What we generally take cult to mean is that the thing in question isn’t of much interest to the world in general, but thanks to a devoted bunch of obsessives, those who don’t know accept that it must be kind of cool.

Big Star are certainly that, and even if you haven’t heard them directly, you might have come across a cover by artists as varied as The Bangles and Elliott Smith or their song In The Street, used as the theme tune to That ‘70s Show (another cover by fellow 70s rockers Cheap Trick).

Even if you’ve missed all of that you’ll know about some of their supporters. Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie recently said “everybody in Primal Scream is a big fan of Big Star”, Wilco and Idlewild featured on a 2006 tribute album, and Teenage Fanclub practically are Big Star, but Scottish.

The reason for their cult status? Well, they made three critically acclaimed albums in the 1970s that nobody bought, original band member Chris Bell was tragically killed in a car accident in 1978, and, as we’ve seen, they’ve influenced more bands than class A drugs.

On top of that there’s the music, and the band’s back catalogue of sun-drenched, nostalgic pop songs is the real reason for tonight’s sell out crowd. The downside of the cult tag and its implied cool is that it attracts the kind of slack-jawed scenesters more at home in Shoreditch, but as Poison might say, every rose has its thorn.

Opening up is fellow resident of the cult files, Robyn Hitchcock, who takes a break from his very British psych pop to announce that this is an evening of the direction music could have gone in, but didn’t. He also claims that he is Carmen the great and his diet is blood roses, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Big Star start their set with the aforementioned In the Street, as lead singer and writer Alex Chilton (who looks remarkably like Dr Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap) grins his way through the harmonies and hooks.

Chilton is one of only two original members including drummer Jody Stephens, but with sterling work from relative new boys Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, Big Star are so slick you’d never guess they took a break for nearly 30 years.

At every chance fans call out for their favourite track, and all the hits including Thirteen and September Gurls get an airing, along with I Am The Cosmos from Chris Bell’s solo career. There’s even a bizarre Edward Elgar recital in honour of Chilton’s love of British music.

A closing selection of tracks from the 2005 comeback album is a little muted, but it hardly matters. It has been an evening with heroes for everyone here, and as Big Star return for an encore of The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It be Nice, they’ve proved they deserve to transcend their cult status and take a place alongside the band they’re covering in the rock and roll hall of fame.

So, there we were, bottle in hand at 10.00 pm still waiting for the headline act to perform on a rostrum no larger than a paddling pool; tired and our feet aching from perching up on tippy toe for the last hour and a half.

This was a strange and very tall crowd: teenage boys modelling themselves on Tony from Skins, young girls trying to ape lead singer Kate Jackson by wearing ballet shoes and stripy tops, miserable loners fake-frowning for England and the odd drunk standing at the front when, frankly, they could have seen the stage from the bus stop outside.

However, as the band picked up their instruments and Kate made her entrance, all our glumness fizzled away; our senses awakened as The Blondes' launched into their forthcoming single Century. This was a stonking opening – a rhythmic, sexy tune perfectly in keeping with Kate's delicious vocals and ideal fodder to get the twitchy crowd on side.

This was a new breed of ‘Blondes. Out were the summer holiday guitar tappy-tracks, now replaced by disco-led themes; stuffed full of 60's/70's/80's influences, from Abba to Donna Summer, Blondie to Depeche Mode, Gert Wilden to Joy Division – like it or lump it, the keyboard had landed.

All in all, the crowd relished this fresh material. By the band's own admission, only playing what Homer Simpson would describe as 'new crap' at a gig can throw the audience somewhat. They did toss in a couple of oldies though, which in all honesty the serious moshers did seem to prefer.

Nevertheless the classiest songs on offer were all-new. Guilt was a stand-out builder, slow and moody, while Here Comes The Serious Bit unleashed the beast. Yet even at full pelt The Long Blondes are not threatening; they just seem too lovely a bunch to fear.

Kate’s rambunctious singing style is oft-discussed in the music press. Being described as everything from powerful to unconventional, it was enlightening to hear her live. Expecting to be blasted into the toilets as she shrieked the place down, it transpires Kate is not the T-Rex of lead singers after all. She occasionally peaks with her Karen O/Debbie Harry-esque barrage, but rarely out of tune and never outgunning the microphone. Her voice is not even unconventional; it is a heavy and thrusting vocal, very nearly perfect.

