Free And Easy

Monday 9th January: It’s been a while since I’ve seen a gig at Stereo. The last time I was here (in fact, the last two times) I was pretty much the only person in the audience and, I have to say, I was a little worried tonight – with just minutes to go before the gig was due to start and there was only me, one of the acts, the soundman and one other person loitering about. Thankfully, the addition of a few chairs and tables, as well as quite a few more punters, made the venue look reasonably full by the time the first act took to the stage.

Tonight is a free-entry acoustic showcase, a mix of acts I have seen before, ones I’ve heard of and one that I haven’t come across at all. Elliot Matthew Partridge is the latter and, I’ll be honest, he didn’t do a great deal with me. It’s not that his six song set was particularly bad, just that none of the songs grabbed me. For me, there were germs of promise in Moon Pies And Penny Whistles, We Are The Sons and something previously by Don’t Let Paris Fool You – a band that Elliot used to be guitarist in until recently. Unfortunately, I found the stories between the songs just the wrong side of irrelevant to the performance. It was almost as though he just wanted to get things that had annoyed him off his chest in front of an audience and that, as well as a propensity for slightly crude in-jokes with friends in the audience, distracted too much from the music for my liking. Sorry, Elliot.

Next up was Alice Ostapjuk, who I have seen perform solo before but who, apparently, now plays mostly with a band. Alice rails against the seemingly small things in life, using music and humour as her weapons. Incredibly the room was near-silent as Alice started her set with Samuel’s Secret and Love Game, a song inspired by Motown and Diana Ross (who is obviously a favourite as, just like last time I saw her, the set included a very different cover of a Diana Ross song – Where Did Our Love Go?, I think…). Her sisters playing of R&B songs inspired the aptly titled R&B Song, the lyrics of which were brilliantly humorous, blaming the genre for a large number of life’s ills. Kiss Me Better was followed by Paper Planes And Shooting Stars, another song I had heard last time out and one that most people seemed to know well enough to join in the clapping section. Finally, we got the first solo outing for Rage Against The Tangerine, another song that takes aim at the downside of some people’s lives, in this case the “perfect” girls at school, without being too serious about it. This was another interesting and enjoyable support slot from the young songwriter.

Johnny Gill was, I believe, a late replacement for Marck (Marbled) Whiley, who had to pull out due to ear problems. I knew his name, but hadn’t seen him perform before. It was, perhaps, appropriate, given his slight stature, that he started with I Was Never A Giant, a nice song played in an intricate and slightly mesmerising finger-picking style. Thieves Amongst Honour was followed by the wonderful Wolves And Waves, during which Jonny effortlessly switched between quiet and near-shouting vocal styles. Made Of Glass was a cover (I don’t remember if we were told who did it originally) and, again, featured great vocals but for me the best song of the set was something that might have been called Worst Things Happen At Sea. With just enough time to squeeze in two songs, Jonny failed to introduce the first, but finished with Friday Night Lights. A nice mix of songs, and a great voice complemented by some excellent music. Definitely an act I will be looking out for again.

I still haven’t managed to catch Mantra live, but I have seen frontman Oli Stevens-Vallecillo and guitarist Catherine Redfern perform acoustically once before. Tonight they are joined by James Fletcher, whose shiny electric bass looked just a touch out of place and seemed to be to be too loud in the mix for the early part of the set. Mixing Country and Western covers from the likes of Neal McCoy and Alan Jackson (Midnight In Montgomery) with what I assume were acoustic versions of Mantra songs such as Counting My Reasons and Always Drive Alone, provided for a varied set which was further enhanced by the use of effects pedals, some incredibly tight playing by the two guitarists and, on one song, a bottle neck playing style. Oli’s voice is superb, a kind of rich Southern drawl without coming across as too laid back and the backing vocals from Catherine were lovely. I doubt that this is what they sound like as a full band and one day I’m going to have to find out.

Finally, with the time already past the advertised finish (and with a cold bike ride home ahead of me), Boss Caine, in his now seemingly usual solo guise, took to the stage. Dan/G.T./Boss is probably my favourite acoustic act in York. Most of his songs are now so familiar that I can pretty much mime (you don’t want to hear me sing) along to the them, much as whoever was standing behind me could (only louder and more in tune) and it was nice to see people hanging around to see his set. Too many times when I have seen him opening for another act or performing in a crowded pub and, in both cases, having to try to punch through the ambient noise. Tonight’s crowd was certainly more appreciative and while Dan made light of his apparent miserablist reputation, it was also a pleasure to see him having a laugh on stage during his set. Opening with the brilliant and sombre Ghosts And Drunks he then treated us to the more uplifting duo of  A Kind Of Loving and Dead Man’s Suit and then a new song which, if he did tell us it, I missed the title of. It was back to the slightly downbeat with Be My Grievous Angel, a tribute to Graham Parsons, and Sweet Sorrow Surrender before taking an audience request for Murder On My Mind for his final song.

