Another day, another gig, and I rounded off another great week in July seeing my favourite guys, The Hoosiers on Saturday night. It was a homecoming of sorts, seeing them headline a new festival, Sweetnotes, in Rescue Rooms in Nottingham, the venue where I first saw them on a tour over five years ago. It's actually pretty nostalgic to be back there, as it's the only place where I've seen all three of my favourite artists (TH, Sam Beeton who was supporting them, and King Charles in 2013.) That show back in 2011 was also the first proper gig I went to, so it's really the place where it all started, in a way! Following a day of shopping/grabbing food, we headed to the venue, and caught a couple of the sets before The Hoosiers were on, including local band The Mocking Jays who were quite fun!
Though having four albums means that favourite tracks are always going to be missed out of setlists (miss you, Giddy Up), I'm chuffed that they're playing a couple of tracks from the first record The Trick To Life that haven't always been in the set, including Run Rabbit Run. And although the crowd was nowhere near as big as the show all those years ago, I had a brilliant time, and it was great to see the guys for the first time since the tour in October, and an acoustic show in November. They even smuggled a couple of little covers into the set, The Weeknd's Can't Feel My Faceand Womack & Womack's Teardrops. Sad not to get to chat afterwards (but some lovely tweets from the gigs fixed that), but very much looking forward to the start of September, when I'll hopefully see the guys play their huge O2 Islington show (tickets here for 3rd Sep) and maybe even the Milton Keynes show they've just added for the day before.
From the team organising Macmillan Fest, there's a new one-day festival in Nottingham next month giving local indie artists the opportunity and the platform to support larger artists, with The Hoosiers headlining. The festival is taking place at The Rescue Rooms and the venue's smaller upstairs space, Red Rooms. There will be thirteen acts performing from 2 til 10pm, with no clashes at all (if you want to go up and down stairs several times during the day to really get your money's worth!) Headlining the second stage is local rising artist Richard Jenkins - check out his first music video here. Looking forward to hopefully getting along to the show to see The Hoosiers in the venue where I saw them for the first time back in May 2011!
Tickets for the day are £15 in advance and available here, and join the Facebook event here.
I've been to a couple of local free festivals, and had half a day at Cambridge Folk Festival a couple of years back, but on Saturday I took a trip to London (again) and had my first proper festival experience at Bushstock. After being offered the tickets by a wonderful friend who won them but had already bought some, I made the last minute choice, the day before the festival, to go along. In retrospect - brilliant choice. Organised and run by Communion, you know you're in safe hands in terms of the line-up, as the label has ties with the likes of George Ezra, Ben Howard and Half Moon Run. Though I left early and didn't check them out, this years festival was headlined by Lucy Rose, Michael Kiwanuka, and Villagers, with various other fantastic acts throughout the day.
As the festival started up, we checked out Ady Suleiman at The Courtyard, a new and intimate stage area in an outside part of The University of the Arts. Being a particular favourite of my friend's, his set was a no-brainer, but I went into it blind, having not heard any of Ady's tracks beforehand. What might be described as R&B with soulful vocals and harmonies, I found his set impressive, performing tracks from his recent release This Is My EP with his talented band.
Ady Suleiman
After Ady's set we grabbed some food and dashed around to the beautiful St. Stephen's Church, where Frances was playing. Having recently played on the Communion New Faces tour, I came to this set more prepared, but my expectations were exceeded. I'm not one to constantly compare artists, but she could be seen as a Rae Morris and Adele hybrid of sorts. Basically, Frances isn't short of talent. Her style suited the church venue perfectly, and her set was topped off by a beautiul performance of her recent new track 'Grow' (below), which is the title track from her upcoming EP, released July 10th. A brilliant, chilling live artist, you can catch her live at Servant Jazz Quarters in London on Wednesday 14th October.
After this set we decided to head to the Albertine Wine Bar, where the first of three secret special guests, Alex Vargas, had just been announced. Having heard good things of his music but not having listened to him, this was another great musical discovery of the day, alongside a wonderful stage presence and great stage banter, his haunting style filling out the intimate, packed wine bar in a stunning way. He must be doing something right as he's just sold out four dates in London this month, so I guess I should also be grateful to have seen him fairly early in what will probably be a fruitful and long career in music. Certain that the special guests could only get better, we decided to stick around and wait for the next announcement - particularly as there was apparently a huge queue to get into the venue for the second set. Shortly, this was announced to be the incredibly talented Nick Mulvey, a particular favourite of mine. As expected, his set in this jam-packed bar was incredible, and I felt genuinely lucky to have witnessed it. Time ticked on and the speculation was confirmed, the third act were The Staves. I was aware of their music and how well loved they are in the folk community, but again I hadn't really listened to them (it was a day of brilliant discoveries!) The harmonious, quiet, unplugged set from the gifted sisters was a pleasure to listen to. In short: Communion weren't lying when they said they were 'special' guests, it was a superb mini line-up.
Alex Vargas
Nick Mulvey
The Staves
The final act of the day that I checked out before choosing to leave early as I was tired and needed to catch a train home, was Port Isla at Bush Hall. I'd heart about them for supporting James Bay on his recent UK tour, and my friend was keen to check out their set. The set was energetic and fun regardless of the band being down a regular member, and I'm interested to take a listen to the band's EPs to see how their recorded music sounds.
Port Isla
It's my opinion that once you scratch the surface, the music industry is far smaller than it first seems, and this is obvious nowhere more than at this sort of day. Throughout the day I saw various artists, music industry people, and friends around, and everyone that I met was incredibly friendly - even the security! Overall I had a great experience at the festival which is fairly new, in only its fifth year, and I'd definitely consider going along to the festival next year!