It was a pity the band's set clocked in at just forty-five minutes, but maybe it is best to leave us wanting more? Maybe. The Skins kids did seem a touch flat as they headed back to the bar. Most of them looked to be up past their bedtime though, so were probably just missing mum and a hot-water bottle.

Quick mention to hilarious support act Kid Acne. A lively cross between House of Pain and Goldie Lookin' Chain, he rocked out with some cheerfully juvenile tracks and spat hardy with Blondes’ drummer ‘Screech Louder’ as he leapt onto the stage for a duet. Great fun.

Definitely check out The Long Blondes when they come your way. Expect something a bit more retro-poppy and a bit less hardcore indie and you won't cry like a big baby when all the samples start.

Of course, you can’t really do that to your brother (just think of the trouble you’d be in with mum), but the Reid boys managed something similar when they killed The Jesus and Mary Chain live on stage in 1998 with a raging argument.

Unfortunately, there’s no footage of that event on YouTube, but you can find a video of the 1985 riot that the band were blamed for. It’s legends like this, coupled with the bickering of the brothers Reid, that built the bands reputation as mad, bad and dangerous to know, and it continues to linger today.

In fact, it’s the reason that, when the first gig of a two day stint at London’s Roundhouse is cancelled, fan forums go into overdrive with speculation that William and Jim aren’t as chummy as they would have you believe following their recent reunion.  

The other theory is that ticket sales were poor, but they have at least consented to play their second engagement, so the venue is packed as they appear.

Jim’s the first out, and his new (sensible) haircut suggests a more mature frontman. In contrast, William appears at the side of the stage with exactly the same barnet as ever. Although the added weight he’s carrying makes it look like the JAMC have got Tim Burton on guitar, you’ve got to admire a man so committed to one do.  

They quickly strike up Never Understand and the effect is immediate, yanking the front row back into 1985 by the lapels of their leather jackets. Jim’s vocals sound achingly cool as ever above the Velvet Underground drumming and Williams’ scratchy feedback, and as they run through singles including Some Candy Talking and Far Gone And Out, they settle down and even chat. Of course, this increases the potential for arguments, and Jim has to reassure his brother that a remark "wasn’t about you. I’ll tell you later."

Close, but they manage not to fight, and treat the crowd to more hits plus rarities like their cover of Syd Barrett’s Vegetable Man ("if Syd Barret wasn’t dead, this’d kill him") before finishing with the once-banned Reverence.

They sound so good that nostalgia is unavoidable, and with the current crop of JAMC wannabes like The Raveonettes, Magnetic Fields and The Kills, it would be easy to enjoy this as just a hearty blast from the past.  

However, the presence of new tracks like All Things Must Pass and the promised new album suggest that the JAMC will become a credible and current presence in the music world once again. Let’s just hope they can stomach being back in that cupboard a little while longer.

[story by Tom Atkinson] 

A National Enquirer report claims that Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January and that it has now spread to other organs. Despite regular chemotherapy sessions, doctors aren't apparently confident of treating the cancer successfully.

According the National Enquirer:

Patrick and his wife Lisa Niemi — who both have pilot's licenses — have been flying their private Beechcraft plane into Palo Alto's airport, minutes away from the Stanford Cancer Center, where the actor has received outpatient treatment. He received three doses of chemotherapy and the tumor shrank, but less than his doctors had hoped for — and Patrick was told he should prepare for the end. "He was told he could have two more treatments, but his cancer was not responding. In short – they held out little hope for a cure," said an insider.

If this report is true – and it seems a little too specific for it not to be, then Patrick Swayze is now on a liquid-only diet because he can no longer keep solid food down. Horrible news.

Read more:

Patrick Swayze diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; has five weeks to live – Showbiz Spy 

It doesn't matter that Britney Spears is now being looked after by her family and seems to be making inroads into overcoming whatever problems she's suffered from, because it's fairly obvious that Britney Spears would receive far better treatment from a supermodel she's probably never met and her balladeering husband.

Which is why Heidi Klum has invited Britney Spears to come and live with her, either until Britney's completely better or until Heidi's children get so freaked out by Britney constantly rubbing herself and muttering in confusing British accents that they promise not to keep taking mummy for granted so much.

