BCNR

A strange one this given the continuing lock down. Olly was meant to come down but due to work and stuff a Sunday night in London wasn't on the cards. So I meet Nick in the rain at Highbury & Islington and after checking in manually we enter the socially distance spaced "pods" (i.e. pairs of seats a couple of feet from the next pair) in the downstairs part of the beautiful Islington Assembly Hall. The band take an age to come on, indeed seem to play their album over the PA, which gives me and Nick a chance to catch up and there's a fair bit, 15 months, of catching up to do. The drummer comes on in long gabardine mac a bit Eric Morecombe style and mumbles that they are trying out new material and that he's a bit wet. We can just about hear him. A few minutes later the 7 piece come on and without any introductions get straight into their set. It's a mix of fantastic jumpy (although we're sat down) Romani type music like you used to stumble into late at night in the back waters of festivals but Black Country New Road are a notch above with a great heavy rhythm section driving the sound forward. There's big drumming and clever bassing in which less is definitely more. The guitarist singer is, from what I can tell, a virtuoso although that's the guitar and not the vocals. Sax and violin give the jazzy Romani feel all tied up by a keyboard player who jumps the genres and a second guitarist who although lurking in the background we all know he's playing his bit on rhythm guitar. The new songs, as far as I can tell them, do seem a little unformed and not as rich as the ones committed to vinyl but a lot of potential and looking forward to the polished, which they surely will be, versions. Posters around the place say that we have to stay seated but promise that we can dance for the last song (why?) but as the band don't say anything to us throughout the set, barely move to be honest, we don't know their last song until after it the guitarist mumbles "thank you" into the mic and they're off. Despite clapping, cheering, whistling and foot stamping the lights come on and Nick and I are turfed out into the driving rain to get the tube home. Not bad for a Sunday night out but not sure whether it would have been worth the trip Olly. Love to see them again with a standing crowd - who knows a few hundred jumping around to their tunes may even raise a smile or two from the band...

Apologies drummer and 2nd guitarist but I couldn't move position so I could get you both in.