Our weekly pic of the best upcoming gigs...

The swanky post-regatta partying gathers pace this weekend with Henley Festival’s series of nightly shows. Less a festival than a series of reserved outdoor concerts, Henley is a curious event, maintaining an air of faux elegance by requiring ‘revellers’ to don formal evening wear, yet characterised by inebriated corporate guests who party with the abandon of those who don’t otherwise ‘get out much’.

Tonight’s show by Jamie Cullum should be a good one, though, while tomorrow sees Madness on stage, supported by the excellent Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells for Two. Saturday is a James Bond Gala concert with Joanna Lumley and featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Strictly Come Dancing’s Kristina Rhianoff and Robin Windsor and West End stars Hannah Waddingham and Alex Bourne. It is wrapped-up on Sunday by Stone Cold Sober-star Paloma Faith.

  • Singer-songwriter
  • ETHAN JOHNS
  • St Alban the Martyr Church, Oxford
  • Tomorrow (Fri)
  • Tickets £11 from wegottickets.com

If Ethan Johns’s name is familiar, it’s because he has probably produced some of your favourite artists. Tom Jones, Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Crowded House and Laura Marling have all benefited from the studio skills of this wizard sound engineer. Ethan is also a fine musician in his own right though, and has proved on new album If Not Now Then When. He plays a solo set of gorgeous folky rock at St Albans Church.

  • Festival
  • THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
  • Said Business School, Oxford
  • Saturday, 4.30-11pm
  • Tickets £10 in advance from wegottickets.com/£12 on the door

This six and-a-half-hour mini-festival in the amphitheatre at Oxford University’s Said Business School features Dreaming Spires, The Long Insiders, Co-Pilgrim, Olly Wills from folk-rock band The Epstein, The Shapes, The Family Machine, Fifteen Strings, singer-songwriter Jess Hall and Jaggy Edges.

There is a bar and food, and all profits go to Oxford Children’s Hospital.

  • Quirky folk
  • WE AERONAUTS
  • The Perch, Binsey
  • Saturday
  • Tickets £6 from wegottickets.com

The engaging Irregular Folk summer sessions continue in a Bedouin tent at The Perch with another triple bill of off-kilter folky-pop. Co-headlining are We Aeronauts, The May Birds, and Ballina Whalers. Organisers hope to charter a Salters Steamers vessel to take guests to the Perch and back from Folly bridge, for just £10. For more details, visit irregular folk.co.uk