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Justin Vernon’s songs have always been bookends. Ever since the singer-songwriter descended upon that cabin in those woods in northwestern Wisconsin in the winter of 2006, emerging three months later with Bon Iver ’s acclaimed first album, his music has detailed relationships in either blossom or breakdown, with often agonising intimacy. Tracks such as 2009’s “Blood Bank” chronicle new love: two acquaintances stealing a kiss in a car, candy bar wrappers around them, snow piling on the windshield as they pull each other closer.
Equally emotive are his breakup songs. Debut LP For Emma, Forever Ago – the revered result of that 2006 woodland retreat, and the beginning of an unlikely ascension to pop A-lister status for Vernon – was written after the Eau Claire artist’s own relationship collapsed, sparking bruised folk laments like “The Wolves” on which he ponders “what might have been lost”.
Sunday night, it transpires, represents a different type of bookend for Bon Iver. Three years after his last album, the glitchy 22, A Million , Vernon uses his All Points East festival headline set to draw a line under that LP and tease a new era. A little after 10pm in London’s Victoria Park, the stage goes dark and the 38-year-old and his four-piece band depart, but the show isn’t over. Two new tracks are premiered in colourful music videos on screen. One’s a tender, glacier-paced ballad called “Hey Ma”, led by a metronomic electronic beat and accompanied by home-video visuals of frolicking families. The other, more tantalisingly, is a gospel-tinted pop bop titled “U”, which features LA soul star Moses Sumney. The song ends, a website URL flashes up and as fans filter out of the park, they rush to it on their phones. Bon Iver’s fourth album, it seems, is imminent.
Show all 18 1 /1818 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics 18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics David Bowie, Rainbow Theatre, 1972 The long gone Rainbow in London’s Finsbury Park was one of the great rock venues, and though I was young at the time it would be impossible to forget the impact of Bowie in one of his first outings as Ziggy Stardust. “They haven’t even finished building the stage,” I said with breathtaking naievety to the person next to me, on observing the scaffolding and ladder. Of course, it was all part of the Ziggy theatrics, a show that began with David/Ziggy walking out to the drums of “Five Years” and continued with mime, flamboyance and songs that have all become classics. I remember his appearance being heralded by music from Beethoven’s Ninth (also used in A Clockwork Orange, the film being current at the time). In those years Bowie always used it as his theme music. I also remember being blown away by the support act – a fresh, imaginative outfit called Roxy Music. (David Lister)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Dolly Parton, Dominion Theatre, 1983 Truly charismatic performers leave an indelible impression and I marvelled at the way Chuck Berry had the crowd in the palm of his hand when I saw him in the 1970s. But few could match Dolly Parton in her prime for her larger-than-life enthusiasm and sheer sense of fun. When the country superstar came to London’s Dominion Theatre in 1983, she played some mean finger-picking banjo, sang beautifully, especially on an a capella version of “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?” and even did an Elvis impression. Her concert was filmed for a video release and about half an hour after the crowd had left in, they brought in a large group of young punks and Goths (to intercut into crowd shots) and suggest an edgy young following. Happily, I had stayed around and saw her deliver this impromptu extra set, which was full of risqué jokes and blue banter. There’s no one quite like her. (Martin Chilton)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, 1985 You don’t usually realise you’re present at what will become a moment in history. But that sunny July afternoon at Wembley Stadium felt special right from the off, even if the off was Status Quo doing “Rockin’ All Over The World”. There were numerous stand-out moments; perhaps on paper the biggest was the return of Paul McCartney, topping the bill after nearly five years self-enforced absence from high-profile performing following the shooting of John Lennon. Somewhat sadly the sound failed for part of “Let It Be”, but we can draw a veil over that. The most stunning set of the day came from Queen: a high energy medley through “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Radio Ga Ga” to “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions”. No one fired up the crowd quite as much that day. And since the band had not been at their most visible around that time, this proved to be their resurrection. (David Lister)
