25 Years of Later....with Jools Holland

25 Years. 50 programmes.

Just watched tonight's episode, and will check out the extended edition on Friday. By any standards, this is a remarkable sequence of music programmes by Jools Holland, and the BBC, presenting over the quarter of a century some of the best music around, often consolidating the known and great, very often introducing the new and exciting, and yes, occasionally, being a little tired, like the Hootenanny, but overall this is a triumph of sustained quality and a worthy celebration tonight.

What I particularly enjoyed on this edition was seeing Courtney Marie Andrews live, who is outstanding, as written in my review of her album Honest Life here. I also thought Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, and Thundercat, were the two other excellent acts, this pair presenting some old-school funk, in essence, but each with enough neo-twist to be genuinely interesting. Spoon, as ever, were as tight a band as ever.

For me, and it is actually neither here nor there because just opinion, but Goldfrapp simply regurgitate themself, and Kasabian simply regurgitate others. Yet as ever on Later, it was all good, or as I have already said, much better.

A British institutions we can and should applaud without reservation.