All posts in Concert Reviews

Easing on to a stool, Cole apologises wryly: ‘I feel bad sitting down when you’re all standing up. But I’m very, very, very old these days.’ Yet age has not …

YOU know times have changed when Lloyd Cole walks on for his first Brisbane concert in 15 years and tells the sold-out crowd to ring the babysitters, we could be …

He used to be famous, did Lloyd Cole. About the time yours truly was still in winklepickers, stovepipes and thin leather ties.

Lloyd Cole began his solo acoustic show at the Birchmere on Thursday night with a new tune called “No More Love Songs.” Of course, he then played a bunch anyway. Such sharp contradiction is at the heart of Cole’s best songs, and his two-hour, career-spanning show revealed that his work has lost little of its dramatic edge.

The singer-songwriter, arguably the most arch and cerebral survivor of the Anglophilic ’80s, has steadfastly refused to dumb down or trend out — a state of affairs worth celebrating for the packed house assembled at the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday night.

Playing a solo show at Joe’s Pub on Thursday night, Lloyd Cole let the audience in on the interior monologue that goes on inside a performer’s head when he plays …

Lloyd Cole aime les choses bien faites. Lorsqu’il entre sur la scène du New Morning, la chemise blanche soigneusement rentrée dans le pantalon noir, personne dans l’assistance ne s’attend à ce qu’il la quitte (la scène, pas la chemise) trois chansons plus tard, désabusé et énervé. La raison d’un départ si soudain?

It would not have surprised if Lloyd Cole – he of the ever present stubble, the sad eyes and the half smile – had sat down with a bottle of …

“What a drag it is getting old,” the Rolling Stones sang on Mother’s Little Helper, a line upon which Lloyd Cole has spent a career elaborating. Almost from the first …

Although I have enjoyed the witty, wordy songs of the intellectual romantic Lloyd Cole for about 20 years now, I am afraid that I did not find myself suffocating from excitement as the date of his concert at the South Bank Centre drew near. I’ll know better next time.