18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics BB King, Hammersmith Odeon, 1985 Blues titan BB King released two of the greatest concert albums of the 20th-century in Live at the Regal (1964) and Live in Cook County Jail (1971). Even though he was 60 when I saw him at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1985, he was still full of energy. He sang with passion and his guitar work was transcendent, especially on gloriously funky version of “The Thrill is Gone”. I skipped my graduation ceremony for the concert and had the good fortune to bump into an old family friend called Ray Bolden, who had worked at Dobell's Record Shop in Charing Cross Road. King's face lit up to see Ray, who had put him up in his London flat in the 1950s. The blues superstar could not have been friendlier, despite his tiredness after a long gig. Seeing Muddy Waters live in 1979 was special but BB King at full power, bending guitar notes like no one else, topped even that. (Martin Chilton)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Rollercoaster Tour, Brixton Academy, 1992 When The Jesus & Mary Chain reached the status of noisenik godheads with their fourth album Honey’s Dead in 1992, they decided to put together a visceral modern rock revue tour called Rollercoaster that’s still ringing in my ears almost 30 years on. Of the three revolving support acts, Blur opened the night, mid-transformation from baggy latecomers to art-pop pioneers. With Damon Albarn flinging himself wildly around the stage and clambering up amp stacks, they premiered ferocious second-album character studies like “Colin Zeal” while screening films of the journey of meat from slaughterhouse to defecation, in reverse. Most crucially, with their all-horns-blazing new single “Popscene”, they kick-started Britpop right before our eyes. The Mary Chain, meanwhile, were at peak malicious, I left with my skull buzzing, my eyes opened and my tastes re-arranged, convinced I'd seen the new music, and I had. A gig that didn’t just make my night, it made me. (Mark Beaumont)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Pixies, Brixton Academy, 2004 When Pixies came onto a London stage on my birthday in 2004 and played Pixies songs – and music just doesn’t get better than that – it was pure relief, euphoria and dark-hearted epiphany. “Tame” sent me feral, “Gigantic” was titanic, “Bone Machine” crushed out my marrow. Black Francis snarled, barked and ranted through “Gouge Away”, “Monkey Gone To Heaven” and “Debaser”, every bit the demented pervert preacher he ever was; Kim Deal’s angelic coos and bass melodies made an unholy pact with Joey Santiago’s werewolf guitar riffs, seemingly played with a plectrum made of Satan’s fingernail. Of their four Brixton dates that week, I lost every ounce of my s*** at three. Best gigs ever, no particular order. (Mark Beaumont)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Foals, Buffalo Bar, 2007 North London’s tiny and now-defunct, Buffalo Bar in the 2000s, hosted early gigs from the likes of Bloc Party, The Libertines, The Maccabees – or Foals. Their show took place 14 months before the release of their debut album Antidotes, and it justified their precocious reputation as a live act. That night, the energy of their high-octane math-rock was infectious; it’s not often that you see a band in their earliest days and know that this is probably the last time you’ll be able to reach out and touch them. The songs followed: "The French Open", "Balloons", "Hummer”, “Mathletics”, all fuelled by astoundingly complex polyrhythms, interweaving staccato synths and guitar played high on the fretboard in angular electro harmonies, set to punk-disco techno beats and urgent "new wave" vocals. I’d never seen a rock gig so precisely engineered (a sticker on the synth read "Math is for Everyone"), yet so exhilarating. There was a true sense we’d discovered something great. (Elisa Bray)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Crystal Castles, Camden Crawl, 2008 Problematic in every way given singer Alice Glass’s October 2017 statement accusing her former bandmate Ethan Kath of sexual abuse, non-consensual sex and controlling behaviour, but this short set in front of a small crowd in a Camden bar was proof that when a performer truly plugs into the mother lode, the intensity they generate can burn itself into your retinas and shake your soul. Glass was 19 years old, and for most of the set just a blur of spectral movement frozen into violent shapes by an almost incessant strobe; singing, shouting and screaming her way through songs such as “Courtship Dating”. The result was a reminder that whenever one of your heroes gets on stage to try to channel that primal essence of “rock ’n’ roll” – or whatever the hell it is – most of the time, they’re just trying to find an echo of something that once flowed through them. That can go on for 50 years or more. There’s sadness now in the memory, but on this day in April 2008, Glass had it. (Chris Harvey)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Brighton Centre, 2008 It used to be that rock’n’roll was a young person’s game; anyone over the age of 50 still tearing it up on stage needed to calm down and have a word with themselves. Nick Cave, the latter-day harbinger of the apocalypse still identifiable by his raven hair and pallbearer’s suit, has consistently shown us the idiocy of this thinking. I’ve seen Cave perform scores of times and he has never let me down, but this show, which coincided with the release of the album Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, was a whole new level of spectacular: funny, furious, life-affirming, heavy on the biblical melodrama. Alongside the Bad Seeds, then operating as a seven-piece coolly attired in suits, open-necked shirts and slicked-back hair, Cave showed how musical talent can deepen rather than ebb in mid-life, and how he was – and indeed remains – untouchable in terms of intellect, charisma and sheer feral energy. (Fiona Sturges)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Leonard Cohen, Benicassim Festival, 2013 Leonard Cohen steps onto the stage, dressed in grey shirt and tie, black waistcoat, trilby concealing his white hair. It's sweltering. And yet Cohen, in his mid Seventies, is