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.
To be honest, I'm so fond of Jack Savoretti and his music that I'd probably be happy watching him perform just about anywhere, but a beautiful setting does add something. This is true of this new session, filmed at Zermatt Unplugged in the snowy Swiss mountains. Jack, Pedro and John perform the track Catapult from last year's super record Written In Scars (which I'd hugely recommend taking a listen to if you haven't already...)
Jack plays a few festivals over Summer, as well as a massive headline show at Eventim Hammersmith Apollo in November - dates and tickets all here!
One of my favourite music discoveries over the couple of years I've been studying in Oxford is Little Brother Eli, who release their debut album, Cold Tales, this weekend. The album is out on Friday and you can hear it live on Saturday at The Bullingdon, with support from Neverlnd (another of my favourite Oxford bands!) and Nine Miles South. They're also playing an acoustic set before the show over the road at Truck - having seen them play acoustic at Sofar Sounds Oxford I'd definitely recommend getting along to that!
Performing live, the band's tracks are bluesy, loud and catchy, drawing recommendations to the likes of The Black Keys, and the album manages to replicate this wonderfully. Lead vocalist Alex Grew's range always manages to surprise me, as well as his contagious energy onstage. The album features tracks such as Beautiful, Who Do You, Dreams and Gold (below) which go down pretty well at live shows.
Forming in early 2013 with Grew and bassist Josh Rigal, the band were joined by guitarist Adam Stowe and drummer Benji Page, sharing their wide mix of musical influences along with lap steel specialist Tom Williams. Jamming together they created their own blend of bluesy garage rock, a combination of Grew's soulful vocals and growling guitars. Over the past couple of years, as well as playing in over 100 different venues around the country, the band have started to acquire a loyal local following, so the show on Saturday should have a really fun atmosphere - wish I was in town for it!
To pre-order the album, head to the band's site here. Tickets for this Saturday's show are available here - if you can't make it, come along to their Tigmus headline show upstairs at the O2 in October, more info here.
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!!
At just 17, Billie Marten is making a name for herself in the industry, featuring on the BBC Sound of 2016 long list earlier in the year, and performing on Lauren Laverne's show on 6 Music last week. I hadn't actually listened to her until I found the video for La Lune, the B-side to Milk & Honey, in my inbox yesterday. With influences including John Martyn, Laura Marling and David Bowie, it's easy to draw comparisons with Laura and Lucy Rose when listening to Billie's music.
In an Ed Sheeran Photograph-esque way, the video features childhood footage compiled by Billie herself of her family wandering around Whitby beaches and BnBs, of the video she says "the song's all washy and dreamy and it instantly made me think of that". It's a great video for the track and all too clear a reminder of Billie's youth!
Billie tours the UK in October (Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, London and Cardiff), and plays several dates over summer - all the info and tickets on her site here. You can also purchase the Milk & Honey/La Lune 7"vinyl here.
They performed on the Nightshift curated stage at Oxford's first Common People Festival last month, but if you're looking for a chance to see them play live then you're in luck. They've recently been announced for Truck Festival and next week they support Little Brother Eli at their album launch at The Bullingdon. In addition to those, they've just announced a headline show at The Bullingdon themselves. Following brilliant shows for Tigmus last October at the O2, and last month at JdP, this show announcement is very exciting news (apart from the fact that I won't be in town for the show - go on my behalf!!) Tickets are on sale now at an early bird price of £6 here.
The new five track release from Mumford & Sons is out today! The Johannesburg EP features Baaba Maal, The Very Best and Beatenberg, and was recorded earlier in the year over a couple of days during the bands short run of dates in South Africa. As Marcus says in this trailer for the EP, collaboration is a huge element of the band, and thats always obvious in their performances, often introducing support acts onto the stage to perform alongside them. There's a beautiful spontaneity in the band getting together with some SA based artists and coming up with new music in such a brief time. In reflection of that, the EP is pretty special and well worth a listen whether you're a fan of Mumford or not!
The EP is out in record stores etc now, and you can buy it on CD, vinyl, cassette and digitally through the band's store here. There's also a free pop-up exhibition for the EP in London at the start of July, featuring photography, documentary footage and live performance from the collaborators - check out the FB event for more info.
The Hoosiers have announced a London show at the O2 Islington on 3rd September (tickets are available now through Ticketweb here.) The show comes before the ten year anniversary of their debut album The Trick To Life next year and follows a summer of festival and university ball appearances.
While I've seen lead singer Irwin's other band,The Sea & I, in London several times, I've never been able to catch TH in London, so this should be pretty exciting. First up I'll hopefully be seeing them in Nottingham next month at the Sweet Notes Festival (info for that here), in the venue where I saw them live for the first time over five years ago.
New Two Door Cinema Club! The band have been teasing for a while, playing their first live shows for over two years a couple of months ago under the 'Tudor Cinema Club' cover-band alter-ego. Are We Ready? (Wreck) is the first taste of the new record, premiering on Radio 1 last night.
The track comes from the band's third studio record Gameshow, the follow up to their 2012 record Beacon which reached #2 in the UK albums chart (and #1 in the Irish chart). It's released on 14th October and you can pre-order standard and deluxe versions of the record digitally, on CD and vinyl through their site here.
Tom Odell's new record, Wrong Crowd, was released last Friday and is pretty darn good. He was on The Graham Norton Show on the release day, and I was about to share a video of his full band performance of Magnetised from the show, when I stumbled across this beautiful solo performance for Radio 1's Live Lounge last month. Totally in awe, so much talent!
Tom tours later in the year, including a show at O2 Academy Brixton, all the dates and tickets here. The more I watch videos of Tom performing live, the more keen I am to go along, just a little put off by the steep prices, however a few more listens of the new record might be enough to sway me!
