My Best Tunes

Take a look at the gigs our writers will be reviewing this week, and tell us about live music you’ve seen recently

Each week we publish a list of concerts our writers will be covering in the next few days, and we invite you to tell us about the shows you’ve attended recently, or bands you’re hoping to see soon.

Here are a few brief live music reviews posted by our @guardianmusic Twitter followers.

@PippaPot

‘The Long Count’ @BarbicanCentre : v. abstract but an amazing musical performance from the national twins on sat

@essentiallybron

AZARI & III in London on Thurs - flamboyantly warming up the freeze. Still shaking my hips.

@liamhorton91

black keys on friday - lonely boy was crazy

adewretham

@thebrowniesss @NorwichArtCentr on friday, was awesome. Hard fast and dirty. Just how it should be!

@TMusREVoLUTION

Sun sonic sorceress Gemma Ray Garage Highbury flailing Meeks ghost up Holloway rd

If you’ve seen, or are going to see, any concerts or gigs this week, tell us what you think of the show in the thread below. Also, if you’d like to share your gig pictures with us, please post them to our Flickr group. You can tweet your gig reviews to @Guardianmusic using the hashtag #LiveReview.

Here’s what our writers will be seeing this week (all subject to last-minute change):

• Marc-André Hamelin at Wigmore Hall

• Mastodon at Manchester Academy

• Zoe Rahman at Pizza Express Jazz Club, London

• Transatlantic Sessions at the Royal Festival Hall

• Friends at the Lexington, London

• Alessandro Taverna at Wigmore Hall

• LPO/Alsop at the Royal Festival Hall

• The NME awards tour at the O2 Academy, Glasgow

• The Floating Palace at the Barbican

• Philharmonia Orchestra with Tugan Sokhiev at the Royal Festival Hall

• Surrey Opera: Thelma at Croydon Fairfield Halls

• Hallé/Elder at Bridgwater Hall, Manchester

• Tales of Hoffmann at the Coliseum

• BBCSO/Bringuier at the Barbican

• Nozzo di Figaro at the Royal Opera House

• La Traviata at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

• In Portrait: Olga Neuwirth at Queen Elizabeth Hall

• Justice at Brixton Academy

• Snow Patrol at the O2 Arena

• Gregory Porter at Pizza Express Jazz Club, London

Our indie professor is so indie she signed up for a holiday on a boat with Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and Weezer. And she’s such a professor, she wrote an end-of-term report about it …

One of the things I love about a destination festival is that it takes you away from your everyday life. And a music cruise takes the destination festival to a whole new level. When I grew up, it seemed that a cruise was something you did when you retired. The sort of trip you went on when you were afraid to fly or when you’d decided pajama jeans were the best clothing option. I knew at some point cruises had mutated into family vacations, or moving spring breaks with drunken sexual shenanigans, but nothing could prepare me for the awesomeness of the Weezer Cruise.

The cruise departed from Miami for a four-night jaunt to Cozumel and back. It featured Weezer, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, the Antlers, Yuck, Free Energy and others. As well as music, there were activities and theme nights: ugly sweaters, 80s prom, and moustaches. You could try beer tasting with Boom Bip or watch the belly flop contest judged by the Antlers, attend a Q&A with Weezer, or do yoga with Star of Ozma.

Weezer are fortunate to have a wide audience demographic. Cruises are expensive and many people can’t get work off in January, but despite this there was an incredibly diverse audience. There were people from Europe, Asia, Australia and North, Central and South America, and a British couple on their honeymoon. Those are just the people I met. What everyone had in common was a love of the band and a willingness to declare this loudly. I suspect this hardcore fanbase inspired the band’s decision to play Pinkerton in its entirety. This 1996 album seems to be closest to the heart of the band.

Creative enthusiasm was treasured. I thought I’d see a lot of band T-shirts, but instead I saw people who made their own Weezer capes, shirts, moustaches, sweaters, flags, fingernails and custom hats. Best of all were guys from Mexico who made Weezer futbol jerseys with pirate nicknames such as “Jacques Cos-Teo” – fitting as we were in the Caribbean. The guys gave each Weezer member his own monogrammed jersey. This was a group of people that had Raditude.

My eight favourite things from the Weezer cruise

Watching Weezer play as the ship departs

As the ship set sail from Miami, Weezer did a “so many hits it hurts” set on the open-air deck with the ocean as the backdrop. Opening with Hash Pipe, a track I used to play before classes to get ready to give a lecture, it was the first chance people had to see the scope of their new music family. It set the tone for the rest of the trip as singer Rivers Cuomo leapt off stage to meander through the crowd while singing, to the top of the giant water slide presiding over the ship, obliterating the distinction between performer and audience. Throughout the trip, bands mixed with audience members. There was a total eradication of the notion of VIP, with perhaps the exception of whether you ended up with a room that had window or not. Once outside your cabin, you could end up having dinner with your favourite drummer or just as wonderful, take a day trip to the Mayan ruins of Tulum with Brian Bell, go snorkelling at a tropical paradise with Rivers, or dance until dawn with Lou Barlow. As the trip progressed, people became more confident and had the chance to tell the artists they loved how their music had affected them, a joy to both musician and fan alike. As Rivers stood atop the slide triumphantly with arms aloft wearing a captain’s hat, it felt like a moment of communal success for everyone aboard.