Overall this was a great night of acoustic music. Maybe such a showcase should be a regular or semi-regular Stereo event, with rotating, varied acts. I’d certainly be up for more nights like it.

Halloe, Is There Anybody Out There?

Monday 28th March: The last time I went to a start-of-the-week gig at Stereo, I was the only the only member of the audience not connected to any of the bands performing that night. It couldn’t happen again, could it?

“Well, this is a bit depressing.” More or less the opening words from Joe Baker (I think), guitarist and vocalist (in that order) of Halloe Away. Of course, it could have been Alex Partington, but as he is listed as “vocals and guitar”, I’m assuming the order is important and tending towards the former. The reason for the depression was that the audience for their set comprised of about eight people, including four members of the second act on the bill. Quite where the rest of the Halloe Away, as listed on the link, were tonight is anybody’s guess, but we got Alex and Joe, singing and playing guitars in a kind of folky, rocky, acoustic way and sounding, for one song anyway (I think it was called Just To Let You Know) a little like Ralph McTell. As usual, I didn’t catch all the titles but the set included a covers of songs by Cee-Lo Green and, I think, Girls Aloud(!). Of their own compositions, I quite liked the dual guitars of the third song of the set, as well as the softer, quieter Halloe Away. Yes, they have a self-titled song, and why not? Best of all was the final song of the set, which I have noted may have been called If A Sin. Overall, however, I got the impression that the boys weren’t really giving it their best shot, due to the small crowd and I can’t help but wonder what they would be like to see as a full band, complete with violin, cello and double-bass. At very least it would have been something a bit more original.

To give them their due, Joe and Alex, along with the young lady who had been watching them (one of the missing members, maybe?) did stick around to see InSpades.Inc. I had only seen them a few weeks ago, at Fibbers, and I have to say they sounded a lot better tonight. Frontman Stewart didn’t announce the first song and I don’t yet know their output well enough to recognise it with any certainty. Twenty Minutes From Now, however, is one of my favourites and it seems to sound more epic every time I hear it – tonight it sounded superb. Cannibals, written and sung by Adam Brady, tonight performing with the band for the last time, was much better served than last time out, benefitting both from better sound and a less nervous performance. Lost Track Of Time has a huge sound, again helped by the venue. The band performed all the tracks from their debut EP, joking that they didn’t have any copies with them tonight, so we couldn’t buy it. This is the second time I’ve seen the band at Stereo – the first was only their second ever gig – and they sounded so much better tonight. Once again it was a shame that a band on top form should have such a small audience watching the and, perhaps, even more of a shame that they were losing a member so early in their career. Thankfully, they ignored the lack of audience and gave a full-on performance tonight. Hopefully the band can also bounce back from Adam’s departure. Last I heard, they were advertising for a replacement guitarist and a keyboard player to complete the line-up.

Two of the reasons that the last gig I went to with such a small audience wasn’t a complete failure was that all the acts stuck around to watch each other and they all gave the same performances that they would have done for a bigger crowd. So far tonight, we’ve had one full-on performance and one that seemed a bit down-key, but the two support acts have had the good grace to watch each other. Which kind of begs the question of where were the headliners?

Well, Arthur Rigby And The Baskervylles finally put in an appearance, along with a handful of extra audience members who may (or may not) have been connected to the band, when it was their turn to take to the stage. Normally an eight-piece band, tonight they were missing the pianist and nobody seemed to know why. Still, it was quite a crowded stage and the band included quite an impressive brass and woodwind section, including James Hamilton on trumpet – yes, the same James Hamilton who plays with Hope&Social. The set started in a somehow chaotic fashion, with the brass instruments all seeming to play on top of each other and the first thing I noticed was that Benjamin’s vocals sounded more like those of Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon than whoever it was I said that about last time (Dorien Starre, I think…) The first song was, again, unannounced, but was followed by Far Far Away and then White Houses (the band’s current single) which contained a nice violin part (and you won’t hear me say that too often) from Hannah. The fourth song showcased Katie’s flute while the fifth – Ode To God (?) – contained some great lyrics and had an old-fashioned, somehow typically Yorkshire feel, thanks to the brass, which I have to say I found a bit overpowering during Here In My Arms. The more catchy Spies is the B-side of the first single and again allowed Katie to shine, this time with her saxophone. The set ended with a nicely extended Holding Hands, with another nice violin solo (blimey, I’ve said it again..) and One Stormy Night. As the set ended, Stereo’s Andy asked me what I thought and we agreed that we kind of liked the band but couldn’t really say why. They were certainly different and, like InSpades.Inc, gave a full performance, but they seemed a little reserved if not aloof and, in my opinion, didn’t really connect with the audience. The fact that they didn’t watch the other bands was, I think, a bit strange (and I can’t blame Halloe Away and most of InSpades.Inc for not sticking around to watch them). Having said that, the three bands were quite a bit different so it might just be that the others weren’t quite their “thing”. Even so…

In my opinion, only one band made the most of the circumstances tonight, which is a bit of a shame.