barely breaking into a sweat. Much like his attire, the songs - such as "Dance Me to the End of Love" and "So Long, Marianne" – are immaculate, his voice no longer a wail but a raw, rumbling baritone. The Spanish sun is beating down and my friends and I are genuflecting before one of the greatest lyricists of all time. This was to be the only time I saw him live and no performance has ever, in terms of pure emotional intensity, targeted me with such laser-guided precision as his rendition of "Hallelujah". The song's been covered by everyone from Jeff Buckley to Alexandra Burke, but sung by him that day, it's surely never felt as moving. (Patrick Smith)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Bobby Womack, Latitude, 2013 The great Sixties and Seventies soul singers are nearly all gone now, and I doubt we’ll ever see their like again. Bobby Womack had recovered from colon cancer but was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, and less than a year from his death in June 2014, when he played the UK in the summer of 2013. He came on stage on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Latitude festival, to play songs from his brilliant comeback album, The Bravest Man in the Universe, to a basking, picnicking audience. “All soul singers come from gospel,” he told them. Womack’s voice still seemed like a gift from God. The years of cocaine addiction hadn’t altered its richness and warmth. To be in the presence of Womack that day, knowing it would likely be the last time, was very special. (Chris Harvey)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics St Vincent, End of the Road, 2014 Most rockstars, terrified of seeming to be trying too hard, would never dream of hiring a choreographer. But St Vincent, AKA Annie Clark, is no ordinary rockstar. For her Digital Witness tour, the musician recruited Annie B Carson to help her dream up a procession of strange, shuffling moves to perform alongside her brilliant self-titled fourth album. At End of the Road Festival – a small, Dorset delight which she had played with David Byrne a year earlier – her headline set was scuzzy, eccentric, and thrilling. At one point, without missing a lick on her guitar, she rolled herself down an oversized flight of white stairs like a glitching robot. Then again, no robot can play guitar like that. (Alexandra Pollard)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Kate Bush, Hammersmith Apollo, 2014 After 35 years away from the stage it was a moment Kate Bush fans never thought would happen. Beforehand, I was reporting from outside the venue for NME and the excitement and energy was extraordinary, like nothing I've ever experienced. One woman told me it would be fine if she died after the gig because she would die happy. The show started with a "greatest hits" section. And then it all got a bit more, well, Kate Bush, with a dramatic adaptation of "The Ninth Wave". Sinking ships, confetti cannons, surreal fish people and a soliloquy about sausages. Act three was more pastoral. The second side of "Aerial", "The Sky of Honey", was performed in front of the most beautiful visuals I've ever seen: birds, a red sun, a moon tilting on its axis and then Kate suspended into the air. Pure theatre. As we filed out, there was a sense that the audience was stunned. I still am. (Lucy Jones)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Patti Smith, Field Day, 2015 Patti Smith was celebrating the 40th anniversary of her seminal 1975 album Horses at Field Day in Victoria Park, London, 2015. The sky was a perfect blue, and the sun was still blazing hot at 7pm. “I’m sorry about the dark glasses,” Smith said by way of introduction. “I’m not trying to be cool, it’s just, you know… the sun.” “You’re the f***ing coolest!” a fan screamed back. From there, she and her band, including long-serving guitarist Lenny Kaye, embarked on a blistering set that had myself, and many other audience members, in tears. Smith is a ferocious performer, she spat and snarled and howled; tearing up her guitar as though it just insulted one of her favourite poets. It didn’t matter if she messed up, as she did on “Break it Up”, because she offered the instantly immortal words: “I don’t do nothing perfect. I only f*** up perfect.” You felt you were in the presence of something momentous. (Roisin O’Connor)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics D'Angelo, Hammersmith Apollo, 2015 When D’Angelo released his surprise third record – the politically fraught Black Messiah – it ended the 14-year hiatus that followed 2000’s Voodoo. It also reminded music fans that the American hip-hop artist was still as monumentally talented as he was back then. Accompanied by his eight-strong band The Vanguard, his show at the Hammersmith Apollo was a visceral, quasi-religious experience. Jesse Johnson, formerly of Prince-produced outfit The Time, added funky hooks to “Sugah Daddy”, while legendary bassist Pino Palladino took time out from The Who's live shows to join in the fun. At one point D’Angelo led a classic James Brown funk staple, holding three fingers in the air so the band could respond with three loud vamps. One encore was followed by a second that broke the curfew with free abandon, until D’Angelo was left on stage alone, reflective and blissful. It inspired a divine kind of worship, for a show that was appropriately titled "The Second Coming". (Roisin O’Connor)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Lorde, Brighton Centre, 2017 A week before she played Brighton, I reviewed Lorde’s Alexandra Palace show in London. It