Belinda carlisle symphony hall, birmingham

Belinda Carlisle came of age in the vibrant Los Angeles punk scene of the late 70s. She briefly drummed for The Germs; bassist Lorna Doom was a high school friend who was into artists like Roxy Music,

Belinda Carlisle’s 1987 single Heaven Is A Place On Earth is so thoroughly woven into the fabric of modern life, it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. Ubiquitous and comfortingly familiar,

Wendy Rigg is planning a summer of festival fun – but what is it about nostalgic music that makes us feel so good?

AN AUDIENCE WITH...

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Kat Sadler , Louise Brealey and Lizzie Davidson return for more darkly comic dealings of two dysfunctional daughters and their debauched mum…