A Gig, In Miniature

Tuesday 1st March: I’m at Stereo tonight, to see a band from Scotland playing York for the first time and it might be the fact that it is their debut that leads to the elephant in the room. Not, of course, that there was an actual elephant and, as I’m going to talk about it, it’s not really a normal use of the phrase. However, it does provide me with the opportunity to say, “if there was an elephant in the room, it would have had plenty of space to move about…” You see, apart from me, the only other people in the audience were either the two support acts or people associated with one of the support acts. Admittedly, it was a cold Tuesday night and, as we are constantly being told, money is tight these days but I understand that, across town, Fibbers was sold out, so there were people going out to enjoy live music despite the weather (and the current government…) I admit I was only there due to a unique set of circumstances and I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for all the acts, especially the headliners who probably hadn’t expected their English tour to end with such a poor turnout.

First to take the stage (and, being a solo artist, having the biggest audience) was Sophie McDonnell, who doesn’t seem to have her own page to provide a link to, but she does play and sing in Hot Fudge, a ska, reggae, funk band. Tonight, however, Sophie provided a variation on the man-and-guitar act by, well being a girl with a guitar. Two Hot Fudge songs, Feeling Torn and Lay Down, Play Dead, featured in the set, complete with vocal renditions of the trumpet solos, as did a covers of VV Brown’s Shark In The Water and Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good (if memory serves). I assume the other three, Iron Man, All These Things I’ve Done and one that I missed the title off, were originals. The variety in the songs was nice and Sophie has a good voice and a winning smile and she plays with confidence and more than a touch of humour, which made for an entertaining opening set.

Tonight is the third time I’ve seen The Blueprints in a relatively short time but tonight, perhaps because they were essentially playing to the other bands and their friends, they decided to have a bit of fun and play around with the set-list a bit, which freshened it up a bit. Starting with their “normal” three songs – one I still haven’t caught the title of, Three Minutes and Staring At The Sun – there followed a short interval, during which Stuart changed his guitar and the band launched into Layla (a song Stuart, apparently, hates). Back to the serious stuff and we got the superb City Skylines, a cover of Ryan Adams’ Two (which may just have inspired me to try some of his material), Spectrum Vs Commodore, No Melancholy and a song I don’t think I’ve heard before which may have been called Walk Away. As usual, The Blueprints gave a very entertaining performance of some striking songs. In fact, each time I see them I find myself liking them more.

Thankfully, both support acts hung around to see Miniature Dinosaurs, a young band from Stirling who were touring to promote their second EP, Off The Radio. After the first song, vocalist Barry Maclean thanked everybody for staying around and said that a wise man had once told him that whether there was one person or a thousand in the audience you put on the same show. And what a show. Occasionally breaking the set up by asking the audience whether they knew answers to a pop quiz, Barry showed an easy camaraderie (and sound-man Andy a nice humourous touch with the lighting when he briefly sent the band to hell…) The music is indie-pop with a touch of 80’s electro-pop both from the keyboards of Craig Ferrie and Barry’s vocals and the performance deserved a much bigger audience than it got tonight. We were treated to songs from both EP’s, including Off The Radio, (I Want To Watch) Top Gear, Alligator (a personal favourite of mine), Cold Shoulder, Light Speed, Fight Or Flight and two others and all were played brilliantly. As a rule, I don’t dance but my feet were certainly tapping tonight.

After the set, I had a chat with Alban Dickson, the Dinosaurs’ bass-player. We covered a variety of topics including football, the Stirling music scene, the band itself and my lack of passion for the EP format. Alban was very pragmatic about the small turnout, telling me that it was something that, being a new band, they had to accept and that the next time they play York, they would hope to play to five more people and ten more the time after, building a following. I can only say that, if they do come back, I will definitely make every effort to see them. Highly recommended.

Sonic Engineering

Tuesday 23rd November: On of the joys of going to gigs either on-spec or on somebody else's recommendation is that you occasionally come across a band that you wouldn't hesitate to see again. Hence tonight's solo outing to Stereo.

It's not often that I've seen a band from outside the UK play in York, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that Freaky Age, tonight's first support, were from Belgium. They play in the time-honoured choppy guitar style and their first song reminded me a bit of One Night Only. The start of their set was a bit disappointing. Despite having their own sound engineer the mix seemed all wrong. The vocals were drowned out by the guitars and the guitars themselves were almost indistinguishable behind the too loud drums. It wasn't until the third songs in, Never See The Sun, that I managed to catch a title, let alone any of the lyrics. The introduction to the next song was just guitar and vocals and, without the battle of the sounds, I started to make out that the vocalist did have a good voice. Throughout the first half of their set, some interesting guitar noises threatened to surface above the rapidly becoming tiresome drums and backing vocals were non-existent - you could see mouths moving, but could hear nothing. It was a bit of a relief when, starting with the sixth song, the drums faded a bit into the background, the guitars were allowed to come to the fore and I started to hear lyrics with some clarity. Where Do We Go Now spent four weeks as a Belgian number one in 2008 and was slightly more "pop" than the rest of the set. This was followed by a cover of Pinball Wizard and a final song which I didn't get the title of but was the best of the set. The band are all young - nineteen or so, but have already released two albums and toured across mainland Europe. There was a lot of enthusiasm and energy on stage. It's unfair to write them off on the basis of poor sound and the second half of an unusually long set for a support act was hugely enjoyable.