Dressing up for an 80s prom night

On the Saturday night, there was an 80s-themed prom night. Most people took their cues from John Hughes films. Probably because a lot of them weren’t alive during the 80s and others, like a couple of women from Norway, didn’t have proms to begin with. This was their chance to participate in an American fantasy. The 80s costumes did not disappoint. There was taffeta and neon, thrillers and spandex. There were even the video vixens from Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love. Each outfit was more fabulous than the next: the men in pastel Miami Vice suits and ill-fitting florid tuxedos and the women in sparkly, laced monstrosities. Rivers appeared at the disco with the trip’s sartorial motif of the captain’s hat to have a twirl around the room. This was the prom you always wished for because people genuinely liked each other. There were no haters. It made everyone feel like royalty. I’m sure being able to legally drink alcohol helped.

It’s the Lou Barlow traveling circus!

Lou Barlow played sets with Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and on on his own. It made for seven shows in four days. He came onboard early with Sebadoh, complaining he was resentful of his other band Dinosaur Jr because they wouldn’t have to wait to get into their rooms. The first night he went from playing on the open Lido deck to the large amphitheater on the lower deck. On Friday he played the Criterion Lounge where his witty and self-deprecating between-song banter gave them the intimacy of their original conceptions. The set culminated with him doing the hit single Natural One embedded in a Bill Callahan song leading into the song Day Kitty which was sweetly dedicated to his wife. It resulted in a standing ovation. While I liked the quiet intimacy of the one-man show, others preferred the epic volume of Dinosaur Jr as the ship pulled out of Cozumel to the appalled looks from passengers on the nearby luxury liner. Sebadoh did the finale performance in the Palladium hall only to find the bass guitar had been mixed in with the Dino gear so bassist Jason had to go searching for it on another deck.

Realising it’s not possible to overdose on Weezer

Not only did you get to see the band play the Lido deck and two shows at the Palladium theater, there were loads of other band-themed events such as a Weezer game show, Weezer trivia, Weezer karaoke, a vow renewal overseen by “reverend” Scott, Rivers reading from the Pinkerton Diaries, and a fan-led Q&A session that produced fun, flirty and interesting questions. There were Weezer bracelets and tote bags in your room. Weezer temporary tattoos were available on deck (although a few people decided to make their cruise tattoos permanent), Weezer napkins with your drinks and, if you wanted, special Weezer cruise merchandise. I couldn’t resist the embarkation photo with the cruise logo.

Cruises are sexy

There are some distinct stereotypes about cruises and these were definitely in play. There was a sexually charged atmosphere somewhere between summer camp and spring break. Once at sea, the pools, slides and Jacuzzis were filled with salt water and scantily clad men and women. Some people had rather robust shenanigans like what happened in row six during the Dinosaur Jr set, while others were content with sweet fumbling in corridors. It was nice to see how many Weezer fans have best friends of the opposite sex. There was one singles’ party where people competed for the best pick-up line. I won’t divulge the winner, but I’m surprised no one used “So you look like a Weezer fan …” for the prize.

As a cruise novice, I appreciated you didn’t need to drive home; the room prepared with a towel in the shape of a different animal every night, and the non-stop buffet where you could take your food anywhere you liked. There were tropical concoctions in themed containers. I just had to get a margarita in a smiling coconut, which is now sitting in a place of hhonour in my office. I ate pizza at 4am just because there was a pizza available then.

Watching the yacht-rock revival unfold

Would it be a cruise without yacht rock? The company that promoted the Weezer cruise is SixthMan, based in Atlanta, Georgia, and they have an ace up their sleeves, local band Yacht Rock Revival. This would traditionally be called a covers band, but as everyone is up in arms about authenticity, I think there needs to be a reconsideration of how we think about the performance of “other written” music. In jazz, they don’t call other written music “covers” they call them “standards”. With their coordinated outfits, visual flair and a distinct repertoire, Yacht Rock Revival are a talented band. In late-70s polyester and a devotion to all synthetic fabrics, they played two sets that included Hall and Oates, Dan Hartman, Steely Dan and the Bee Gees. If you had any doubt you were made for dancing, Yacht Rock would assure you that you are.

Who’s up for a day trip?

