Last night, the sublime, goth-punk Alkaline Trio returned to the stage at Manchester Academy and proceeded to blow the crowd away with an awesome set which, perhaps surprisingly, focused on the “classics” rather than their more recent material.

Opening with a storming rendtion of “This Addiction” the title track to their latest album, followed by a blistering rendition of “Armagedon” the crowd was whipped into a frenzy which rarely let up throughout the 21 songs.

“Dead on the Floor”, “Off the Map” and “Fine” joined “This Addiction” in a setlist that completely ignored the bands other most recent album “Agony & Irony” (though to be fair they had toured that album last year) and only feature one song off “Crimson” (the sublime “Sadie”).

This was a bit of a shame as I had been looking forward to hearing “Mercy Me” and “Calling All Skeletons” however the inclusion of “Another Innocent Girl”, “Mr Chainsaw”, “This Could Be Love” and “My Friend Peter” alongside “Private Eye” and “Emma” more than made up for their absence.

The encore was perhaps the highlight of the evening as Skibba took up the drums, Dan switched to guitar and drummer Derek took up bass for rendtions of “Fine” and The Misfits’ “Angelfuck” before closing (unsurpisingly) with “Radio”.

After missing the band on their UK tour last year, it was great to finally see them again some 5 years after seeing them last. Fingers crossed they’ll be back again next year, though if you can’t wait that long, they are headling next weekends Slamdunk festival…

Anyone who knows me knows that (in my head at least) I am the illegitimate love child of Tim Burton. I own all of his films and have collected memorabilia relating to his work for a number of years. Hell I even liked Planet Of The Apes (well at least until the ending). A trip to see Alice in Wonderland was an inevitability…

Now before we start getting into the finer details, I’d like to make it clear that, in my opinion,  Alice in Wonderland is too light to be a “proper” Tim Burton film though it is equally too dark to be a “proper” Disney film.  It’s caught somewhere in between, largely down I feel, to the the fact the film is not a straightforward adaptation of the Lewis Carrol’s books. Instead Burton has taken elements from both books and crafted a sequel of some sorts. Much in the same way as the director did when creating the sublime Batman Returns, where by he took familiar characters and retained some of their traits yet crafted a completely new back story.

The plot of this dark tale centers on an 19 year old Alice who is plagued by dreams of her first adventures in Wonderland (or Underland as the film insists it be called). In order to escape a marriage proposal, Alice follows a white rabbit  down, you’ve guessed it, a rabbit hole and finds herself back in Underland.

Once back in Underland, we are treated to familiar scenes and characters from the books (and original Disney film) such as the eat me and drink me potions and Tweeduldum and Tweedledee before Alice re-encounters the Mad Hatter’s tea party who inform our heroine that her return has been prophesied and that she is the one to slay the Jabberwocky thus defeating the tyrannical Red Queen (deliciously played by Helena Bonham Carter) thus restoring rule to the White Queen (a not so good Anne Hathaway).

The performances on the whole are spot on with excellent casting choices particularly Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Matt Lucas as Dweedledum and Dweedledee and Alan Rickman as the blue caterpillar. It is, inevitably, Johnny Depp who once again steals the show with an excellent turn as the schizophrenic Mad Hatter, switching seamlessly from friendly, harmless odd ball to deranged physchopath within the blink of an eye. It is his performance that again suggests this is not a film for the terribly small. Tie that in with the scene where Alice must cross the Red Queens moat by using floating severed heads as stepping stones (classic Burton imagery NOT classic Disney) and you do feel like the director and studio were wrestling each other for control of the project.

The CGI is fine though after the exceptional beauty of Avatar, feels a little clunky in places. This most evident of Crispin Glover’s Knave of Hearts who has a very stiff, juddery motion whenever he moves. The Bandysnatch and Jabberwocky however are both beautiful realised as is Underland, the design of which is classic Burton. The 3d is good yet not as well utilised as in Avatar.

There were rumours abound that the film was still being worked on up to and beyond the world premiere, if this is true it would explain the disjointed feel to some scenes as well as the ropey CGI. Had Burton and his team not been under such a strict timescale and had this adaptation not been released through Disney, I feel we would’ve had a much different film.

Overall Alice in Wonderland is not without its flaws, yet is still an enjoyable, beatuiful  romp through “Underland”.

“Dan Le Sac, Scroobius Pip! Fixing hip-hop as best we can!” A bold statement or genuine belief?

Last night the bearded saviour of UK hip-hop took the stage at The Cockpit in Leeds and put on a blistering performance that puts many, more popular artists to shame.

The bunker-like “pit” was indeed the perfect venue with around 500 fans crammed in to see the duo performing tracks from both their debut album “Angles” and latest release “The Logic of Chance”. The room erupted to opening track “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” and barely let up until the duo bowed out with the “pre-planned” encore of “Letter from God”.

The ‘Pip’s crowd interaction is second to none with witty banter and (in jest) crowd provaction – “I support Millwall” which was met with a 500 strong chant of York-shire!

Whilst for me the strength of the duo’s music lies within Scroobius’s lyrical observations and genuinely thought provoking lyrics on tracks such as “Angles” (performed complete with costume changes!) and the beautifully haunting “The Magicians Assistant” the contribution of Dan Le Sac should not be overlooked.

The backing tracks, which whilst good on an i-pod or stereo sound INCREDIBLE live. You not only hear the beats put you feel them adding a completely new experience to each track.

Highlights of the evening included storming renditions of “Snob” (surely the next single), “Back From Hell”, “The Beat” and “Stake A Claim” (before which Scroobius declared he wanted to be the first president of the UK – I’d vote for him!) and “Thou Shalt Always Kill”.

Of the two support bands B. Dolan was the highlight with a mix of comedy, hip-hop and daring do (he attempted to jump over a prone audience member!) that was an excellent precursor to the evening’s headliners.

The first support band, Sound of Rum, opened with an interesting poem before being blighted by a poor sound set-up to the lead singers mic. I’m intrigued to see what they sound like on CD so will be checking them out in the not too distant future.

All in all it was a fantastic night out and already a genuine contender for gig of the year. If you’ve not heard anything by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, or you’re disillusioned by the state of UK hip-hop, I urge you to follow the links below and purchase both “Angles” and “The Logic of Chance”. You will not be disappointed!

On reflection and after several discussions with friends (stand up Mr Rob Reed) I feel I may have been overly critical of James Cameron’s latest epic Avatar.

I stand by my belief that it was certainly not the best film of the year (The Hurt Locker
being a worthy winner of that title) and that it is essentially Dances With Wolves in space, however if you treat it as a popcorn movie (which it is) and marvel at the wonderfully realised Pandora and flying dinosaurs fighting spaceships then it is tremendous fun, nothing more, nothing less.

Any how after drawling through amazon.co.uk’s dvd store, I found that the most eagerly anticipated movie of recent years is coming to DVD and Blu-Ray on April 26th 2010 and that they are already taking pre-orders.

There are 3 versions to choose from:

1 Disc DVD,

2 Disc Blu-Ray

Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-Ray (with 4 Lenticular Artcards and An Activist Survival Guide to Pandora)

Follow the links above to pre-order your copy.