Remember when going to a gig left you feeling dirty afterwards? The sweat dripping off of you, your glasses knocked from your face, beer thrown around, and stinking like a cigarette factory? Well, tonight featured a return to those times (minus the cigarette smell) when Londonist went to see Idlewild at ULU in London.

Choosing to save us the (occasional) torture of a support band, they decided to support themselves, playing two sets, first of all an acoustic set, before coming back to play a full electric set after “a little break in the room back there”, in lead singer Roddy Woomble’s words.

Their first acoustic set featured such crowd pleasers as “American English”, “No Emotion” and “El Capitan” as Roddy and the rest of the band warmed up, however quickly we realised that they were on top of their game, and we were in for a classic main Idlewild set. 15 minutes later the Scotsmen ambled back on stage for a set which was heavily B-sides and rarities based, which was great for the hardcore fans and not so great for the casual fan that had come out for a greatest hits set.

However, we did get some classics such as “Little Discourage”, “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”, “Out of Routine” and “Century after Century” along with one of the highlights by far of the evening, “Roseability”. The chorus call and response, “Gertrude Stein said ‘that’s enough’ / I know that that’s not enough now,” featured all 800-odd of the crowd yelling along, and the first of many crowd surfers, as the band returned to their harder sound of the first few records, before the folkier tinges of recent works.

Leaving a lot sweatier, and feeling like we’d just been trampled by a herd of elephants, Idlewild managed to show us that, even though they’re approaching middle age, they really are one of Scotland’s greatest bands.

After the jump: setlist and more photos

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Funeral for a Friend have announced a month long UK and Ireland tour in October and November.

Tickets go on sale on Friday, 4th July at 9am. Excitement.

Tuesday 14th October - Dublin Academy
Wednesday 15th October - Belfast Spring And Airbrake
Thursday 16th October - Inverness Ironworks
Saturday 18th October - Glasgow ABC
Sunday 19th October - Leeds Metropolitan University
Monday 20th October - Hull University
Wednesday 22nd October - Preston 53 Degrees
Thursday 23rd October - Whitehaven Civic Hall
Friday 24th October - Manchester Academy 2
Sunday 26th October - Birmingham Academy
Monday 27th October - Coventry Kasbah
Tuesday 28th October - Nottingham Rock City
Thursday 30th October - Exeter Lemon Grove
Friday 31st October - Portsmouth Pyramid
Saturday 1st November - Oxford Academy
Monday 3rd November - Norwich Waterfront
Tuesday 4th November - London Forum
Sunday 9th November - Tenby De Vlance Pavilion
Monday 10th November - Swansea Sin City
Wednesday 12th November - Cardiff University
Thursday 13th November - Wrexham Central Station
Friday 14th November - Aberyswyth Arts Centre

Those rather nice Subways have announced a new tour for October around the UK.

Tickets go on sale on Friday, 4th July at 9am. Fun. If you REALLY want tickets, presale details are on their official website.

Monday 29th September - Nottingham Rock City
Wednesday 1st October - Norwich UEA
Thursday 2nd October - Oxford Academy
Saturday 4th October - Keele University
Sunday 5th October - Leeds Stylus
Monday 6th October - Glasgow ABC
Wednesday 8th October - Birmingham Academy
Thursday 9th October - Southampton Guildhall
Saturday 11th October - Newcastle Academy
Sunday 12th October - Manchester Academy
Tuesday 14th October - Bristol Academy
Wednesday 15th October - London Brixton Academy

You either love their catchy pop, or hate it with a passion… The Ting Tings have announced a fifteen date UK tour.

Tickets go on sale on Friday (4th July) at 9am. Catch them at:

Saturday 20th September - Liverpool Carling Academy
Sunday 21st September - Glasgow Barrowlands
Tuesday 23rd September - Newcastle Carling Academy
Wednesday 24th September - Nottingham Rock City
Thursday 25th September - Southampton Guildhall
Friday 26th September - Sheffield Carling Academy
Sunday 28th September - Norwich UEA
Monday 29th September - Lincoln Engine Shed
Tuesday 30th September - Leicester University
Thursday 2nd October - Manchester Academy
Saturday 4th October - Birmingham Carling Academy
Sunday 5th October - Cardiff University Great Hall
Tuesday 7th October - Bristol Carling Academy
Wednesday 8th October - London Shepherds Bush Empire
Thursday 9th October - London Forum

The Last Shadow Puppets have announced a string of dates in August and October around the UK.

Tickets go on sale on Saturday (5th July) at 9am. Catch them at:

Tuesday 19th August - Portsmouth, Guildhall
Wednesday 20th August - Oxford, New Theatre
Wednesday 22nd October - Glasgow Academy
Thursday 23rd October - Sheffield City Hall
Sunday 26th October - London Hammersmith Apollo

Former Pop Idol, Will Young has announced a new tour for November and December around the UK’s theatres.

The tour comes in support of Young’s forthcoming album, ‘Let It Go’, released on Monday 29th September. Tickets for the tour go on sale this Friday, 4th July at 9am.