You’d think after two days of radio silence, you’d want to reconnect: check your emails or at least tweet about your amazing adventures, but instead people threw themselves headlong into the perilous quest of the local excursion. It appears in Cozumel they have made the wise decision to make nearly all excursions worthwhile. My best friend and I had been invited to Playa del Carmen for parasailing or to go on a boat to a sand bar in the middle of the sea where you could eat guacamole. We chose the scoot-coupe, a cross between a scooter and a car with three wheels and, in our case, no alignment. It was so bad the others in our group decided either we were drunk or that I must have been the wife of my friend and he was taking revenge on me for some misdeed in our marriage. The trip circled the island with two scenic stops and a drive through town. The waters of the Caribbean are warm and salty, perfect for anything aquatic, and walking on the beaches reminded you that you were on vacation. Halfway around the island, we helped with the final death rattles of our scoot by hitting a dirt patch and got to drive a jeep the rest of the way. The excursions were another chance to meet people from the cruise. The driver was a girl from Oklahoma who I decided to go snorkelling with afterwards. She had come on her own and made new friends every step of the way.

There was a cannonball contest!

On Friday afternoon, there was a Cannonball contest. Sebadoh were judging it. They came up with specific criteria to assess performance including factors such as water displacement, splash height and technique. People loved when contestants did a reveal like whipping off his towel or checking wind resistance before the plunge. This is not the sort of thing I’ve seen much of before and soon some friends from Mexico City joined us. Actually, until this moment they had been virtual friends. One of them, Santiago had sent me a question about guest lists for my column in the Guardian. It resulted in me trying to get him on guest lists in Mexico City. With all smartphones turned off, we used the old-fashioned way of connecting: calling rooms, getting the wrong person in the wrong language to set up the meeting at the cannonball contest. Yet it worked. I found out that because “professor” in Spanish is masculine, for months Santiago and all his friends thought I was a guy. They were happy to find out my only drinks of choice are Diet Coke and tequila (not together). We talked Weezer and other festivals and bands from Mexico. Santiago can’t go to Coachella this year and he later justified it by saying it was because it lacks the cannonball contest. He even wrote to me asking: “Is it still cool to go to Coachella if it doesn’t have a cannonball contest?” I asked my best friend once we were home why was the cannonball contest great. He said: “Cannonball contests are terrible. They are always terrible.” I was shocked and asked: “Then why did I like it so much.” He answered: “It’s because we met Santiago at the Cannonball contest. That is what is great about the Weezer cruise. It’s about the people you take away from it.”

I and my fellow musicians from the OAE are currently on a pub crawl. And it’s changing the way we play and audiences listen.

The ‘rules’ of concert-going today - sit still, keep quiet, concentrate, only applaud at the end of a piece - often make us feel uncomfortable, and produce a less than authentic experience. And, of course, the other way most of us tend to listen to music - on headphones, sealed into our private own world - would be similarly incomprehensible to composers, musicians and audiences of previous centuries.

Music should be a very social experience. Today, it sometimes feels as if we’ve lost sight of this. Chamber music in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries was written to be performed in domestic settings - usually in upper-class homes to a circle of friends and acquaintances. We no longer have these kind of domestic venues and the social and intimate listening experience that came with them. There are of course groups who do still make music together in their homes, and a small circle of the very wealthy who have both space and funds to invite chamber groups into their homes, but for most of us who want to hear chamber music you have to go the formality of the concert hall.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - where I’m joint leader - are mid-way through something a little unusual. We’re out on the road on tour, but rather than concert halls, our venues are London pubs. Our aim is to put the social back into music. The music that we’re playing - Purcell, from the 17th century and Italian chamber music from the 18th - was, after all, written to be played in domestic settings, not to a hushed, seated and reverential audience. We’re including some of Purcell’s drinking songs, songs that would have been played in a London pubs just like this, where his audience wouldn’t have been sitting quietly - on the contrary!

I’d like to think that some people will feel that we have broken down some conventions and after this they might like to try other performances of classical music, but this isn’t about enticing people into the concert-hall to hear an 80-piece OAE in concert, this is about empowerment. Audiences want to have a bit more ownership of what they’re listening to. The best performances involve a three-way relationship - the music (ie what’s on the page) the audience and the performers. The performers react not only to the written notes but to each other and most importantly, to the audience. But all too often in today’s concerts, the third part of that equation is forgotten. Often when we’re performing you can’t even see beyond the first couple of rows, let alone to the back of a thousand-seat hall.

Playing in pubs to a group of people so close you can touch them has been an amazing experience. I’m loving it, and I can see and feel that audiences are too. We’ve played two nights of our pub-crawl so far, tomorrow night we’re at The Paradise, Kensal Green and there are two more to come (Soho and Islington) on this tour. As we wound down after the last set in New Cross last week our cellist, Robin Michael said to me, “How about Haydn next? They’d love it!” And it’s true - the fantastically social nature of Haydn’s quartets would be wonderful to enjoy, explain and encounter with a pub audience.

