The Roots
The Forum, London
Venerable live hip-hoppers The Roots have seen their commercial fortunes dwindling in recent years, despite the undoubted quality of albums Game Theory and Rising Down: Live, they're occasionally given to noodling indulgence, but the good bits are great.
• December 5 and 6, 0844 8472405.
Nouvelle Vague
The Regal, Oxford
Still dutifully churning out punk and new wave hits in a French easy-listening bossanova style: what started out as a jokey concept seems to have rather more substance that one might first have supposed, as illustrated by this lengthy UK tour.
• December 7, 01865 241261.
The Prodigy
Carling Academy, Birmingham
Relatively small venues for the Prodigy's December tour, as they test out material from their long-awaited forthcoming album: they return in 2009 to tour the supersheds in the company of Dizzee Rascal.
• December 9, 0844 847 1697.
Irwin Schmidt and Kumo
Jazz Café, London
Proof that it's not all reunion tours and 80s nostalgia nights around this time of year: a founder member of the legendary Krautrock experimentalists Can fetches up for a solitary London date with his latest, apparently "danceable", project.
• December 9, 08700 603777.
From The Jam
Carling Academy, Sheffield
Christmas brings the tribute acts out - there's a certain indulgence of guilty pleasures among gig-goers at this time of year - and, despite the muttered imprecations of Paul Weller, From The Jam (Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler plus Modfather tribute vocalist) have been acclaimed: unabashed nostalgia for fortysomethings.
• December 8, 0844 477 2000.
Gogol Bordello
Carling Academy, Glasgow
A lesser man who got himself mixed up in Madonna's terrible directorial debut Filth and Wisdom would be keeping a low profile, but clearly Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz is made of stern stuff, as shown in his band's reliably unhinged live shows.
• December 19, 0844 477 2000.
The Pogues
Brixton Academy, London
Shane McGowan and co return once more, like a timely reminder of the dangers of overindulgence in this most dissolute of seasons. Still, it's hard to argue with the old classics they roll out on their annual Christmas tour.
• December 18 and 19, 0844 477 2000
