Yard act

The Rascals and Kate Nash open the festival before Kings Of Leon later

Legendary bootleg finally gets an official release, remastered by the Dame himself

I was just settling down to watch the football last night, when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver, but it was one of those – usually incredibly annoying – calls from a gig, where you can just hear a song reverberating around the venue. After a few seconds I could make out a baritone invocation, some ethereal harmonies in the far distance, and a generally spectral air that was uncannily enhanced by the phoneline. Leonard Cohen, singing “Who By Fire” in Manchester, at his first British date for some 15 years.

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The guitar legend remembered

A FEW years ago, Elvis Costello declared an ongoing fondness for U2. By way of explanation, Costello outlined his admiration for U2’s ability to forge intimacy and emotional connection even in the Enormo-Domes and Mega-Bowls that constitute their tour schedules. At stadium level now, Costello observed, “everything else is bullshit, or a trip to the circus.”

I’ve been blown away this week by the first album from a New York band called Endless Boogie. The name was vaguely familiar, and reading through the press release it transpires that the band played Slint’s All Tomorrow’s Parties a few years back. There are some earlier singles, I think, which Bubba helpfully linked to here.

The birth pangs of rock’n’roll, re-imagined by John Sayles, starring Danny Glover

Sonic chronicle of the Memphis label that nurtured Big Star; plus Q&A with Jinm Ardent, the label's founder

The many sides of Bob Dylan: provocatively, brilliantly imagined