The Wedding Present, O2 Academy, Liverpool, 29 October 2013

The Wedding Present's Hit Parade Tour ends on Friday in London, so you've got just three more opportunities to catch the band replaying their Elvis Presley-matching cascade of a hit single every month during 1992. From the opening chords of Blue Eyes through to the haunting chorus of No Christmas, the audience in Liverpool were reminded of why the charts back then were so much more interesting than they are now. Well perhaps that's nostalgia, but if you're going to get all nostalgic why not do so in the company of a great band playing loud in a small venue? The Hit Parade songs were bookended by 9 or 10 others from the band's 'extensive repertoire', as main man David Gedge introduced them. Whether it's the industrial thunder of Interstate 5 with which the band start the show, the spirit lifting 524 Fidelio with bassist Katharine Wallinger on backing vocals or the squalling guitar of Patrick Alexander on new single Two Bridges there are a range of newer songs for fans to nod along to. But it is Brassneck and set closer My Favourite Dress that get the mosh pit of 50 somethings bouncing around. The band are held together by the energetic Charles Layton on drums, and David Gedge has a line in patter that other front men would do well to study. The only sombre note (aside from the fact that most Wedding Present songs are bitter sweet lyrically) is when Gedge says a few words in tribute to Lou Reed and then plays Reed's She's My Best Friend. By the end of the pulsating 90 minute show the crowd have had their fill, which is just as well since the Wedding Present don't do encores.

My top five gigs of 2013

A bit previous, as Arfur Daley would say, since we're only in October but here we go:

5.  The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013

This was a small club gig and there was no mosh pit (it would never happen back home in Blighty) but the Pressies knocked out a tidy 90 minute set with David Gedge throwing the shapes and dragging from his guitar the feedback that seasoned followers of the band have come to expect.  The reputation of the band as jingly jangly indie heroes doesn't pay heed to the monstrous amounts of distortion that they've been producing for 20 odd years, the kind of noise you'd expect to hear at a ....

4.  Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Newcastle, 10 June 2013

concert.  Apparently people were walking out of this and other gigs on Young's 2013 European tour.  More fool them, I say.  Old Neil was on top form, and if you came expecting peace, love, incense sticks and an acoustic ramble through Neil's gentler back catalogue then you really should have listened to his last album, Psychedelic Pill, before buying your tickets.  Or listened to any Crazy Horse album from the last 40 plus years, really.

3.  Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Manchester, 14 June 2013

My ears could still have been ringing from the Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert of four days before, but the sonic assault with which Elvis targeted his audience towards the end of his set was like a short circuit on a human juke box with seven (count 'em) of his early gems fired off one after the other. Throw in Elvis as the Master of Ceremonies wisecracking and gladhanding his audience and you had the Royal Variety Show, thankfully without the Royals.  The audience were slightly less engaged at....

2.   The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013 (matinee)

but what this gig lacked in atmosphere it made up for in sheer charm with the band playing a seven song 25 minute set with turned down amplifiers and toned down lyrics for an audience of pre school kids and their parents.  I've seen the Pressies over 20 times now, but this gig will live in the memory a long time.  And talking of kids with their parents....

1. The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

The sun was beating down, the son was with me and happy to melt in the heat for a few hours so that we had a good spot when the band came on, and the Stones showed how they earned their reputation as the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world by dipping into their treasure chest of hits and putting on the kind of event that few (ok, no one) can match when it comes to entertaining a big, inter-generational crowd.  My gig of the year (so far!).

The Wedding Present, L'Aeronef, Lille

I'm not very tall. Five eight is what I claim, although some of my nearest and dearest dispute this.  Still, it's not often I get to go to a gig and can see over the heads of most of the audience.  But I managed it at this Wedding Present gig, which was put on at L'Aeronef in Lille at a time when some musicians would only just be getting out of bed. It must be every rock star's dream. Get your audience while they're young and they'll grow up with you, buying your records throughout your career. The Wedding Present went one further, playing an afternoon matinee of seven songs to an audience of children ranging in age from 2 to 10, plus their mums and dads.  The guitars weren't turned up to 11, the lyrics were altered ('sex was all you needed' in set opener Interstate 5 became 'fun was all you needed') and there was no mosh pit, but this was still a gig, albeit with pint sized patrons. Mainman David Gedge still threw his rock star poses, a seven year old stood up and filmed a whole song on his mum's iPhone and Freres Jacques didn't make it into the set. Even better, no one tried to impress their girlfriend by talking all the way or managed to start a fight by spilling their pint over their neighbour. Instead the audience of school age children was treated to California, Ringway to Seatac and Montreal, with a gorgeously understated My Favourite Dress to finish.  The band appeared to be having fun, with Gedge exchanging grins with drummer Charlie Layton, and there were no tantrums on or off stage, although one young audience member did have to be carried out to use the toilet halfway through the second number.  'Hope to see you again one day,' said David to his new young fans, a clutch of whom were gathered around the monitors at the front of the stage.  If this is the future of rock and roll, it has a long life ahead.

