Meet Maya at mine and then we trek up to north London to meet Jack and as there are two support bands and Maya thinks the first sounds interesting we go straight up to the Forum nee Town & Country. It was worth coming in early too. Quite a few folk here already and it's not even 8 o'clock.
First up are Sweat who are an oddball bunch a couple of whom look like 70s retro history teachers. They are pretty tight and a bit quirky. A bit sort of like early Talking Heads. Sort of. I guess you'd call it heavy New Wave as in late 70s post punk serious stuff. The singer is a bit of a showman and likes a bit of chat. He's not big headed over confident and seems genuinely pleased to be up there and does a pretty good job of linking to the audience even as third on the bill. At times they move on a decade from New Wave into a baggy dancy funky groove which explains why the keyboardist doesn't look like the rest but is sporting some rather nice sportswear threads. I'm not 100% convinced they'll go far but they were interesting and worth checking out.
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| Working up a Sweat |
The dance floor is now packed and I'm wondering why as listening to The Magic Gang on Spotify they sound a bit Yeah. Once the gang come on the young crowd goes mad and jump about non stop to what is pretty competent and enjoyable ditties but nothing to write home about. OK, so I am writing home about them in a sense but hey I guess their effort in entertaining me warrants a few words. They were also a bit New Wave with some catchy tunes. It's not just that the singer guitarist wears glasses but they did remind me a bit of Elvis Costello and the Attraction. Maybe not quite as classic but give them time and maybe they'll turn out to be classic. So think Elvis C tunes with a big mosh pit and the youth jumping about in unison. Jeez the kids mosh to everything these days. It did get messy with some girl throwing her drink into the crowd but it slips and goes behind her over Maya and Jack finds a pony tail in his pint. I'm unscathed apart from having a mobile thrown at me, accidentally, by someone on someone else's shoulders. To be honest there was so much hugging of each other and grinning I suspect that there was, again, a late 80s influence of disco biscuits heavily prevalent in the crowd. The guys on stage look far from a baggy druggy band or gang but hey, what do I know about current fashion. Like the first band. Again, they didn't blow me away but if I happen to be passing them at a festival then I'll probably stop by for a bit of a bop. Or more likely a mosh.
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| Looking out for man / woman down in the mosh pit |
After this excitement we go up a gear as Hinds come on stage and we are treated to a brilliant set of hard rock through indie and into a latin beat almost whimsical in nature. They're great musicians who all obviously love being up on stage and tell us so. They chat and laugh with us at one point getting us all to sing Hey Jude with them. Not a cover version they do. Just seemed to be a spontaneous singalong. The place is truly jumping and packed. Moshing is the order of the day but I defer to the lighter younger contingent. Partly not wanting to embarrass myself or my kids. I saw Hinds at Glastonbury where they owned the stage and to be honest I was worried that in the heat of the festival I had over rated them. Definitely not. Well worth seeing again. They come back to treat us to three songs for their encore including having a guest drummer for the last who we think may have been from Wolf Alice. A great gig only spoilt by having to fund two kebabs afterwards.
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| Hinds enjoying themselves... |
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| ... and so are their fans |
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| Bouncers are signally failing to stop crowd surfing |
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| My rubbish phone camera occasionally throws up a good one |
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