Sunday 16th November - Newcastle City Hall
Monday 17th November - Harrogate International Centre
Tuesday 18th November - Liverpool Philharmonic
Thursday 20th November - Glasgow Roayal Concert Hall
Sunday 23rd November - Manchester Apollo
Tuesday 25th November - Sheffield City Hall
Thursday 27th November - Oxford New Theatre
Friday 28th November - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Sunday 30th November - Portsmouth Guildhall
Monday 1st December - Bristol Colston Hall
Wednesday 3rd December - Ipswich Regent Theatre
Thursday 4th December - Brighton Dome
Friday 5th December - Cardiff St. David’s Hall
Sunday 7th December - Birmingham Symphony Hall
Tuesday 9th December - Plymouth Pavillions
Thursday 11th December - Bournemouth International Centre
Friday 12th December - London Roundhouse

Massive “event” gigs currently seem to be in favour at the moment, with Live8, Live Earth, Princess Diana’s concert, and last night saw one of the biggest to date, and most worthy: 46664, to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday and also to raise awareness of his AIDS charity’s work.

You’ve probably heard about it in the press - the whole Amy Winehouse will she turn up / won’t she turn up situation, the issue over whether Nelson Mandela was even going to go himself. Then there was the impressively long list of stars attending: Gordon Brown (seen chatting to Nelson Mandela through Simple Minds’ frankly tedious performance - we would have done too, if we could have without shouting at each other), Will Smith, Quincy Jones and Lewis Hamilton actually turned up, whilst others could only be bothered to send a video (including Victoria Beckham, who got one of the most savage boo-ings known to man-kind).

In amongst the notable guests was some of today’s (and yesterday’s) best (and worst) performers, culminating in a show-stopping five song set from Queen that showed they still have what it takes to wow a huge audience. We also saw amazing performances from Amy Winehouse (who still has the power to wow with her voice after all she’s been through recently), Will Smith and Zucchero. A lot of artists were ones that we weren’t familiar with, however certainly opened our eyes up and featured a lot more variety musically than the rather biased Live8 and Live Earth events.

After the jump: a blow by blow account of the evening

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Sigur Ros have announced a string of five dates around the UK throughout November.

Tickets are on presale now, though are going quickly, and go on general sale tomorrow, Friday 27th June at 9am.

Tuesday 4th November - Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Wednesday 5th November - Blackpool Empress Ballroom
Friday 7th November - Bristol Colston Hall
Saturday 8th November - Bournemouth International Centre
Thursday 20th November - London Alexandra Palace

“We’re only two songs in and already Paul’s broken the drums!” smirks Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos as drummer Paul Thomson attempts to re-assemble his broken kit. This turned out to be a recurring theme of the evening, as later on Nick’s guitar amp and strings gave up the ghost. However, regardless of all of that it was nice to see a stadium-filling band play a tiny boat in Bristol’s harbour and deal with the problems of playing a tiny stage and going back to their roots.

Kicking off the evening was Chilean five piece Panico. At first I was sceptical - South American party band supporting British indie kings? Really? But somehow, it worked. Starting off carefully, they quickly began to woo the crowd with their CSS / Gogol Bordello / Ladytron / The Music mixture of sounds, and energy laden front-man in the shape of the (ingeniously named) Memo.

Initially I was going to compare them solely to CSS, the Brazilian party stars of 2007, but realised pretty soon that that would be doing Panico an injustice. They’re much more talented, and their songs have more depth, and a sense of urgency that would put others to the test. The gorgeous Carolina held it all together more than capably on bass, providing some calm next to Memo’s crazy shapes. Whilst Carolina held it together, each member clearly is quite talented, and collectively they’re definitely ones to watch in coming months and years.

Lyrically they switch between Spanish and English, which certainly makes for interesting listening, and a more exotic feel than a typical British evening in inner city Bristol. By the end of the set they had everyone bouncing, and were the perfect warm up for Franz Ferdinand - everyone was ready to party.

9:45 rolled around and Franz marched on stage, self assuredly and immediately plunged into a new song, “New Thrill”, which went down a storm, and got them off to a good start, before peppering the rest of their set with newer tracks.

“Tonight, we’re going to play you some new songs, some old songs, and…” “some songs!” yelled a heckler as Alex was introducing themselves, to much laughter around the venue, and smirks from the band. “Yes, yes, we’ll play you some songs, if you want, they’ll be good ones!” smiled Alex, clearly in his element and enjoying the intimate surroundings of the Thekla.

Many of the older tracks sound just as good now as they did when they first arrived on our airwaves back in 2004. Take Me Out has renewed vigour, and surprisingly didn’t have the crowd bouncing the most. That award went to the set closer, This Fire, which saw the Thekla start to sway quite scarily as the boat rocked in the water with 350 people bouncing to the encore closer.

Keeping the set short left us all wanting more from the headliners, though Panico surprised me and could be ones to watch for the future.

After the jump: setlist and pics

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Those lovely Welsh chaps, Feeder, have announced a sizeable UK tour for October and November stopping off at just about every major town and city (and some not-so major).

Tickets will be available from here from Wednesday (25th June) and on general sale on Friday (27th June) at 9am.

Monday 20th October - Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall
Tuesday 21st October - Manchester Apollo
Thursday 23rd October - Newcastle Academy
Friday 24th October - Glasgow Barrowlands
Sunday 26th October - Lincoln Engine Shed
Monday 27th October - Nottingham Rock City
Wednesday 29th October - Liverpool University
Thursday 30th October - Sheffield University
Saturday 1st November - Loughborough University
Sunday 2nd November - Newport Centre
Tuesday 4th November - Birmingham Academy
Wednesday 5th November - Llandudno Arena
Friday 7th November - Leeds Academy
Saturday 8th November - Bristol Colston Hall
Monday 10th November - Cambridge Corn Exchange
Tuesday 11th November - Brighton Dome
Friday 14th November - Exeter University
Saturday 15th November - Southampton Guildhall
Sunday 17th November - London Brixton Academy