There was much to be said for attending the third and final show of Crosby Stills & Nash's Albert Hall stint, because this was the night when they played their debut album in its entirety. Clearly much – almost everything, in fact – has changed since 1969, but though the musicians are four decades older, their original collective spirit survives remarkably intact.

This 3D film lets you see the whites of Metallica’s eyes. Filmed live last year, the band are already gurning and grinning sufficiently to project their exuberance at playing their songs of rage and pain to the biggest hall's back without video assistance (singer James Hetfield is pictured below). Nimrod Antal’s cameras anyway let you experience US metal’s biggest and most enduring band as if you’re on-stage with them.

We all know the backstory of the Mighty Mac, the breakups, the betrayals, the addictions and now, finally, the reunion. These days they're more like the Mellow Mac with the emotional hatchets buried, lingering hugs on stage, and tender tales of their time as struggling Seventies hippies. Few other bands, not even Abba, have mined their private lives for inspiration to the same extent.

A fortnight after its release, fans now know the Manics’ latest album Rewind the Film to be a rich, contemplative affair. The musical dynamics are intimate and seemingly best suited to small venues, like the one that features in the video for the single “Show Me the Wonder”. As I made my way across London last night, I wondered if this new sound was why the band had chosen to downsize from last year's O2 to the cosy surroundings of Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Was this "last phase of the band's development" to be consciously close-up and personal?

Nirvana: In Utero

I once got quite excited by Kings Of Leon. Way back in 2007 I saw them play at the Astoria, and witnessed a band who appeared to be ready to parlay indie credibility and southern-states rocker charm into a genuinely interesting kind of mainstream success. And the album that followed, Because of the Times, seemed to live up to that, full of widescreen Springsteenian ambition while retaining just enough of the Strokes/Pixies buzziness they started out with.

The punchline about angry upstarts journeying to po-faced middle-aged is an easy enough one for a band to make, but over the past few years the Manic Street Preachers have managed something far harder: they’ve started to make good records again. Rewind the Film is apparently the more sedate of two planned albums and it’s no laughing matter - even if a song called “Anthem for a Lost Cause” is straight out of Manics 101.

The last time Mr E toured these shores he looked as if he might be heralding the end of the world. Dressed all in white with a Moses beard and gangsta bandana, his songs were about inner struggle and personal redemption. Between songs he remained mute and mysterious. How things have changed. This year the band is touring the much fuzzier Wonderful, Glorious and last night Mark Everett hardly shut up.

There’s something about the Arctic Monkeys that calls to mind the Rolling Stones. Not now, obviously - it might feel like it’s been forever since four messy hairdos and northern accents burst out of Sheffield, though in truth it’s only been about a decade - but the Stones that scandalised an America expecting another Beatles with their sleazy, bluesy rock. Recorded in California, if there’s one thing AM does not sound like it’s an album by a band whose name still sounds like a practical joke dreamed up in some spotty kid’s bedroom.

“That was a bit of a dog’s breakfast,” said the guy in the row behind. Yes, but then the said canine repast can also no doubt be nutritious and delicious, for dogs anyway. The most dogs-breakfasty (in the bad sense) moment was right at the end, when the Stranglers played their greatest song “Golden Brown”, their immortal chanson to a girl and heroin.