The ship's graveyard at Purton, Gloucestershire

Just a few photos from a walk I took last weekend. These are the Purton Hulks ( no, not *that* one ), a group of obsolete ships that were intentionally beached along the banks of the River Severn in Purton, Gloucestershire, in the early / middle 20th century. The idea was that these derelict vessels would shore up the banks to protect them from tidal erosion. It's always a lovely walk and fascinating to reflect on the history of the area and the long-gone days of commercial shipping travelling up the Severn and along the Gloucester & Sharpness canal.

 

Mogwai at Bristol Beacon 22/02/26

As I've said before on this 'ere blog, sometimes the random, unexpected events are the best. This is often the case with gigs, and was definitely the case on a Sunday night three ago when I encountered the semi-legendary "post-rock" band Mogwai in the Bristol Beacon. I was only vaguely aware of Mogwai before, mostly their reputation for extreme volume, but thought it would be an interesting gig. Sarah didn't fancy going out on a school night, so I made the journey down to Brizzle on my own - an easy drive down the M5, into the city and the Trenchard Street car park, literally a few steps from the venue.

I got there as support act Forest Swords was about half way through his set. A one-man band with various decks, samplers and synths at his disposal, Matthew Barnes ( for 'tis his real name ) was creating some atmospheric soundscapes, while projected geometric shapes danced around him. All very cool in a chin-stroking, nodding-nonchalantly-along kind of way, but somewhat lacking in passion. The last couple of "songs" added some tasty beats and edged the filmic sound more towards an Underworld/Orb style which was more my thing. He went down very well with the audience and it set things up nicely for the more guitar-based sound of Mogwai...

Actually I should have said THE more GUITAR-based !SOUND! of MOGWAI! because their MO is the whole loud / quiet / light / dark thing... and they're very, very good at it. The band ambled onto the stage to little fanfare, main man and lead guitarist Stuart Braithwaite said something to the effect of "Hello, we're Mogwai from Glasgow and we're glad to be here", and then they plugged in and played. After the barn-storming stage moves and energy of Suede's Brett Anderson ( the last gig I'd been to at this venue ) Mogwai were one of the most static groups I've seen play live - they basically just stand there and do their thing. It does give you a chance to focus solely on the music and that's probably the intention.

They started with a couple of songs from their new album, The Bad Fire, although they were pretty much all new to me. First number ( I find it hard to call them "songs" as there's very little in the way of lyrics ) God Gets You Back, saw the two "other" guitarists sit head-to-head at two keyboards and play some Kraftwerk-reminiscent melodies, while Hi Chaos introduced the guitars. A fairly low-key introduction, but building throughout, pointing the way to more guitar-based wizardry to come.

( Incidentally, I was glad to see the Palestinian flags draped over the amps, demonstrating the band's support for that beleaguered nation. )

At times, as the songs swelled and the guitarists conjured up squalls of sound, as in Drive The Nail, it was easily to literally get lost in the music. At one point I even shut my eyes for a while and just became enveloped by the beautifully melodic-but-discordant sound - just like a right old hippy. ( I did see a bloke in a Hawkwind T-shirt which made total sense. ) Two or three songs featured actual lyrics, verses etc. ( mostly with the vocals distorted so they were virtually just another instrument ) and it showed how Mogwai could have been a traditional indie band if they'd wanted to, but clearly they didn't. My unfamiliarity with the band and their music makes it difficult for me to single out specific numbers, but one in particular saw Braithwaite swap his guitar for bass, while the bass player did the same, sit down on a stool and deliver some absolutely stunning music along with the other hugely talented band members. I really need to listen to more of their stuff so I can actually remember song titles ( lol ) and maybe write a better review if I see them again. And I hope I do. They're really something special.

After all the online talk about extreme volume and warnings to wear ear plugs ( I saw a few people doing that ), I must admit I didn't find the gig unbearably loud. Oh yeah, it was loud alright, but I often complain that gigs aren't loud enough these days, so it suited me fine. I'd positioned myself fairly close to the front and just slightly right of centre ( unlike my politics, right kids? ) so I wouldn't be directly in line with the PA - I think that helped. Mogwai finished with probably the only number of theirs that I'd heard of - Mogwai Fear Satan - which was a huge crowd-pleaser. I knew this was the epitome of the loud-quiet-LOUD style and I was expecting it to kick off - which it literally did as, after a tension-building quiet-ish section, the three guitarists all stamped on their effects pedals and the sound hit the stratosphere. Red lights and strobes flashed as the noise hit the crowd like a fighter jet taking off - a rushing, monolithic wall of sound you could feel punching you in the chest. It was fantastic.

With a brief "Thank you so much" from the taciturn Braithwaite, the band exited the stage to the sound of waves of feedback as their guitars were left on the floor to reverberate. And our ears were reverberating too. It had been a hugely impressive performance from a super-talented band, a real eye-opener for me. What a gig! What a sound! What a band!

Suede at Bristol Beacon 02/02/26

Okay - first gig of the year, and what a cracker! After being so impressed by the stupendous Suede when we saw their double-headline show with the Manics back in 2024, I knew I had to see them again. When their new album, Antidepressants, dropped ( as I believe the young people say ) I snapped it up, along with first dibs for 2026 tour tickets. Luckily, I managed to get tix for Bristol's stately Beacon, where we'd seen Echo & The Bunnymen a couple of years ago, and a mere 30 miles down the road from our mundane corner of the Shire. Perfect. After a loooong five-month wait, the time was finally here to enter Suede World...

