debuted a brand new song, “Big Crime“. He performed it live with his band the Chrome Hearts on August 27, 2025 at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, Illinois, USA, during his current Love Earth World Tour. Advertisement You can watch fan footage below. “Big Crime” is in keeping with Young’s recent political protest songs “Big Change” and “Let’s Roll Again“, from his latest album Talkin To The Trees, which have addressed Donald Trump‘s second Presidency. In “Big Crime“, Young sings about “big crime in DC at THE White House” and “billionaire fascists“. Advertisement IYoung also sings, “Don’t...
An irrepressible figure around Liverpool for decades, Geoff Davies’ death in September 2023 left a significant void. In the early ’70s, Davies had co-founded Probe Records – catalyst for the city’s punk scene, where the likes of Pete Burns, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie worked behind the counter – before starting up his own Probe Plus label in 1981. He signed numerous local bands, none more impactful than Half Man Half Biscuit. The surprise indie success of 1985’s Back In The DHSS (budget £40; sales 50,000) opened the door to a career HMHB never expected, largely due to Davies’...
When Bruce Springsteen accepted the 2021 Woody Guthrie Prize, awarded annually by the Woody Guthrie Centre, his set included “Deportee”, a song he’s performed since 1981. Carefully chosen from Guthrie’s huge catalogue, it’s a beautifully composed excoriation of the way the US treats migrant workers, written by Guthrie after a plane clash in 1948 killed 28 farm workers – referred to in coverage at the time only as “deportees”. Guthrie sought to humanise these anonymous workers, while challenging the iniquities of the system in which they were forced to exist. The song has been performed by Dylan, Joni, The...
LITTLE RICHARDHere’s Little RichardSPECIALITY, 1957Little Richard took my breath away when I first heard him, and he was always in the forefront of all my music. He was raucous and loud and made you wake up and want to rock. I’ve been thankful to him for his influence and humour – his music is sensational and a one-off, never to be repeated. “Long Tall Sally” was inspiring, so we thought it would be a fun cover to do with The Kinks. Ours holds up as a fun and grittier version. I met Little Richard in an elevator once and...
Mavis Staples has announced details of a new studio album, Sad And Beautiful World, which is released on November 7 on ANTI-. You can hear her rendition of Kevin Morby‘s “Beautiful Strangers” below. Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, Nathaniel Rateliff), Sad And Beautiful World also includes cameos by artists who have become part of Staples’ world: Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, MJ Lenderman, Justin Vernon. Advertisement “It isn’t easy to put into words what it feels like having one of the best, most important vocalists and cultural figures of both the 20th and 21st century sing one of my...