Second to take to the stage were York's own The Blueprints, who are billed as "alternative/indie/new wave", which either means all the same thing or that they don't quite have a distinct style. Their first song was light and airy while the second started off much darker and added keyboards to the mix before lightening up again for the main section. Staring At The Sun was, for me, just a tad too repetitive, Skylines was a much slower, less bouncy, more melodic song while the next was true rock and roll. Spectrum Versus Commodore must be the only rock song written for the 1980s geek generation while So Melancholy was anything but. Their final song was, again, the best - heavier and louder than the rest. There wasn't quite as much energy on stage, but there did seem to be what can only be described as in inherent "cheekiness" in the performance, helped by a small amount of barracking (and, in the end a minor stage invasion) from members of fellow York band The Buccaneers. Like many local bands, The Blueprints aren't exactly my type of thing, but are well worth seeing perform live.

Engineers aren't exactly a York band but I believe that Mark Peters does live here. They have had a major line-up change since I saw them at Fibbers last year. Mark has moved from bass to guitar and vocals (and is also the main songwriter), Daniel Land now plays bass and Matthew Linley plays the drums. Keyboards are provided by Ulrich Schnauss who is now a full time member after previously playing live with the band. Original member Simon Phipps, on vocals, guitar and bass, completes the current lineup. Despite the membership changes, their sound has stayed more or less the same. Engineers weave the individual instrument sounds together, crafting music that hangs in the air, music that you can almost touch, that envelops you and is almost hypnotic. So hypnotic, in fact, that I couldn't actually say how far into the set we were before a song was played that could actually have been said to liven things up. Most of their songs simply sit there, refusing to be moved, resonating in a bass-line that vibrates the floor. Despite touring to promote the third studio album, In Praise Of More, tonight's set comprised of songs from all three albums. One song, simply announced as "from our first album" opened almost discordantly and was a little jarring before it settled down, but this was the only blip in an otherwise superb set. Whether you describe their style as shoe-gazing, ambient or prog (they were recently covered in Classic Rock Presents Prog) there is no doubting that Engineers are excellent.

Stringing Us Along

Wednesday 27th October: An unexpected email from Andy leads to an unplanned night out at Stereo.

Andy himself had yet to arrive when the first band, Patchwork Grace, took to the stage. It must be something about bands from Nottingham as, like Baby Godzilla a few weeks back, they did nothing for me on the basis of this performance. The MySpace page linked above states their genre as "rock" and there are citations from Kerrang, but tonight's set was acoustic and comprised of vocalist Tori Tea dressed like a gangster's moll and sitting between guitarist Christoph Marrizon and bassist Scott O'Conner (drummer Dan Rolfe was absent from the full line-up). The seated performance and simple guitar work provided for a less than dynamic set and, while Tea's voice sounded as though it could have been strong, on this occasion it came across as just a little monotonous. None of their own songs stuck out for me and the best part of their set was a cover of Love Cats (The Cure). It's perhaps unfair to judge them on an acoustic performance (the only one on their list of upcoming gigs) and maybe we'll see them back in York as a full band sometime.

Andy Finally arrived as the second band were starting their set. I got the impression that Boys Off The Bench were a relatively new band and nothing in my research for this post suggests otherwise. Their MySpace profile has only existed since July this year and only lists brothers Luke and Adam Henderson (vocals and drums respectively) as members, although there is mention of them being joined by bassist/guitarist Kenny. Tonight, however, there were five members on stage - Kenny, not being able to play both guitar and bass at the same time had been joined by a second string-man and there was also an electric piano, which proved to be the lead instrument in most of the songs while the guy tinkling its ivories also provided backing vocals, leading to some nice harmonies particularly during Bugle Boy. Overall, Luke's vocals seemed a little tentative and hesitant and it didn't help that the drums were mixed too high during You Make Me Smile which made the lyrics difficult to hear. Ravens, however, was a fantastic song - lyrically almost post-modern folk and ending with some incredibly dark drumming which superbly complemented the imagery of the song. Following this with a bright and breezy pop song and a vocals-and-keyboards-only number meant a varied and interesting set, while the final song, When Nothing Else Matters, was a thoughtful, intelligently written number and the best song of a very good set.

