There they are! It's The Beach Boys! They're playing "Wouldn't It Be Nice", halfway through their second set of the evening and it blossoms with harmonic beauty, with pop's finest, most glorious ambition. Sure, in the shadows behind them there are a bunch of session musicians carrying them. Particularly in the first half those guys made damn sure there was such a wall of vocals it would be hard to detect any flaws in the ageing voices (mostly around 70) of the original Beach Boys.

Now I think I've seen it all. After a storming two-hour set Ultravox returned to the stage for a celebratory twin-pronged past-meets-present encore of "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" and "Contact". At the very end, during a touching, soft-spoken moment, a female fan in an animal mask clambered onstage and appeared to drop a bowl of greeny-yellow gunk, possibly custard, on Midge Ure's head. The woman was bundled off and a towel cleaned up the dapper vocalist, but the crude incident was in breathtakingly stark contrast to the glistening gig that had preceded it.

John Cage is funny: this much we know. The deadpan prankster at the heart of 20^th-century artistic experimentalism was always about the inadvertent punchline, the chuckle that comes from unexpected disjunction, the relief that comes from reminders of the absurdity of reality, as much as he was ever about any engagement with progress, technology, the transcendent. It's entirely natural, then, that Stewart Lee (pictured below), who has spent his whole career reaching outwards from the comedy circuit towards the avant-garde, should want to present his work.

In Beatles’ lore, the Prince of Wales Theatre is totemic. Here, on 4 November 1963, the cheeky quartet played the Royal Command Performance before the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. John Lennon quipped, “Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewellery”. Now, 50 years on from the release of their first single, a tribute of sorts is taking place on the same stage with the arrival of Let It Be in the West End.

R.E.M.: Document 25th Anniversary Edition

Kieron Tyler

Kevin Rowland has gone to great lengths recently to ensure that no one is under any misconceptions: the return of Dexys is no nostalgia trip. Last night’s show in Edinburgh hammered home the point. There aren’t many bands that could return after 27 years (give or take a smattering of gigs in 2003), play for two hours straight, perform only four old songs - even if those were stretched out over 45 extraordinary minutes - and yet still satisfy every demand made of them.

In the summer of ’86, The Cult’s Ian Astbury invited The Mission on tour with them. Mission main man, Wayne Hussey, had recently fled the role of guitarist in The Sisters of Mercy to lead his own band. Goth fans had high hopes for them. Some thought they would eventually become bigger than the Cult. Over the next few years, though, both career paths defied expectations.

On the 35th anniversary of the year punk met the mainstream, it’s to be expected that retrospection and nostalgia are in the air. Television has had a go, albums are being reissued and old soldiers are telling their stories. By its very nature an anniversary suggests that things were cut and dried, that 1977 was a beginning or a marker in the sand.

Marc Bolan’s voice was as inseparable from his songs as the sheen and shimmer of one of his Biba satin jackets was inseparable from the jacket itself. That unique faux-posh phrasing, singing whimsical, surreal lyrics, became texturally essential to every T Rex song. Because his voice was such an integral aspect of his music, I had mixed feelings about last night’s tribute concert in aid of the PRS for Music Members Benevolent Fund. Would the diverse mix of artists try to mimic the Bolan warble, or take the wiser course of putting their own spin on his material?

Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros: Global A Go-Go, Streetcore

Lisa-Marie Ferla