Alistair McGowan, Chorley Little Theatre, 21 September 2013

Alistair McGowan is probably the most famous impressionist in the UK, so for him to be playing Chorley Little Theatre was some coup.  And, he acknowledged, he wasn't expecting it to be quite so 'little'.  Small it may be, but it was packed out with a largely middle aged audience for his 'Not Just A Pretty Voice' tour.

His hour and three quarter act centres upon a run through the wide repertoire of famous and not so famous voices that he mimics, providing a smorgasbord of characters from TV and the world of celebrity from panel shows to Dad's Army.

As a former voice of Spitting Image McGowan has had many years' experience of mastering some voices, but what was particularly interesting was just how varied a range of people he chooses to imitate.  Whether it's up and coming comics who have appeared on Dave a few times (some of which references were admittedly lost on me) or Sky Sports' Jeff Stelling, McGowan is clearly a keen student of the media.

And McGowan is clearly a clever man, as his impression of Roger Federer giving a post match interview in three languages demonstrates.

Despite his obvious talent, however, the strongest material was the more personal storytelling such as his tale explaining what passed for in car entertainment when he was a child going on holiday with his family.  I would have preferred more of this to the Diane Abbott or Andrew Neill impressions and a pretty laboured Michael Portillo gag.

More up to date political satire would also have added spice, but the fact that no Cameron or Clegg impressions feature in McGowan's act speaks volumes about their lack of presence and their indistinguishability as politicians. Instead William Hague, whose thick Yorkshire brogue is clearly a godsend to an impressionist, and Ed Miliband were neatly parodied.

McGowan's best imitations were of comedians Frank Skinner, John Bishop, Alan Carr and Dara O'Briain.  With their mannerisms also neatly captured, it was possible to believe that they and not McGowan were strutting the boards of Chorley Little Theatre.

So a great night's entertainment in the company of almost 50 household names, and all for the price of a curry and a pint.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

Hyde Park was basking in a glorious evening's sunshine and when the Rolling Stones' lead singer Mick Jagger suggested that London in summer was the best place in the world to be, few in the 65,000 strong crowd assembled to see the band return to play the central London park 44 years after their celebrated free concert were inclined to disagree.

From the opening riff of Start Me Up through to the closing bars of ( I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, the crowd sang along and if Jagger had to glance occasionally at his autocue to remember the words of some of the most famous songs in the rock canon the faithful gathered at his feet had no such need.

Like their O2 gigs last year, this and the following Saturday's Hyde Park gig were criticised for the price of the tickets but both sold out in minutes and from the number and variety (and vintage) of tee shirts on display, the concert goers gathered in central London were afficiandos who would have come to see the band whatever the cost.

That tickets for this gig started at £99 says more about the business model for rock music than it does about the avarice of the Stones. Musicians don't make much money from selling their music any more and ticket sales from concerts is the big revenue stream.

Not that the Stones had skimped on staging.  The set was bedecked with two large oak trees from which were hung the speaker stacks, slightly obscuring the giant video screens. But a central walkway meant that at different times Mick, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood advanced into the masses and gave the crowd packed in at the front (some of whom had queued overnight to get in) a close look at the nearest thing Britain has to rock royalty.

As a seasoned Stones watcher I have a couple of gripes. The high resolution big screen revealed Mick to be glancing at the autocue on a far too frequent basis and you wonder if he really struggles that much to remember the lyrics.  And I wouldn't have played All Down The Line (my preference in the fan vote was for the Temptations cover Just My Imagination, which they stripped down and rebuilt as their own on Some Girls). But that's democracy for you.

I saw Springsteen play at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago and was distinctly underwhelmed by his choice of material. And, let's face it, a band that can release Gimme Shelter (with Keith in thunderous form), Sympathy for the Devil (with the audience 'woo-wooing' along) and  You Can't Always Get What You Want (with full choral backing) towards the tail end of a set that is packed with a clutch of memorable chart topping singles (Paint It Black, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, It's Only Rock'n'Roll, Miss You, Tumblin' Dice and Jumping Jack Flash) is always going to have the edge when it comes to killer songs.