Leeds based Eureka Machines are another band with differences between tonight's line-up and full membership. Tonight we just had Chris and Dave, both doing vocals and guitar (one might have been a bass, I wasn't watching closely enough...) Apparently, they wish they had proper "rock-star" names. Well, Chris, without too much effort you could change yours to Chas... Anyway, billed as Rock/Punk/Pop with more citations from Kerrang and a track on a past Classic Rock cover CD, tonight was another acoustic set with a nice line in banter and songs which, perhaps unintentionally, managed to raise a smile. As did Dave's somewhat unnerving doorman stance, including piercing stare, when he had little to do and his dragging a chair on stage and sitting looking bored when Chris decided to do a song on his own. Despite some degree of audience apathy, the boys played a mixture of their own songs, including the excellent Story Of My Life (which was the Classic Rock CD track) and covers. "Who wants to hear the best song ever written?" asked Chris to no reply. "Nobody," he sighed before asking again and getting one "Yeah" from a woman in the audience. So, the duo left the stage to sit on the woman's table and serenade her with Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell). Apparently, the second best song ever written is A-ha's Take On Me, which was also played tonight. Overall, a very enjoyable set which, in this format, would be highly recommended to fans of Hope & Social, of which there was more than a resonance of in the performance.

StringerBessant is comprised of Gary Stringer and Jack Bessant, both formerly of nineties Brit-rock band Reef. I don't remember the band and so went to tonight's gig with no preconceptions. However, it's hard to imagine two people less likely to have been in a successful British band of the nineties, with Gary looking like a surfer dude and Jack perhaps having wandered in from a remake of Grizzly Adams, in which he was playing the lead. Nor would the music have given you any clues. Jack played acoustic guitar and harmonica and occasionally sang while Gary sang, occasionally played guitar and provided a rhythm section by playing tambourine (or his knees). As with The Union, a few gigs back, I got the feeling that I had crashed a private party. Most of the audience seemed to know the songs, which were from the recently released album The Yard, with Wild Day and Give Me The Keys - two completely different songs, the former slow, the latter bouncy - getting particularly good reactions. A lot of the songs were quietly introspective and almost brought a lump to the throat, particularly in the vocals. Both guys have strong voices, just different from each other to be complementary and they gave us an incredibly involving set which was topped off by the vibrant encore Cross The Valley. It's safe to say that I'll be ordering a copy of the album soon.

Parading, In Spades

Saturday 25th September: After the disappointment of Tuesday's very late cancellation of Oceansize's gig at the newly refurbished Fibbers, which would have seen all of us out, tonight it's a solo outing for me to Stereo to get a second dose of some of the band members from last Saturday.

Tonight's support act, In Spades Inc, were only playing their second gig and, in some ways, it showed. There was an air of nervousness surrounding Stewart King's self-depreciating banter, almost as though he was apologising for the band turning up. He needn't have worried. While their music couldn't be said to be completely original, there was something just a little bit different about it which made it interesting and entertaining. Their forty minute, seven song set (including one cover, which I recognised but, for the life of me can't remember...) contained a nice mixture of material from the slow, haunting opening of Hurricane, which eventually built to a much louder climax, to the brash heaviness of Sucker Punch. But it was the guitar work that really caught my ear - each song seemed to contain an intricate piece of guitar, from either King or fellow guitarist Adam Brady, which sometimes didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the music but in all cases enhanced it.

This may have only been the band's second outing but, in researching this post, I realised that we had, in fact, seen another of King's bands, Satori, supporting Panic Room at the Duchess almost a year ago to the day. Both Roj and I enjoyed that performance so much that we bought the album that night. In a strange piece of symmetry, I picked up two copies of In Spades Inc's free EP preview tonight, one copy of which I have passed on to Roj. I don't think I could honestly say that I liked tonight's performance as much as I did that of Satori, but i certainly wouldn't be averse to seeing In Spades Inc again. Definitely one to watch out for.

...and now a confession. In order to remember thoughts and set-lists at gigs and to help write these posts, I make notes on my phone. Tonight there was a human/technology interface failure (I forgot to save the note I made for the headline act and subsequently managed to inadvertently delete it while the phone was in my pocket) which means that the following review is based solely on my somewhat poor recollections.

Parade are (or, possibly, were - their website says that they are changing their name) another band that we saw last year and so impressed us that we bought the album. One of the loose family of bands centred around Mostly Autumn, Parade was, at the time, made up of current MA members Ann-Marie Helder and Gavin Griffiths, past member Chris Johnson and two long-time collaborators of Johnson, Paddy Berry and Simon Snaize. Tonight ex-Yards guitarist Chris Farrell stood in for Snaize, whose name is strangely absent from the above website. Anyway, The Fabric ended up being one of my top five albums from last year and, therefore, I wasn't going to miss seeing them live again.

