DVD: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, London Calling, Live in Hyde Park

Bruce and the E Street Band retrace their history in 30 songs over two DVDs

One of those deathless Sopranos moments is where Christopher Moltisanti turns up late at the Bada Bing club for a meeting with Silvio Dante and Tony Soprano, and they ask him what kept him. “The highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive,” Christopher retorts, quoting Bruce Springsteen’s New Jersey anthem “Born to Run”. Nobody would know this better than Silvio, since he was played by Springsteen’s E Street Band sidekick Steve Van Zandt.

Corinne Bailey Rae, Somerset House

A star is reinvented in one of the surprise best gigs of the summer.

Was this a Corinne Bailey Rae audience or a Somerset House audience? “We’re Somerset House fans,” I heard one posh punter proudly tell some friends. Then later I heard a woman talking about the Florence and the Machine gig that she’d missed earlier in this short season of concerts, as if it were a stamp missing from her collection. Could this really be an audience who were here for the building first and the music second? Yes, this enclosed yet open-air square in central London is a delightful space, but when did ambience become more important than music? And anyway, there’s no space on Earth that could make Florence and the Machine sound good to me. But Corinne Bailey Rae, now that’s a different matter.

Hofesh Shechter's Political Mother, Sadler's Wells

An assault on ears, eyes and nerves by a stunning piece of dance-theatre

In the middle of the pulverisingly loud and utterly thrilling experience that is Hofesh Shechter’s new production Political Mother, I wished suddenly that all dancers could come and see this piece, see what clarion theatre dance can be. If the theatrical thread often thins almost to vanishing point in some of the more mediocre ballet productions that turn up, this work is a positive rope of theatricality, thick, hard, massive, a slab of incredibly loud music and incredibly fierce, reflective emotion.

Classic Albums: John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band, BBC Four

JOHN AND YOKO ON THEARTSDESK Superb documentary on John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band

Superb Classic Albums doc probes the troubled psyche of John Lennon

The BBC just can't stop showing that flipping Lennon Naked drama. No sooner have we emerged from the Fatherhood Season, where it first appeared, than we're into a John Lennon Night on BBC Four, featuring Lennon Naked again under a new temporary flag of convenience.

Tapestry Supersonic Sunday Mini-Festival

The sun shines down on the glorious one-dayer featuring Kitty, Daisy & Lewis and others

The Tapestry Festival is a labour of love. It's the ongoing adventure of a Camden plasterer called Barry Stilwell who decided a decade ago that he wanted a festival of his own. Irritated by the way corporate branding was piggy-backing festival culture, and disgusted by stringent spoilsport ground-rules at many outdoor events, he started his own in 2003, mostly showcasing bands who'd played his monthly Euston-based club night.

UK Festivals 2010 Round-Up

From Aldeburgh to WOMAD, the definitive instant-click guide to festivals nationwide

Get your tent and ice-box and plan your summer's entertainment with theartsdesk's definitive clickable festival guide - listings and links for all the UK festivals this summer, from heavy rock by Scottish lochs to Morris-dancing in the south west, and taking on opera, classical and major international arts festivals for good measure. If you know of a festival we've missed, please email info@theartsdesk.com with brief details of venue, booked artists and the website and we'll put it in for the world to see.

 

Kings of Leon, Hyde Park

It's a story of too little, too late for the Southern rockers' big London gig

“It’s been one of the greatest experiences of our lives,” said Kings of Leon's lead singer Caleb Followill towards the end of this big outdoor gig on a warm summer’s night in London. “Thank you very much.” I’m glad he had a good time, and his diffident Southern charm was appreciated by the vast crowd, but I wish I could say the same; for me, this was certainly an experience, but not a great one. Here’s why.

Al Green & Michael McDonald, O2 Arena

Two veteran soul men, but who really has the golden voice?

Looked at from a certain angle, Michael McDonald, who supported Al Green at the O2 on Sunday, couldn't be cooler. A key part of Steely Dan's notoriously virtuosic circle of session musicians, the man who turned the Doobie Brothers from hoary rockers to sophisticated R&B hit machine, and latterly the business partner of The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges – the Missouri-born McDonald epitomises a certain kind of laid-back but massively aspirational attitude. It's the attitude associated very much with 1980s Hollywood and mountains of cocaine, and is summed up in the phrase often used to describe his music: “yacht rock".

Dawn Kinnard, The Serpentine Sessions

Pennsylvanian preacher's daughter fights to get noticed at disappointing Serpentine Sessions

On the face of it, comparisons could be drawn between Dawn Kinnard and fellow preacher’s-offspring-cum-country-singer, Diane Birch. Except Birch’s music comes from every musical advantage, whereas Kinnard still has a day-job as a hairdresser. Moreover, her voice remains totally unproduced - a glorious mix of Tom Waits and Marge Simpson.

When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors

Great footage and terrible cliches collide in Doors documentary

It was the Danny Sugerman-Jerry Hopkins biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, that kicked off the Doors death cult 30 years ago, at a point where the band's reputation was wallowing low in the water. Previously it had been quite acceptable to regard much of their work as cheesy pseudo-jazz with stupid lyrics, and their posturing vocalist Jim Morrison as a tedious drunk with a Narcissus complex.