www.thesocial.com
hoodlumsband.com
facebook.com/minniebirch
Visited on Tuesday 27 November 2012
It seems early in the
project to be throwing in a bonus event that
was not on the schedule, but I guess these are flexible times for me, so
here’s a little write-up of the excellent show I went to last night at The
Social.
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| Sure is engrossed |
Following two recently
cancelled London gigs, I was delighted finally to be going to hear my friend Minnie
Birch (aka Emily Jacques). As this was not an official culturecake event, I
left Sure at home reading about his kind, and opted for a well-worn rather than
adventurously new route into town (train from Clapton, tube to Oxford Circus)
(a pleasingly efficient 35 mins). The Social is a small venue on Little
Portland Street, and the last time I was there I was actually on the stage –
with my band Neon Choir,
supporting Brendan Rodgers. I’d
never heard Hoodlums before, though one of my companions, MinusTheMatt,
strongly suspects that Neon Choir might have supported them many years ago…
Anyway, we were to reserve judgment about whether to stick around to hear them,
seeing as Miss Jacques was the priority.
She opened with Sea Shanty, the only
one of her songs I knew, having bought it from iTunes. I was amazed by how this unassuming and
self-effacing young lady held the room from the very beginning. Her songs are
simple and upfront and her voice is sweet as you like. She sings about one
night stands (though was careful to point out that she is neither an advocate
nor an opponent of such), the boys in her home town of Hemel Hempstead, and
good old-fashioned heartbreak, but none of it is clichéd.
Rather, it is compellingly
beautiful, and I was even inspired to whip out my iPhone to write down a lyric
at one point (regrettably this might have looked like I was just sending a
text) – something about ‘yearning to get lost’, which struck me as quite a
lovely notion. The room filled up throughout her set, but she had the
audience’s full attention right to the end – modesty, great guitar-playing and
a voice that sounds like she’s barely breathing out makes for a pretty damn
powerful stage presence. LOVELY.
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| Small stage, big act |
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| Yay for fairy lights |
Like the drum dork
that I am, I had been eyeing up the Hoodlums’s very nice-looking wooden shell
drum kit (you have to walk behind it to get to the ladies’, affording a
good opportunity to spy on the gear), which was pleasantly adorned with fairy
lights. This also pleased one of my other companions for the night, Anna of the Karenina, who is an ardent fan of anything Christmassy, and we all agreed that
the presence of a splendid looking double bass on the stage was promising and
thusly that we should stay and see what the band would be like. When the
appositely-monikered Lou Vainglorious strutted on to the stage to lead them in
their opening number it was clear that this was going to be a very entertaining
show!
From the first song, Mr Vainglorious OWNED the room, clambering over the
seating to touch his adoring fans and striking the kinds of poses that you
really need to have balls to pull off. The Dalston haircut, skinny jeans, tight
vest and beads around the neck all worked, and he’s got one of those great
indie voices that transitions from passionate from-the-heart projection to
girlie falsetto with impressive ease. There was an amusing moment when he
engaged MinusTheMatt in a thumb war mid-song (which I hope MTM had the grace to
let him win), and we were only slightly
worried about the fact that dear Minnie’s guitar seemed to break his fall a
couple of times as he launched himself towards his keyboard player, with the
intention of stroking that boy’s head.
THE DRUMMER was great. Apart from the
fact that the kit sounded amazing, his beats drove the whole machine
brilliantly and he managed to Go For It without overwhelming the rest of the
band (a risk in a venue that small, but you’re in good hands with the very very
nice and enthusiastic sound man there). The set list seemed to consist of a
string of songs that are destined to be hits (this one is definitely going on my ‘it’s Friday
and I’m on my way to the pub after work’ playlist), and the crowd were loving
it. Hoodlums are mainly from London, and the brilliant romp Anything Goes, which closed the set, celebrates LV's Southend origins ("God bless the Estuary Boys!"). The uplifting vocal harmonies and big anthemic nature of the tune mean it would probably be better suited to a
bigger venue (in fact here’s them doing it at Brixton Academy while supporting Keane on
tour this summer), but it worked just fine at The Social and concluded an
extremely enjoyable and entertaining gig. The other encore, Four Letter Word, was probably my favourite song of the night, and that, plus all the rest will be on their forthcoming album, due out in Spring 2013, according to their manager, who kindly took the time to reply to my enquiry this morning.
Obvs cake is not
really the thing after such an event, so A of the K and I went in search of the
customary post-gig kebab. This search was immediately abandoned when we
remembered we were on Oxford Street, and so we opted for a filthy McDonald’s
instead. I mean, Big Mac meal at 11pm on a Tuesday night, what can I say? A of the K’s food choice addressed the interesting theory of combining sweet
(milkshake) with salt (cheeseburger) and it was agreed that this is a most
pleasing taste sensation. Marmite chocolate probably represents the zenith of human
achievement in this regard, but clearly this is not available in McDonald’s.
During a conversation before the show, The Lady Carolina of France had wondered
whether McD’s served wine, which we all agreed was a quite French idea, but not a bad one at all.
The homewards route
was the same as the outbound one, and I arrived back at the flat feeling that I
had been vey pleasantly entertained by the whole evening. As I reviewed my free gifts from the gig
(Minnie Birch badge and very nice business card) I noticed that Sure was still
engrossed in the pig book and not at all offended that he’d missed out.
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| Goods |
Thanks to my
companions MinusTheMatt, Anna of the Karenina and The Lady C of F for a most
lovely evening out.
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