Tonight's set featured most, if not all, of the songs from The Fabric, including all my favourites - the epic The Diamond, the nasty The Dogs, pop-tinged but very rocky Start Again and the fantastic Feedline - along with an encore comprising of an acoustic song which I feel I should remember and a full band version of Science and Machinery. Chris Johnson played an acoustic version of the latter last Saturday. It's a song which appeared on the special edition of Mostly Autumn's Heart Full Of Sky album but which, apparently started life years before with Chris J, Chris F and Paddy, providing a nice link with tonight's line-up.

As expected the musicianship was superb. Chris Farrell played some incredible guitar, Paddy's bass was superb, at times making even the floor vibrate and Gavin's drumming was brilliant. Anne-Marie performed some pretty impressive vocal gymnastics - particularly during the wordless ending to High Life - despite apparently having voice problems during the whole of both this (very short) tour and the Panic Room one she had just completed. She and Chris perform some wonderful harmonies, which are just one of the high points of the album and live performance.

There is a reliance on technology, with a laptop tied into Anne-Marie's keyboards in order to produce some of the more unusual sounds. (There are enough pops and whistles on the album to make R2-D2 wonder if it contains a message for him...) Normally, for me, this would be enough to make me a little sceptical about the quality of the music - is it being "played" or just reproduced? But, somehow, I can forgive Parade this extravagance. Maybe it's because of the pedigree of the band members.

Anyway, the whole performance was brilliant and the whole band seemed to be enjoying themselves, playing off each other and practically pushing each other around while still managing to make wonderful music.

Hopefully, whatever the future holds for the band, they will continue to make and play such quality music.

Late Night Socialising

Wednesday 15th September: Time for a midweek outing to Stereo to see a couple of favourites...

...but first, it's Marbled, who I last saw supporting Fish at The Duchess. I freely admitted that I wasn't taking much notice that evening and my over-riding memory was of an angry tone (I'm fairly sure it wasn't directed at those of us who were chatting at the back, but you never know) to both his lyrics and his guitar playing. So, I was quite surprised to find that tonight's act was primarily of a much softer nature with a mixture of styles, including some clever finger-picking. The vocals were much more subtle than I remembered, with only his final song being what I would describe as "shouty". Licking Electricity was somewhere in the middle of the two extremes and was my favourite song of the set. He also came out into the crowd and played The Beat Goes On, a fully acoustic pop song about how rubbish music was in the 60's, when people just went to gigs to scream at the band. A pleasant start to the evening, if not completely to my tastes.

Next up was Gary Stewart, the only act on tonight's bill that I hadn't seen before. Or had I? He did look slightly familiar. I'm sure it will come back to me... Gary started off with In The Pines, a nice little bit of delicate guitar backed by a singing voice which, at least partly due to his Scottish accent, sounded a bit more folky than most acts we see. Jekyll And Hyde was a harder, foot stomping song, while Maggie Oh was a much faster piece. Three songs and we already knew that he had variety. Joined by Rich Huxley for the third song, we also saw a bit of humour and banter coming out as well. Rich also played on Take Me Down but then left the stage for Behind The Door which was, in my opinion, too repetitive. All the songs so far had come from Gary's debut album, Boy Cries Wolf, which was released just this week. His final song, which doesn't appear on the album (and whose title I missed) featured some much more powerful guitar-playing and echo-enhanced vocals. It was also my favourite song from the set.

(Addendum - I bought Boy Cries Wolf on the night and am happy to say that, with the vocals on Behind The Door being shared with Ellen Smith, of Ellen And The Escapades, the repetitiveness is diminished and it's a much better song.)

GT Turbo, tonight in his Boss Caine persona (or is it always that way? He has so many names, I get confused.) is another favourite of mine. The only problem I have is that his songs are so good and so easily imprinted on my memory that it can feel as though you are hearing the same set over and over, even when he varies it. So, it was with some pleasure that I heard him play a completely new (to me) song, Father Time, last time I saw him. Tonight it got even better with two more new songs. At least one of these, Devils On Dean Street if I heard correctly, will be on his second album (due any time now and not soon enough). Only one song, the lovely Sweet Sorrow Surrender, came from the debut album, while Dead Man's Suit and "She Laughs At All My Jokes" (not the real title, but if you've heard it, you'll know the song) are two of his staples. For the final song, "a cautionary tale about cocaine", he was joined by Tim Fox on harmonica, providing a nice symmetry to the set as the opener, the aforementioned Father Time, featured Vin North on the same instrument. This was another brilliant, if short, set from York's very own Boss.

Finally, though, it was the band that we'd all come along to see (no offence to the others...). But who is the little guy taking up position on the drum stool? Well, it's none other than Gary Stewart. No wonder he looked familiar - it was just the lack of blue blazer and drumsticks and the addition of a guitar which had prevented us from recognising Hope & Social's drummer. That explains why Rich knew so many of his songs. Now, by this time, we had moved forward quite considerably and, in fact, made up part of the front row of the audience. Because of that, I didn't use my mobile to take any notes - partly because it would have looked a bit rude and partly because I didn't want Simon to see me and think I was texting somebody. So, titles of songs played tonight are sadly missing from this review. I can, however, remember that there was a good mix of songs from both albums (Architects Of This Church and April - both available at whatever price you want to pay from the above link) with, perhaps, more from the first album than last time we saw them.