It's a well-known fact that Heidi Klum doesn't have blood running through her veins, but pure white healing light. There is literally nothing that Heidi Klum won't do for her fellow man. If you ask Heidi Klum for money, she'll definitely give it to you and maybe more, if the way she took pity on poor old scar-faced Seal off the Space Jam soundtrack and let him do it with her until she got pregnant is anything to go by. 

There's no doubt at the moment that the person most in need of a dose of Heidi Klum's philanthropic goodness is Britney Spears. She's been through so much, and nothing has really succeeded in helping her. Britney Spears got her kids taken away and that didn't make her better, Britney Spears ended up living in a padded cell and that didn't make her better – not even the time-honoured practise of mashing anti-psychotic drugs into her food could make Britney Spears better. 

Now it looks as if the short-leash conservatorship approach taken by her father is slowly helping Britney Spears to understand the magnitude of her problems, but in the eyes of some that's still not enough. Britney Spears, they say, will stay damaged until she goes to live with Heidi Klum for a while.

And by 'the eyes of some' we mean 'the eyes of Heidi Klum' as the Associated Press reports:

Heidi Klum wants to help Britney Spears. The 34-year-old model says she'd be willing to open her home to Spears while the troubled pop singer puts her life back together. "She can call me and come live in our house with us for a couple of months," said Klum, a mother of three who is married to the singer Seal and lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. "I would help set her straight. I am sorry when a young person gets thrown so off track," Klum said, according to a transcript of an interview that will be aired Monday night by the German broadcaster ARD. "She has, of course, lived an extremely wild life."

This stunning level of altruism has inspired everyone at hecklerspray to follow Heidi Klum's lead and help other people, too – next time we hear of a young person in crisis, we're going to do as Heidi did and open our doors to them. Also like Heidi did, we won't offer the troubled youngster help directly, but we'll mention it in passing in a language that they don't even speak on a TV show broadcast in a country that they wouldn't even be able to find on a map. 

Heidi Klum's our hero. Really, she's like the Pope or Bono or something.

Read more:

Klum Says She Wants to Help Spears – Associated Press 

Not the fact that her real name is Chan Marshall (pronounced ‘Shaun’), nor that she has recently become the face of Chanel, handpicked by Karl Lagerfeld himself.

No, we refer to the Winehouse – sized back catalogue of problems that recently looked set to cut short her career.

Marshall had been getting herself a reputation for stage fright, cutting gigs short, refusing to face the audience, and re-starting songs repeatedly.  

Then, in 2006 she had her third spell in hospital, suffering from depression, stress and alcohol problems (her rider did include a case of beer and a bottle of scotch), and the showbiz vultures began to circle.

However, this is certainly no Britney, and following a full recovery, she is touring to promote her eighth album, planning a ninth later this year, and generally being celebrated by all and sundry.

As well as the Chanel appointment, Marshall has played some career-defining gigs, kicking the nerves to the kerb and seemingly enjoying herself. She’s even playing Jude Law’s girlfriend in forthcoming movie My Blueberry Nights, but hey, everyone’s got a cross to bear.

The nanny-chaser isn’t here tonight, but interest remains high. Bobby Gillespie is lounging in the VIP area with Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, and downstairs, a capacity crowd are anxiously awaiting their heroine.

We get her band, the Dirty Delta Blues, first, and after they strike up a mood of sultry excellence, Cat Power emerges stage left, cigarette in hand. It seems we have the Marshall of old when she turns to her organist (who also finishes the ciggy) for opener Don’t Explain, but as she settles in, not even the smoking ban brigade is worried.

Her thick, dark voice pours over the audience in a set mainly taken from current covers album Jukebox, giving particularly incredible performances of Sinatra’s New York, New York and She’s Got You by Patsy Cline. There’s still plenty of room for surprises though, and we get plenty during a fine show, with a version of Tracks of My Tears that would floor even Smokey Robinson.

Of course, there’s still a little Cat Power eccentricity left to go round, and she treats us to her strange shuffle-jog of a dance (quite good) and her cockney accent (less so).

Still, while Dick Van Dyke can rest easy, it seems that Cat Power has truly turned a corner in all other areas of her game. She’s so at home here that she chats to the crowd, picks up the flowers thrown onstage and balls up the setlists before leaving, serving them up as curveballs to the back rows.

So it seems that soon, you won’t have any need for the case history. All you’ll need to know is that if you get the chance to see this lady sing, you really should grab it with both hands.