Sarah and I had both recently been suffering with the colds that seem to have afflicted everyone we know ( Sarah more than me ), but we still dragged ourselves down a windswept M5 on a Monday night ( oh, the glamour! ) and rocked up to the venue just in time to see support band Bloodworm. Although possessing a singularly uninviting band moniker, the 'worm ( as I'm sure nobody calls them ) turned out to be a very talented, very tight, and frighteningly young band, with a neat line in Cure / Banshees post-punkery. Led by a young Pete Shelley-lookalike ( I mean, he really looked like him ) they cut quite gloomy figures, as befits the vibe, but had some very atmospheric and ethereal material, if slightly lacking in memorable hooks. They went down extremely well with the partisan crowd, which must have been satisfying for such a young band. Definitely ones to watch.
 

And then, at almost dead-on the expected time of 20:45, Brett Anderson and the Suede boys came out onto the stage to mass roars from the crowd. Well, in Brett's case he bounded onto the stage and pretty much bounded, leaped, twirled and gyrated for the next hour and a half. The man's a machine.

In a hugely confident move they started with three songs from the new album, starting with the kick-assery of  Disintegrate ( my ear-worm of choice in the couple of weeks since the gig ), the monolithic Dancing With The Europeans and the vicious title track Antidepressants. We'd heard the last song previewed at the Cardiff Castle gig and it was great to now hear it in context with the other, super-tough new songs. An incredibly ballsy, take-no-prisoners opening to a gig, and they only went and followed that with two of their most crowd-pleasing anthems - Trash and Animal Nitrate - and the venue erupted.

They took a deep dive next with the hardcore-fan-pleasing balladry of Killing Of A Flashboy, which slowed the set down somewhat, but I'm sure Brett needed a brief breather after five songs' worth of non-stop glam rock posing... only very brief, actually, as he was soon back to shouting "Come on!" at the audience and gesturing for everybody to go crazy as the band kicked into the heavy riffage and post-punk furore of Personality Disorder - "Fill me with your personality disorder!" Okay, then...

Incredibly, with all this effort being expended by the frontman, Brett's voice still sounded excellent - probably stronger and louder than its ever been, but still hitting those swooping falsetto highs when required. After a mesmerising June Rain ( one of the highlights of the new album ) the band pulled out a new song: the outstanding outsider anthem Tribe. Brett dedicated this to all of us - "the insatiable ones, the quiet ones, the beautiful ones - you are my tribe" - and its punky chorus of  "No-one ever gave a fuck about me, and then you came along" became an instantaneous singalong, with the crowd pogoing like they were down the Roxy in 1977.

One of the real standout songs of the set was She Still Leads Me On, Brett's tribute to his mother, one of the most nakedly emotional and soul-baring songs that Suede have put out. In a career noted for many self-consciously artificial and intentionally surface-level lyrics, this is a real sign of maturity - as Brett has said in interviews, he can't write teenage lust songs at the age of 58. The set took another turn for the emotional as most of the band left the stage, with only Brett and Neil Codling remaining to play an acoustic Life Is Golden, dedicated to Brett's son who was in the audience: "He looks a lot like me but he's a more handsome version." You could literally hear a pin drop as the duo played this beautiful song, Brett at one point dropping the mike to his side and singing completely a capella to a hushed, hypnotised audience. A very special moment indeed.

Then they concluded with some absolute bangers - So Young, Metal Mickey and Beautiful Ones - and the crowd went absolutely nuts. It all got a bit too rowdy and sweaty ( in February! ) for Sarah, so we made our way to the side of the hall where it was a bit more sedate. ( Of course, I would have preferred to have been in the thick of it, but I could see she was getting overwhelmed. )

Suede came back out to encore with The Only Way I Can Love You, a recent favourite from the Autofiction album  -  Brett calls Suede "the anti-nostalgia band" so, of course, they pointedly finished with a modern song and what a barn-storming end to a fantastic set it was. Suede are definitely charging off wildly into middle age, undaunted by time or their history, making excellent music and playing at the very top of their game. They really are the beautiful ones.

2025 Catch-up: Whitby Abbey

Just before Christmas in that far-off time known as 2025 ( who can even remember that now? ), Sarah and I spent a few days in the beautiful surroundings of North Yorkshire, staying in the lovely coastal town of Whitby. It's somewhere we've meant to go for years and we're so glad we finally got there. It's a surprisingly bustling, busy little town ( even in the chilly days of Winter ), with a historic seafront, friendly locals, great fish 'n' chips and - of course - the world-famous abbey.

With its iconic, ruined vistas and connection to Bram Stoker's Dracula ( as "Carfax Abbey" ), Whitby Abbey was a must for us. And we could even see it out of our hotel window, as pictured above.

We were fortunate to get up to the abbey on a beautifully sunny, if bone-achingly cold, December morning and see it in all its glory.

It really is an incredible building, with so much history and myth surrounding it. Of course, so much of its mystique comes from its ruined status - thanks but no thanks to monastery-dissolving Henry VIII - and it's interesting to think how much of its imagistic power would be lost if it was still intact. Anyway, we were absolutely blown away by the majesty and spectacle of this incredible ruin, staring out to the North Sea from the windswept headland.

The English Heritage gift shop was, of course, full of Dracula merch, enough to ensnare even the most wary Goth in its shadowy embrace.

 As you pass through the gift shop and museum on your way to the abbey there are large, black capes hanging on pegs, for anyone who fancies cosplaying as the Count... guess which idiot had a go?

Happy New Year ( 2026 edition ) from The Glass Walking-Stick!