It has to be said that, tonight, the band were on fire, playing louder, heavier and faster than I ever remember them doing in the past. Rich was practically dancing across his effects pedals, while Ed seemed to use every extremity (and more than one elbow) to play his keyboards, barely sitting in his seat. Banter was thrown around the stage like their lives depended on it with any slight mistake (and there were a few) picked up and mercilessly exploited and any chance for p*ss-taking taken without hesitation. Once again, with a small stage, large band (although the brass section was down to just two tonight), number of instruments and the amount of bouncing and spinning going on, it's somewhat amazing that nobody got injured and that nothing got broken, such was the enthusiasm on show tonight. Sadly, there were no kazoos (I'd lost mine but two of the gang had brought theirs along) but we did get the audience singalong during the usual acoustic version of Looking For Answers, which is always nice to both hear and be a part of. Hope & Social are never disappointing and tonight was easily the best gig of theirs that I've been to. A thoroughly entertaining evening which, thankfully, went on well beyond the advertised finish time.

Rock In Stereo

Friday 6th August: It's only my second ever trip to Stereo, so I think I can be forgiven for not realising that the music being played in the front bar wasn't the same as that being played in the performance area.

So it wasn't until Andy stuck his head round the door that we realised that tonight's gig had actually started and that Oli Stevens-Vallecillo, of heavy metal band Mantra, was on stage for an acoustic set, accompanied by a second guitarist (Cat, I think he introduced her as). The first song we heard sounded, musically, uncannily like Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead Or Alive but was, as far as I could tell, an original. Oli has a powerful, rumbling voice, which made whatever he sang very clear and he plays guitar with a mixture of intricacy and effects. Apparently he teaches guitar around York and it has to be said that his students are lucky to have such a clever player as their tutor. Adding a second guitar resulted in some lovely harmonies and Cat also provided a bit of extra vocals on a couple of songs. All the songs seemed to be originals, apart from a very nice cover of Man In The Mirror, which took away the pop trappings of the original and resulted in a much more interesting version. Thoroughly enjoyable, I could have listened to Oli all day.

I last saw rock band Raw Deal supporting The Tygers of Pan Tang at Fibbers in May and enjoyed their set. Tonight, they were joined by new bassist Michaela (whether that's permanent is unclear - both MySpace and Facebook still list the bass position as TBC), who looked naggingly familiar to me, but I can't remember or work out from where. Tonight, the whole band seemed to be more assured and confident, with guitarists Dan and Phil certainly living the rock and roll dream, both with their looks and antics on stage. Steph is a charismatic front-woman and, while her vocals are still sometimes drowned out by the music, has a fantastic voice. Jake on drums is good without being intrusive and, together with Michaela's bass, provided a nice background to the music. The only criticism I would have is that Michaela sometimes looked a little lost on stage and tended to fade into the background when Dan and Phil moved together into their rock stances. To her credit, she did seem to realise this towards the end of the set and started moving out of their shadows. I can't say that I recognised any of the songs from the previous time, but tonight's performance sounded, to me, an order of magnitude better than at Fibbers. I'm afraid I only caught two song titles, but they were both from very good songs - Stalker Song and Breakdown.

Right, cards on the table time... I can usually find something I like in a band's performance and there are very few bands that I definitely wouldn't see a second time. However...

Hailing from Nottingham Baby Godzilla, a four-piece (although with only three on show tonight) psycho-blues/post punk band, just aren't my thing. Displaying an almost total lack of subtlety, an over-reliance on feedback and a too showy performance the band mixed a fast and furious musical performance with screaming, unintelligible vocals to produce a head splitting noise. When they started their set, the place had emptied and, two songs in, I wondered whether everybody else already knew what was just dawning on me. However, word soon seemed to spread and the room started filling up again and everybody but me seemed to be enjoying the performance. Me, though, I like to at least have a chance of hearing the music and understanding the lyrics, not watching the drummer do a headstand over his drum kit or wander among the audience playing the cymbal until the stand falls apart. Sorry, but not for me.

98Pages, on the other hand, I do like. This is the third time I've seen them and, it has to be said, they are a superb live act, performing no-nonsense rock and roll in short, sharp and rhythmic songs. Tonight's (very short) set comprised of a lot of new or, at least, unfamiliar songs, with Goodbye JoJo being the only one that I recognised from before. There's very little speaking between songs as the boys let their music do the talking. A very polished performance and, hopefully, the new material means that a second album is in the offing.

