Monday, January 18, 2010
Step Back In Time – part one of a few
When is a free gig not a free gig? When it’s a free gig that costs the better part of twenty quid in transport costs, perhaps. I’m always a tiny bit on edge when I need to find my way to a new venue I’ve never been to before, and the free gig bit meant nobody was rushing to go overboard on the publicity end.
Nevertheless I was in a back street pub in time to listen to The School (yep, them again) running through a couple of tunes in their soundcheck, and relax a little. I say relax, but with four bands for no ticket price, there was plenty to keep watching. The first band said they were losing half their line-up after this gig, and if they gave their name I didn’t catch it, but I’m not sure I’m missing much anyway.
Next up were Little My. Yep, terrible name for a band, but kinda suitable. Suitable in the sense there’s nothing little about a band with eight people in, suitable that it appears to be a symptom of a collective hallucination based on one bear-man’s vision of pop idiocy. Whatever, the quirky novelty pop of Little My will definitely leave an impression on you if you happen to see them. And you really should make the effort to see them given the chance, comedy headgear and costumery notwithstanding.
The third band was The Welcome Committee, a drums and acoustic guitar/vocals combo which suffered from technical difficulties throughout but seemed to have the right idea. Maybe the front guy could get away without the drummer, maybe there are more players in the band that were absent that night, I’ve no idea, but there was more than a hint of Jim Bob (a good thing) about the guitarist-vocalist. Thumbs up here too.
Having considered whether I would leave this gig early for another one across town which I might have made had The School been on earlier, I’m happy to have stayed throughout. No, it’s no secret that I love The School and have posted on here to that effect before. The set was more or less the same as the one a few weeks prior, but this was the expanded seven piece line-up with the extra ooh-ooh backing vocals and the slightly warmer instrumentation with the addition of the fiddle, keyboards, brass etc. Harri didn’t show much sign of his bear-suit antics in Little My having dehydrated him, and the inevitable late start meant the set got cut a little short, but I got a ton of pictures and this time some video too. For handheld above my head, it’s relatively steady and it sounds ok too. This is but one reason why you should love The School or get your pop tastebuds booked in for a service pronto:
The debut album by The School, Loveless Unbeliever, is out on Elefant records in a few weeks time. Yippee!
_
The third band was The Welcome Committee, a drums and acoustic guitar/vocals combo which suffered from technical difficulties throughout but seemed to have the right idea. Maybe the front guy could get away without the drummer, maybe there are more players in the band that were absent that night, I’ve no idea, but there was more than a hint of Jim Bob (a good thing) about the guitarist-vocalist. Thumbs up here too.
Having considered whether I would leave this gig early for another one across town which I might have made had The School been on earlier, I’m happy to have stayed throughout. No, it’s no secret that I love The School and have posted on here to that effect before. The set was more or less the same as the one a few weeks prior, but this was the expanded seven piece line-up with the extra ooh-ooh backing vocals and the slightly warmer instrumentation with the addition of the fiddle, keyboards, brass etc. Harri didn’t show much sign of his bear-suit antics in Little My having dehydrated him, and the inevitable late start meant the set got cut a little short, but I got a ton of pictures and this time some video too. For handheld above my head, it’s relatively steady and it sounds ok too. This is but one reason why you should love The School or get your pop tastebuds booked in for a service pronto:
The debut album by The School, Loveless Unbeliever, is out on Elefant records in a few weeks time. Yippee!Labels: gigs, Little My, The School, The Welcome Committee