The Stones playing Hyde Park was a celebration of a band that has been a part of people's lives for over 50 years.  The grey hair, the wrinkles and the occasional falling out between friends tells the story of the band but also most of the 65,000 too.  That's why their fans love them and why they were, on Saturday night, once again the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Blackpool Opera House, 13 June 2013 and Manchester Apollo, 14 June 2013

Elvis Costello brought his Spinning Songbook tour to the North West with performances in Blackpool and Manchester.

A measure of the powers of Costello and his backing band the Imposters is that they played over 25 songs each night and yet fewer than a dozen songs were performed on both.  The reason? The spinning songbook chooses much of the set.

The spinning songbook is a large and garishly coloured wheel divided into small slices on which are scribed various Costello favourites and which sits stage left. Stage right is a small bar and an energetic and spangly costumed go-go dancer.

This is not your average rock gig.  After an opening salvo from the band, Costello swaps his fedora for a top hat and assumes the persona of Napoleon Dynamite (Lord Napoleon in Manchester) inviting members of the audience up on stage to spin the wheel. He cracks the jokes while they see whether a song title or a theme such as Love (giving the band some leeway to choose what they might perform) is where the wheel stops. So we get Riot Act as the fourth number in Blackpool and Tokyo Storm Warning in Manchester.

But the wheel doesn't make all the choices. In Blackpool a young woman brought on stage says that her favourite song isn't displayed and  Elvis, guessing her musical tastes based on her age, cracks that they can't play a Rhianna song, 'well, only one or two'.  But she wants Gram Parsons' How Much I Lied and, whilst it might not have been rehearsed beforehand, the band duly oblige. In Manchester, a 50 year old celebrating his birthday not only gets  Happy Birthday  sung by the audience and Costello but his request for Battered Old Bird, another song not on the wheel and not rehearsed.

The Blackpool highlight is the anti Thatcher song Tramp The Dirt Down, delivered with passion as Costello links recollections of his father's death to that of the late prime minister. His musician father used to play the working men's clubs 'when there were still working men in the north'.  The collective lump in the throat of the audience was a moment of raw emotion.

In Manchester, the stand out section of the show was a rip roaring run through the back catalogue with Oliver's Army, I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea, Pump It Up, The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes, Mystery Dance, Radio Radio and What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding fired off one after another in a breathtaking encore that left the audience baying for more.

The Spinning Songbook tour is evidence that one of Britain's finest songwriters and performers is on top of his game. Whether it's romantically serenading the audience with Charles Aznavour's She or political understatement with Shipbuilding, Costello and his band provide two and a half hours of solid entertainment. Long may the spinning songbook continue to spin.

Neil Young, Newcastle Metro Arena, 10 June 2013

You sort of know what you're going to get at a Crazy Horse gig. Full on rock and roll at maximum volume. Classic songs. Neil Young leading the band like a man possessed.

But you don't necessarily anticipate the band and road crew shuffling on before the show starts to sing God Save The Queen in front of a huge Union Jack. Or a woman randomly wandering onto the stage mid set  with a violin case and looking as though she might join in with the band before wandering off again two minutes later.

Welcome to Neil's world, where he can get away with ideas in front of several thousand paying punters that a pair of Japanese conceptual artists would struggle to attract a handful of people to watch.

Also, feedback is back. Reprising the concept of his Rust Never Sleeps tour of the 1970s, Young and the band perform in front of huge mock amplifiers and coax every squeal and shriek of noise they can from their equipment.

Featuring a hefty slice of last year's Psychedelic Pill album and one new song, Young leads off with Love And Only Love and then Powderfinger before taking a breather mid set with delicate and unaccompanied versions of Comes A Time and Blowin' In The Wind, giving the latter the reverential treatment that the song's author now  seems incapable of.

Bob Dylan is notoriously unpredictable as a live act in terms of whether you will feel you have got your money's worth. As Neil Young finished his set with Hey Hey My My (Into The Black) and Rocking In The Free World, there was no question as to whether the punters had got value. Crazy Horse had been on stage for two and a half hours and the crowd were still baying for more.

Like the Rolling Stones and other acts that broke through in the 1960s, time will eventually catch up with Neil Young, but there was no evidence of age or any decline in his passion on stage in Newcastle. There's still a handful of tickets left for Neil Young's visit to the Echo Arena in Liverpool in August. It's a chance to see a true rock legend at the height of his powers while you still can. I've got my ticket already.