Socialising With Dead Comedians

Saturday 24th April: It's an old venue under a new name tonight. I'm fairly sure that the last time I saw a band in this room, the building was called The Bay Horse. I was still at school and was watching a band from Bradford called Haze. That was twenty-plus years ago. Now it's Stereo and we're here for a very similar line-up to that of a gig Roj and I attended last year.

The only difference is tonight's opener. Robert Loxley Hughes was the flamboyant frontman of Idle Jack And The Big Sleep who have, we found out tonight, split up. Tonight it was just him and his (well, somebody else's) guitar, some bad experiences and the resulting songs. Hughes seems to be a bit of a tortured soul who takes his experiences, chews them up and spits them out as lyrics. One song, very emotionally performed, was about an absent friend. Another was introduced as having its roots in a long story which boiled down to "very nasty lady" (tidied up for a family audience). The guitar playing varied from minimal to as close to thrash as you can probably get with an acoustic. The lyrics were mostly clear, except for a couple of times when the emotions got the better of Hughes, who has a strong voice. This was a very good performance bit it veered just too much towards angry for my liking. However, how many times are you going to go to a gig and hear a song with the word "hypothalamus" in the lyrics? The set was worth watching just for that - although, it has to be said that this was a David Ward Maclean song.

The last time we saw Dave Woodcock And The Dead Comedians, there was just the two of them performing (Dave himself and Chris Saunders on guitar) and both Roj and I commented that we would like to hear what the full band sounded like. Tonight we got that pleasure, as Chris Murphy (piano), Andrew Wood (drums) and Lee Bradley (bass) were all on stage. We were treated to songs from last year's album release, Omaha High Low, as well as new ones from a forthcoming album. Songs about gambling and love, drenched in alcohol and wreathed in cigarette smoke (metaphorically, obviously, this was in indoor gig...) The music is a sort of mix of rock and roll and country, with a lovely steel guitar sound and the couple of songs that I remembered from the last gig had, quite obviously, a fuller sound. It was an energetic performance, with Dave gesticulating and dancing round the limited stage area. Indeed, at one point, he actually took the microphone into the audience and ended up singing while on his back. In another "rare song" event, the band played one song about Dave's hometown - my guess is that there can't be many more songs about Rotherham than there are about the hypothalamus... Anyway, I'm happy to report that the full band is a whole lot more enjoyable than the cut down version we saw previously. So much so that I bought myself a copy of Omaha High Low.

Regular readers will know that I'm a big fan of GT Turbo (a.k.a Boss Caine) and tonight saw another solo performance of songs from the album The Ship That Sailed. GT wore his annoyance on his chest (and back), with a T-shirt proclaiming "Shut the f*ck up, the band are playing". Sadly the message didn't get across to all members of the audience and, even after moving away from the group doing their best to define themselves as "loud and annoying", we could still hear them over parts of the performance. GT's set was comprised of what I assume to be his current standards, including my favourite Leaving Victoria and close second (though not on the album), Smoking In My Back Yard. Like Hughes, GT's songs are based on his experiences, not all of which are good. Unlike Hughes, there is a lot less anger on show. I've mentioned before that his songs have an immediate effect on me and I was able to sing along (silently, for the most part) to most of them. There's not too much more I can add, except to say that, somehow, GT's voice, which is usually superb, seemed a lot stronger tonight. I'm assuming that was something to do with the acoustics or the mixing.

As good as the previous acts were, we were mainly here for one reason - Hope & Social's return to York. They are one of our favourite bands and are currently promoting their second album, April, which is available from the above link, using their usual "pay what you want/can afford" method. Honestly, try it - you can download it for free (if you really can't afford to pay anything), they are a totally inoffensive, very talented band and I can't think of any reason not to like them. What's the worst that can happen? Right, plug over.

Tonight, the band, with very new drummer "he doesn't know half the songs" Ian, and new bassist James Hamilton and a three piece brass section, all of them resplendent in the now obligatory blue blazers. The stage looked very crowded and I was beginning to fear for the safety of both the audience and band members given how little space there was for both the trombone and Simon's guitar-playing. Thankfully, by the end of the night, there were no injuries and the brass section quickly mastered getting off and on stage quickly.

You don't see Hope & Social perform, you immerse yourselves in the performance. Whether it's singing the chorus to Red Red Rose, laughing at Rich and Simon's jokes and antics, performing the backing to Looking For Answers, engaging in banter or (and this is a new one to me) being part of the kazoo orchestra, you are a part of the gig. Tonight was no exception. As well as songs from the new album, we heard some from Architects Of This Church, including a proper acoustic version of Looking For Answers which seemed to be brought forward in the set to give Rich some time to sort out his pedal problems. As usual, some of the songs as performed live are quite a bit different than as recorded, with some very heavy extended musical sections, but they work just as well in both versions. The added brass also provided a new dimension to some of the songs, especially when they remembered to play... I don't think it's possible to see a bad gig from Hope & Social, but I do know that tonight's was the best I've seen so far.