I'm partial to a sad song or two, and last night's show with Luke Sital-Singh and support act Ciaran Lavery did not disappoint in that department. The show took place at London's stunning Union Chapel, a venue I've been desperate to catch a show in for a while, and the perfect setting for an evening of sad songs, with Luke touring his new record Time Is A Riddle. I caught Luke play a secret set at last year's Bushstock to a tiny audience in a wine bar so was pretty excited to see him perform to a much bigger crowd last night.
Luke Sital-Singh at Union Chapel
Listening to Ciaran Lavery's support set it struck me that the pairing was all kinds of clever - they have pretty similar voices (so anyone who is a fan of Luke should just about fall in love with Ciaran through the course of his set) and both have great banter and comic timing on stage, a sort of unintentional hilarity. Opening with a track where he played the guitar percussively and finishing up with a track without the guitar, his vocals carried beautifully around the venue and he had the audience in silence for the entire set, not easy for a support act to do! One of the highlights of his set was the track Shame, and there's a lovely session performance of that below...
Luke has deemed the tour the "magical misery tour" and I'm not going to disagree with that sentiment, but who doesn't love some sad acoustic songs? His second record Time Is A Riddle has been out for just under a fortnight and features the tracks Hunger and Killing Me, and the set took us right through many of the new album tracks alongside the biggest tracks of album one, including Nothing Stays The Same and Bottled Up Tight. A couple of tracks in to his set Luke asked the audience to clap and cheer louder after new tracks so that he'd get the sense that things were improving (again - the stage banter was great), but we hardly needed asking as each song was met with rapturous applause. With some people commenting that the venue has the best acoustics in London it was the perfect setting and I really felt like I was part of something special! Here's an acoustic performance (with some great reverb) of the new track Innocence performed for Bee Happy Sessions.
The tour carries on to Brighton tonight and Exeter on Friday evening before a handful of European shows, check all the shows and grab the record on his site here!
After catching Luke Sital-Singh play a secret set at Bushstock last year and being pretty impressed, I went out and bought his2014 record The Fire Inside, which features the total tunes Bottled Up Tight and Nothing Stays The Same - it was one of those special moments where the first time hearing an artist is in a live performance and I was pretty taken aback by his performance and that I hadn't took a listen sooner...
Luke has announced the details of his new record, Time Is A Riddle, which is set to be released on 12th May, and the first track to be taken from it is Killing Me, a raw and emotional track written in tribute to his grandmother. The music video features clips that his wife's grandfather shot in the 70s, so there is a real nostalgic feel running through the track and the video, and they combine to make something really beautiful!
Luke is going on tour with Ciaran Lavery in support of the record in May, including a show at London's Union Chapel, all the dates below -
Tue 9 Tobermory, Isle Of Mull, An Tobar
Wed 10 Inverness, Eden Court
Thur 11 Ullapool, The Ceilidh Place
Fri 12 Aberdeen, The Lemon Tree
Mon 15 Edinburgh, Teviot Debating Hall
Tue 16 Glasgow, Oran Mor
Thu 18 Leeds, Belgrave Music Hall and Canteen
Fri 19 Bristol, The Lantern
Sun 21 Nottingham, The Bodega
Mon 22 Manchester, The Deaf Institute
Tue 23 London, Union Chapel
Wed 24 Brighton, The Hope and Ruin
Fri 26 Exeter, Exeter Phoenix
Yesterday I went to my last gig/festival as a teenager and my first for a month, the sixth Bushstock Festival (my second) and experienced some wonderful live music amongst passionate music fans. Organised by Communion Music, the festival was almost guaranteed to be a winner in terms of the line-up, with the label championing so many superb up and coming artists in London and beyond (Ben Howard, Nick Mulvey and James Bay to name a few!) Being the cheapskate (and student!) I am, I didn't buy a ticket, but entered all the competitions I could find, and won a pair of tickets for the festival through TOMS (thanks TOMS!) A part of the prize was also access to an acoustic garden set by Dan Croll, the headliner of the biggest venue on the night.
Until that set, I didn't have anything I was desperate to see, but knew that if the festival was like last year, there would be a secret line-up (last year I saw Alex Vargas, Nick Mulvey and The Staves in the secret stage). There was, but this year they'd split it into two venues, meaning more people would get a shot as last year most people seemed to stick around for all three sets. I checked Twitter and they'd announced Luke Sital-Singh as the first secret act - I'd heard a lot about him but couldn't remember listening to him, so figured it was the perfect opportunity and headed to the venue.