was a five-star performance – the New Zealand musician exorcised the pain of the break-up she'd chronicled on her brilliant second album Melodrama, twitching and twirling as an abstract house party played out in glass boxes around her. The stage design was so good, in fact, that Kanye West may or may not have nicked it a year later. Seeing her in Brighton the following week, without a notepad in my hand, I saw even more clearly all the intimate nuances of her performance – and was free to give in entirely to the exhilarating, heartbreaking melodrama of it all. (Alexandra Pollard)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics David Byrne, Brighton Centre, 2018 When you’ve been going to gigs for decades, you tend not to expect anything new, just variations – some mind-blowing, others not – on what you have seen before. So when I saw David Byrne’s American Utopia show, it felt like stumbling on the Ark of the Covenant. Here was a man who had been working in music for 40 years completely redrawing the rules of pop performance – no drum riser, no cables, no visible amps or microphones – and taking it deep into the territory of experimental theatre. In opposition to the usual freeform live music set-up, this tour was the result of fastidious planning, with everything rehearsed to the last nanosecond. And yet, forever on the move, dressed in matching grey suits and dancing barefoot in formation, Byrne and his 12-piece band were loose-limbed, unfettered and joyous to watch. And the music was pretty great too. (Fiona Sturges)
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18 of the greatest gigs ever – according to our critics Christine and the Queens, Hammersmith Apollo, 2018 Before her short run at Hammersmith Apollo last year, Héloïse Letissier – known as Christine and the Queens, though she dropped all but the "Chris" for her second album – tweeted: “I think we finally have some surprises for those who come to the shows!” She delivered on that promise – falling snow and sand, and a balcony homage to Romeo and Juliet – as she redefined what a pop show could be. With a gender-fluid cohort of athletic dancers, she brought to theatrical life her tumultuous journey towards embracing her pansexual identity, and finding liberation. And we went through all those emotions with her, those alternately tender and powerful vocals never faltering despite the restless dance routines. Everyone was on their feet dancing, and her declaration of inclusivity could not have been more empowering: “Vive everyone!” We left thrilled and elated. (Elisa Bray)
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The 22, A Million era ends here on a dazzling high. From thunderous opener “Perth” to the finger-picked Americana of “29 #Strafford APTS”, it’s a set that seamlessly showcases Vernon’s raw melodic might, as well as his refusal to compromise. For Emma, Forever Ago was a smash on release in 2007 (literally forever ago now). The gentle, wintry harmonies of songs like “Lump Sum” made it perfect for coffee shop playlists, adverts and montage moments in TV dramas. Vernon could have churned out a follow-up album made up of 12 regurgitations of “Skinny Love”, its breakout single. Instead, he flirted with gloriously unfashionable Eighties MOR on his second album, and electronic iciness on his third. Bon Iver might have been headlining giant London festivals a lot sooner than this had he not insisted on adventuring into the garbled electronic terrain of tracks like “10 d E A T h b R E a s T” or manipulated saxophone strangeness of “8 (circle)”, both given thrilling run-outs this evening.
Vernon’s stage banter is as minimal and unshowy as his outfit: Nike hi-tops, black jeans, Discwoman tee and a blue bandana that struggles to contain scruffy wisps of hair. At one point he turns weatherman. “Looks like it’s about to f**king s**t it down,” he says, grinning up towards the evening’s grey clouds. “But that’s totally cool.” Instead, Vernon stays largely silent as he powers through a lean 90-minute slot. “Skinny Love”, predictably, is met with a lung-busting singalong. “Creature Fear” climaxes in a cacophony of crashing drums. But it’s his most stripped back moments that impress most, reducing the All Points East audience to the kind of entranced hush seldom few festival headliners are able to command. Autotune a cappella “715 - CR∑∑KS” sends lumps into throats and shivers down spines, while 2009’s “Woods” proves electrifying as ever, Vernon looping and layering vocal harmonies like an architect erecting an ornate chapel.
What might Bon Iver’s next era bring? It’s often tricky to predict what Vernon actually wants. 22, A Million saw him lurch away from the spotlight: his voice distorted, his face obscured in press shots, with a sound and song titles that made him less accessible. His earlier work had brought him to the brink of household name status, collaborating with Kanye West, packing out arenas and being joked about on Saturday Night Live . Instead, Bon Iver pulled away from fame with challenging, abstract folktronica curios like “22 (OVER S∞∞N)” – another of tonight’s highlights. Whatever direction he picks next, on this evening’s evidence, expect it to only grow Vernon’s devoted following and status as a sonic heartbreaker capable of taking a pinata bat to your emotions. “At once I knew I was not magnificent,” the crowd sings along in force as teary finale “Holocene” stirs towards crescendo. Vernon might protest otherwise, but tonight feels pretty magnificent indeed.
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