You might think that the informality of these venues would create a casual relationship with the music - I’m often asked if pub venues means it’s noisy, but not a bit of it (the clank of a few glasses from the bar aside). In fact we’ve found that there seems to be an enhanced degree of listening as people are much more directly involved in the music making, and this intense listening creates the atmosphere of the performance. I like to think that we are sharing in each other’s listening.

We are, of course, playing acoustic instruments, un-amplified, and so far the events are ticketed, so most of our audience have come to listen to the music. But for audience and musicians alike, this has been a special experience. Maybe there’s an optimum number of people who can “musick” together like this. Certainly, with 2,000 people its more difficult to create the intensity and communication that we’ve had at our pub gigs.

My most memorable moments from the first few gigs? The intensity of Purcell’s G minor sonata experienced in packed pub in Shadwell, Matt [Truscott, fellow violinist] in a silk headscarf as “Camilla” pretending to kill himself with his violin bow, and then teaching the assembled company suitable rhetorical theatrical gestures for a four-part drinking song. And, of course, one of the best bits has been being able to stop playing and be 15 seconds rather 15 minutes away from the nearest bar and a well-earned pint!

* More details about the OAE’s Night Shift series at
oae.co.uk/thenightshift, or on facebook

It was the most controversial Super Bowl show since Janet Jackson flashed some nipple. But can we really be outraged by MIA’s middle finger and a line from the new Madonna single?

You’d be forgiven for not having a coronary over the fact MIA gave Super Bowl viewers the finger during her half-time guest spot with Madonna. For most fans, it was probably more shocking to see MIA performing a rehearsed dance routine than flipping the bird. And besides, it was more than 35 years ago that Sex Pistols went on British television and called host Bill Grundy a “fucking rotter” – in comparison, MIA sticking her middle digit up and saying “I don’t give a shit” seems a bit tame (especially as she didn’t manage to get the full “shit” out, it more like a “shi”, really … maybe she had constipation).

But then this is the Super Bowl, a direct route to 110 million sports-loving American households. After the Rolling Stones and the Who played sedate shows at the event in recent years, viewers are not used to hearing someone go off piste. Even when “off piste” means singing the words of the song.

Perhaps it was agreed beforehand that the line “Imma say this one, yeah, I don’t give a shit” would be censored. Maybe Madonna expected MIA to tone down the words, only to be out-controversied by the Paper Planes star.

Either way, the NFL promptly issued an apology: “The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologise to our fans.” NBC also apologised, no doubt aware of the 2004 controversy when Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” sent commentators into meltdown. If they’re smart, though, NBC and the NFL will be thinking about the 2004 show for all the right reasons. After all, Jackson’s flash of nipple was eight years ago and people are still talking about it. Who remembers what Tom Petty played in 2008?

America secretly loves whipping itself up into a frenzy over this sort of thing, but it wasn’t just the rightwing press expressing outrage – even Pitchfork was in on the act. “In the few bars Madonna was kind enough to grant her during the biggest television event of the year, MIA’s message to America was simply, ‘Fuck you’” it complained, somewhat innacurately (surely the message was “I don’t give a shit”, otherwise she’d have just said “fuck you”). It went on to conclude that: “It wouldn’t be the worst idea [for MIA] to draw as much focus as possible back on to her music.”

Yes, because the Super Bowl half-time show has always been about the music …

It may have been the American sporting event of the year, but it was Madonna who stole the show at the NFL Super Bowl XLVI during the coveted half-time slot. The singer delivered on her promise to put on “the greatest show on Earth, during the greatest show on Earth”, as the New York Giants won a nail-biting victory against the New England Patriots in Indianapolis.

Adele is at the forefront of a new British revival in the album charts with home-grown artists recording their best sales since the mid-1990s when Oasis and the Spice Girls ruled.

Having made her entrance clad head-to-toe in a shimmering gold cloak, riding a gilded chariot drawn by legions of gladiators, the 53-year-old launched into a 12-minute spectacular featuring a string of her greatest hits including “Vogue”, “Music” and “Express Yourself”, as well as her new single, “Gimme All Your Luvin”.

We’ve been inundated with rereleases of 1970s music from Africa, so it’s refreshing to be informed of an extraordinary Guinean singer from an earlier era. And this is shivers-down-the-spine stuff.

Not a blues album, but an album borrowing heavily from the bank of blues tonality: minor keys, draggy tempos, undecorated structures, an implicit sense of what it is to be enslaved.

Two nights, and two generations of Estuarine geezers known for their pop-reggae hits and services to the trilby trade. If a comparison between Suggs and Olly Murs feels a little crowbarred, there’s more to it than you might expect. But more of that later.