The Guide #230: From Oasis to Bowie, your stories of seeing pre-stardom acts

From the Beatles slogging through mammoth sets for jeering sailors in Hamburg basement bars, to Ed Sheeran playing just about every open mic night in the south of England, even the biggest acts had to start small. So when we asked Guide readers to share their memories of seeing now-massive bands and artists before they were famous, it was inevitable we’d get some great tales. So much so, in fact, that we’ve decided to devote the main chunk of this week’s Guide to your pre-fame gig recollections. We’ve also asked Guardian music writers – seasoned veterans of seeking out the next big thing – to share a few of their memories. Read on for tales of Kurt Cobain in Yorkshire, Playboi Carti’s set in an east London snooker club and an ill-advised David Bowie mime performance …PulpIn 1991, I was a young music writer starting out when I came across a pre-fame Pulp (pictured above) at a short-lived event called Piece Hall Live in Halifax

The Southbank Centre is striking, polarising and now protected | Letters

Fiona Twycross, the heritage minister, is to be congratulated for finally giving London’s Southbank Centre Grade II listing (Campaigners welcome ‘long overdue’ listing of brutalist Southbank Centre, 10 February).I remember being shocked when I first saw it in the 1960s, but it has become a remarkable symbol of the zeitgeist.Its grey concrete and its childlike composition together express the fatalism and despair of a nation in economic and political decline.Such a prominent display of ugliness on the banks of the Thames needs protection, for more optimistic future generations will surely wish to see it demolished.Francis BownLondon The news about the Southbank Centre reminded me of a mystery coach trip I joined in 1972 as a first-year university student

Jimmy Kimmel on Maga: ‘It’s such a delicate balance between stupid and evil’

Jimmy Kimmel talked about Pam Bondi and this week’s judiciary hearings as well as the latest climate-destroying victory for the Trump administration.The late-night host said that Donald Trump “might be feeling a bit lonely this Valentine’s Day” as his recent fundraising email leads with the question: “Do you still love me?”Kimmel said that then, “like a lot of dirtbag boyfriends, it asks you for money”.He said that for Valentine’s Day, Donald and Melania Trump will be enjoying dinner – “separately of course” – before speculating that over at JD Vance’s household, the vice-president won’t be getting his wife a gift as “he likes it when she makes him go sleep on the couch”. Kimmel joked: “That’s his sexy time.”This week Vance has been “weakly defending his boss” with yet more anger over “what are now known as the Trump-Epstein files” given how many times the president is mentioned in them

Jimmy Kimmel on the US justice department’s handling of the Epstein files: ‘A brazen cover-up’

Late-night hosts recapped US attorney general Pam Bondi’s contentious congressional hearing as she faced tough questions over the justice department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.Jimmy Kimmel opened Wednesday’s monologue with a begrudging acknowledgement that Donald Trump won the one and only “Undisputed Champion of Coal Award” from an organization called “the Washington Coal Club”. The prize “brings his real award total to zero”, he joked.“All he wants is awards and for everything to be named after him,” he continued. “The Kennedy Center, Dulles airport, Penn Station – I mean, if that’s the way to keep him happy, I have another suggestion for something we could name after him

Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus: the story of one of Australia’s favourite political memes

OK, Josh, so there’s a leadership challenge incoming, but everyone is talking about this “Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus” meme, so where did it come from?It’s one of the great memes of Australian political history, Krishani. Let’s go back to May 2019, when Taylor was the minister for energy in the Morrison government. Just weeks before then PM Scott Morrison would win “the unwinnable election” against Bill Shorten, Taylor was in the midst of local politicking, posting on Facebook about transport projects in his electorate of Hume

Comedians pick on me for my loud laugh – but nothing will make me stop | Jane Howard

I thought Daniel Kitson was just about ready to kick me out of the comedy room. He had already picked on me several times for laughing too loud, too readily (“that wasn’t even a joke”, he chastised me at one point). I was trying hard to suppress my laughter – to hold it in, to hold it back, to not fully express the joy I was feeling. I was being somewhat successful. And then I wasn’t