Live music online this week

Nashville's Punch Brothers (featuring an extra banjo by way of Steve Martin) give a fabulously tight performance of their adroit bluegrass for Letterman - you will find yourself unable to help dancing to this tune, its intricacy and jubilance overwhelming. A-mazing.


The Vaccines (sort of) affirm the hype which currently surrounds them with a performance of their anthemic surf-rock on Jools. This song, 'If You Wanna Live', being the best of the three tracks they played. However, do check out 'Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra)' if you like one minute tunes which comprise visceral shouting and mini guitar solos, and 'Blow it Up' if you always thought Glasvegas were too Scottish and needed to be somewhat anglicized.


Calling all 2-tone fans! Another Jools performer, this time the avant-garde MIA, renowned rather for her abrasive style of electro-drenched hip hop (which she did showcase as well, playing 'Born Free', although I didn't like that so much) and risqué videos, went ska for one night only this week, performing 'It takes a Muscle' with members of the Specials, forefathers of the genre. This was performance was very dubby and very good.

Finally, ethereal art-rockers Blonde Redhead perform 'Oslo' in a session for their label 4AD, Kazu Makino's vocals sounding as hauntingly eerie as ever. In this performance, they kind of put Warpaint, the band of the moment and purveyors of music of a similar ilk, back in their place, saying 'we da daddies of off-kilter dream-pop'.