I loved his set and his humour, particularly when he forgot one of the verses to Nothing Stays The Same (below) and the guy sat next to me helped with lyrics. While it was all new to me, he played tracks from his new record which is ready, and they sounded pretty good!
When Luke's finished, they tweeted that the second secret set was going to be The Beach. As I caught his set on the recent New Faces tour I decided to give it a miss and headed over the road to see MarthaGunn. I'd listened to a couple of the tracks in the run up to the festival as I have seen their name recently as supporting Toothless and Bear's Den, so I figured that they must be worth checking out. It was pretty full for them and they really impressed me and I look forward to seeing where the rest of the year takes them. Loving their recent release Heaven which they finished the set off with, the studio version is below but this acoustic session is worth a watch if you enjoy!
I wandered off to find something to eat, and as I walked across the road from the venue where the third secret set would be at 5, it was 4 so I expected an announcement at any minute, before I noticed three of the guys from Amber Run coming outside. I was there pretty early but luckily so as the venue filled up by 4.25, and the guys played a beautiful stripped back set. I had actually been tempted to go to the London Contemporary Voices show yesterday, where the band were performing, so this was a great surprise!
The set started with Joe playing the band's track I Found by himself, not too unlike this session... it was great to see them again after catching them at one of my first shows in Oxford back in 2014 on the Communion New Faces tour.
Next up I headed to St Stephen's Church and caught some of Charlie Cunningham's set. I saw him back in November supporting Stornoway, a show which was also in a church. While I haven't got anything else to compare it to, I feel his sound probably works best in this kind of environment where his beautiful voice can fill the whole room. Even his Facebook cover photo is taken in a church... One song that I'd really remembered from the set in November is Telling It Wrong, which went down really well last night - the church was pretty full for Charlie's set!
Once my friend arrived, we dashed to the Dan Croll set at the TOMS Secret Garden Stage, which it turned out was in fact exactly that, somebody's garden! While I couldn't see much to begin with (I took the pic below to see where Dan was even stood...) I could hear, and it sounded superb! Very lucky to catch Dan in such a small crowd before he headlined Bush Hall in the evening!
When I won the tickets, I hadn't actually listened to Dan that much (a bit of a recurring theme!) but after checking out his videos online, found that I had heard From Nowherebefore. I listened to and loved his track Home, and found it pretty funny hearing the track last night. The lyrics "so if you ever come round to my house take your shoes off at the door, cos it's impolite not to, you'll be damaging my floor, cos it's my home" made me chuckle, considering we'd all just walked through someone's house with our shoes on! Rubbish house manners aside, a lovely little stage and a great set!
After Dan's set, we rushed back over to St Stephen's, where Bear's Den were headlining in just over an hour. Matthew & The Atlas were up first and it was already pretty much at capacity but we managed to squeeze in. The title track of his latest record, Temple, is on the record which Communion released for Record Store Day, so I'd listened to this and the session below, but the music was mostly pretty new to me but I was just as impressed as the rest of the church. As Davie of Bear's Den said during their set, he sounds like he's "a million years old, but still sexy.... we can all only hope to be sexy when we're a million years old."
Finally, the main event - Bear's Den took to the stage (a little late) and instantly wowed the crowd, opening their set with the title track of their new record Red Earth & Pouring Rain. They played a few more tracks from the new record (including the beautiful Auld Wives which they released recently), and all are sounding great - can't wait to hear the record in full! The hits from the debut record were great too, and it was a massive shame to leave just as they started playing Agape in their encore to make sure I could catch my train (which I only just did!)
The set was superb and I'd really recommend taking a listen, buying the record next month (July 22nd) and going to their tour in November (they're also playing some in-stores around the album release date.) It seems fitting to finish off with a video of them performing Agape for a session in the church back in 2013 - it was completely packed last night and deservingly so!
Overall I had such a great day and it's testament to the brilliant organisation both in the run up over the last months and on the day - I say it a lot but I have a lot of faith in the music that Communion get behind, making a day like yesterday pretty difficult to plan out. I caught seven brilliant acts but there was still so much more going on and I only wish I could've split myself in half and seen more (Shura, Flyte, Tempesst etc!) As well as that, every act I saw throughout the day seemed genuinely humbled that people had turned up to watch them, which is always so lovely to see as a fan. Long may Bushstock continue!!
