Lady Gaga, O2 Arena

She's like Madonna - but a much better singer

If the power-generating companies in the London area noticed a sudden surge in electricity consumption late on Sunday afternoon, I think I can explain why: many thousands of hair-straighteners and other beautifying devices were doubtless being put to use in the run-up to Lady Gaga’s show at the O2 Arena, the first of two nights in London.

Headline acts announced for 2010 London Jazz Festival

Sonny Rollins, Esperanza Spalding, Martial Solal and Paco de Lucia set to play at this year's edition

An unprecedented second consecutive year for saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins, celebrating his 80th birthday, is one of the many highlights of the 2010 London Jazz Festival announced yesterday. One question immediately springs to mind: which Noël Coward classic will he dust down this year?

Christine Tobin and Liam Noble, Lauderdale House

Irish jazz vocalist unveils her stunning tribute to Carole King's Tapestry

A bad cover version can be a dangerous thing. Imagine, for example, that your first encounter with the brilliant Gershwins was Kiri Te Kanawa's egregious Kiri Sings Gershwin. This, potentially, could be so distressing that it might put you off George and Ira for life. In fact, it could put you off music for life. Rather than "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", Michael Bolton's typically understated take makes you want to throw yourself in. And then there's Sting's John Dowland tribute, Songs from the Labyrinth.

Interview: Diane Birch Rises Up

Diane Birch's album 'Bible Belt' is an instant classic

It's probably a bit early to start picking the best albums of 2010, but I would seriously consider a legal challenge if Diane Birch's Bible Belt isn't there or thereabouts when the votes are counted. Like a long-lost singer-songwriter classic, it accomplishes the trick of sounding instantly familiar, yet Birch herself doesn't sound quite like any other artist you've heard before. Her voice can be soft and supple, but it also has a raw, rasping quality that can saw through a song like "Choo Choo", with its vamping organ and garage-band guitars. By contrast, in the hymn-like "Forgiveness" she sails up to a top note that could bring Airedales and Labradors running from miles around.

Freedom of the City, Conway Hall, London

Free jazz event is staggeringly intense and genuinely emotive

Eight hours of “improvised and experimental music” would not be on everyone’s list of Bank Holiday essentials, and the marathon programme that constitutes the first half of the two-day Freedom of The City festival could have proved daunting for even the free jazz faithful. That the experience turns out to be very far from gruelling is, then, in no small part thanks to the curators, among them such luminaries as Evan Parker and Eddie Prévost.

Bill Fontana: River Sounding, Somerset House

Journey to the watery depths of Somerset House for this evocative audio artwork

The fountains have been switched on at Somerset House, and I watched a group of tourists giggling as they picked their way through the water jets. They obviously hadn’t noticed the cheerful sound of running water coming from the edge of the courtyard, which encourages you to descend some narrow stairs down to the light wells that illuminate the lower floors of Somerset House.

The Concise Dictionary of Dress, Artangel at Blythe House

Wordplay and cryptic interventions at the V&A's vast treasure house

Judith Clark is a fashion curator, Adam Phillips a psychoanalyst and writer. In collaboration with Artangel, that font of innovative artistic commissions (including Rachel Whiteread’s House, Michael Landy’s Break Down), they have produced what is perhaps best described as an intervention, rather than an art installation, in Blythe House, the Hammersmith outpost of the V&A.

Would Like to Meet, Barbican Centre

The audience participates in an experimental show that explores our desires

Is there such a thing as iPod theatre for a new digital generation? Given the enormous boom in site-specific performances and the growing use of electronic gadgets, the answer seems like yes, and this new show by non zero one - a group of recent graduates from Royal Holloway, University of London - is billed as an interrogation of the “new methods of communication that are designed to connect us over huge distances and in all scenarios”. An example of participant theatre, the 50-minute piece, which opened today, is a good illustration of both the highs and lows of experimental performance.

Bombay Bicycle Club, The Forum, London

Scion of the MacColl musical dynasty and band play it loud, and curry favour

It's not the bobbies on the beat that are getting younger, it's the bands. Bombay Bicycle Club formed while at school in north London's Crouch End and were already making a name for themselves when they left full-time education in 2008. Rock and roll domination is on the curriculum instead, thanks to the success of last year's debut album, I Had the Blues but I Shook Them Loose.

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