[story by Tom Atkinson] 

And the news that Miley Cyrus is replaced each night for one or two minutes so she can quickly get changed has sent shockwaves around the preteen entertainment world. Rightly so, because the Hannah Montana body double bombshell is easily the most outrageous thing to happen to teenage female stars of American kids' TV shows for years.

Apart from, you know, that one who took naked pictures of herself. And, um, the one who got pregnant. 

Between Vanessa Hudgens whipping her blouse off for the internet and Jamie Lynn Spears getting knocked up, Miley Cyrus stands out as the last remaining beacon of purity in a filthy ocean made of pubes and discarded condom wrappers and stuff. The star of Hannah Montana is so innocent that people just often write stories about how she isn't pregnant, just to celebrate her chastity.

But all is not as it seems in the Hannah Montana camp – after all, you can't be a child of Billy Ray Cyrus and not smell a little bit fishy – and now someone has finally nailed Miley Cyrus for being the cheating little upstart that she is.

Although Miley's live Hannah Montana concerts have been so wildly popular that the scrabble for the few remaining tour tickets has closely resembled the plot of festively violent Arnold Schwarzenegger masterpiece Jingle All The Way, it's turned out that the Hannah Montana onstage isn't always Miley Cyrus.

Fan-recorded phone footage of a Hannah Montana concert – that's been whipped from YouTube faster than you could ever imagine – shows Miley Cyrus running offstage mid-song and being covered by a black sheet while a lookalike bounds onstage and mimes the rest of the track. The shame! It's just like that time someone said that Kate Moss' eyelashes were longer than they really are, only about a girl and not some eyelashes.

And now Miley Cyrus' label has been forced to concede that, yes, occasionally a Hannah Montana body double is deployed during the show:

To help speed the transition from Hannah to Miley, there is a production element during the performance of "We Got the Party" incorporating a body double for Miley. After Hannah has completed the featured verse on the duet with the Jonas Brothers, a body double appears approximately 1 – 2 minutes prior to the end of the song in order to allow Miley to remove the Hannah wig and costume and transform into Miley for her solo set. Other than during this very brief transitional moment in the show, Miley performs live during the entirety of both the Hannah and Miley segments of the concert.

How will planet Earth's preteens ever be able to look Miley Cyrus in the eye again, knowing that she's capable of such obscene wickedness? There's only one way to solve this – force Miley Cyrus to give up all her breaks during her gruelling show and make her perform twice as hard night after night after night until her body can handle it no longer. We must not rest until this teenage girl is worked into a burnt-out husk of a human! A husk!

Read more:

Hannah Montana: Body double confirmed – LA Times

We found ourselves surrounded by thousands of women, baying for the blood of the objects of their desires. The gig began with support coming from an unnamed woman, whose talent with a saxophone and vocals proved far superior than the other supporting act; Sophie Ellis Bextor (yes, she is still trying to give this singing lark a go) who was living off past glories for duration of her set, the only song garnering any kind of crowd reaction was the 2000 summer hit Groovejet, a collaboration with that household name DJ Spiller.  

Take That, on the other hand had the crowd in raptures, opening with couple of new tracks from their Beautiful World then bringing on the old favourites much to the enjoyment of the plethora of fans in attendance.

After their introduction, Gary Barlow (the one who pretty much does everything in the band) asked the audience “isn’t it great to have Howard back?” after the glorified background member had injured himself earlier in the tour. Obviously Gary, Mark and Jason had found it difficult to get a dancer who knew their ten-year-old dance routines.

We were pleasantly surprised, though, by how much the all members did when the concert really kick-started; all band members took turns to sing lead, although Jason Orange strangely sang a solo effort with the rest of the band disappearing for the entirety of the strangling of the cat – obviously hearing this night after night has got to them.  

Overall, though, the band delivered exactly how we expected them to. Except for a section where Howard returned to his DJ days while the rest of the band (including Gary) danced their complex routines that seemed a bit out of place, their performance ticked all the boxes.

It was an all-dancing, all-singing 90s fest with all their previous hits, and a little bit of new material thrown in, we even found ourselves tapping our feet and – heaven forbid – enjoying ourselves a little during their well-known tracks.

If only Sophie Ellis Bextor could do something similar. To be fair, though, that would require her to have some kind of back catalogue – although that’s not stopping the release of her forthcoming Greatest Hits album, due in 2008.

[story by Alex O'Hagan]