Sunday 26 November 2023.

Sunday 26 November 2023 CIGARETTES AFTER SEX live at Hammersmith Apollo. This is the last of their THREE sold out shows at this venue. I saw them play a good show at Shepherds Bush Empire on their previous UK tour in Nov 2019. Pretty amazing how popular they are as a live act, as their two albums only scraped into the UK Top 40 chart. Both the albums scraped into the USA Billboard Top 200. The music of Cigarettes After Sex invokes not only the powerful feelings of euphoria inherent in the band’s name itself, but somehow manages to recreate emotions found only in the most romantic of movies; immersive, achingly nostalgic, thoroughly transporting, and intensely visual. It’s these powerful and unique qualities which have enabled the love songs of Cigarettes After Sex to reverberate across countless countries and excite the most devoted kind of following. The band's catalog has sold over 2.5 million records to date, amassing 3 billion Spotify streams, over 17 million monthly listeners, and 800 million+ YouTube streams. The band’s list of on-the-record fans include everyone from Taylor Swift, Kylie Jenner, David Lynch, Lana Del Rey, Françoise Hardy, Lily Allen, Busy Philipps, and more. They’ve been featured in Vice Noisey, V Magazine, Interview, NPR’s Tiny Desk, and their music has appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale, Killing Eve, and Ralph Lauren ads. The official video for their track ' Apocalypse ' has had more than 194 million views on Youtube. --------- A gloomy rainy evening in London town tonight. On their last tour , the band had a film as support ,but tonight there is nothing. No film, no support band, no DJ. Just some chilled out tracks being playing over the pa. CIGARETTES AFTER SEX arrived on stage at 8.45pm for their 80 mins set. Lots of screams and cheers at the start and end of every song , from the many females here under the age of 30. Like last time the band are dressed all in black, with only white lighting bring used for the entire show. The images on the big screen are also only black n white. We had a distinct display of dreamy guitar led minimalism. The music was kind of hypnotic , but it seemed very samey. Their big track ' Apocalypse' was played at the end of the main set. A good show that ticked along ok. ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- Saturday 25 November 2023, THE CLONE ROSES + OASISH + THE SMITHS LTD live at Shepherds Bush Empire. Three top notch ' Madchester ' tribute bands. I have seen this nice three band package at this venue before. Lots of great classic tracks performed by all three bands. I saw the real OASIS at this same venue in 2001, when I reviewed the show for The Shepherds Bush Gazette. Needless to say that was a very hot ticket indeed -------- Levels 2 and 3 are closed tonight , but the stalls standing and Level 1 are rammed full , so must be 1200 folks here A proper loud rowdy Saturday night drinking crowd , created a fantastic gig atmosphere. I have never seen so many of those two pint drinks at a show. All the bands play a greatest hits set of classics. So many big songs that the crowd sing along to. You could argue that an Oasis tribute should headline , as folks sing the loudest for their anthems. It may have been just tribute bands tonight, but it was great THE SMITHS LTD arrived on stage at 7pm for their 50 mins set OASISH arrived in stage at 8.10pm for their 60 mins set. CLONE ROSES arrived on stage at 9.35pm for their 85 mins set.

Posted 26th November 2023