Having caught up with Soko earlier in the day and been exhausted by Ida Maria the night before, as The Hold Steady hustled and bustled to a conclusion, Alphabeat, for once, weren’t for me, I was all (indie) euro-popped out.
So rather than follow the crowds across town for ten thousand nights of thunder I decided to take in my surroundings and catch a local band or two in the delightfully comfortable and completely un-rock n roll Duke of York cinema. With the programme misfiring again, ‘Melodica, Melody and Me’ were not ‘the next generation in English songwriting’ but they were without doubt a bloody good way to spend half an hour listening to foot stomping folk.
Like a poorer, younger, naïve and not quite as good version of Dylan the moment before he went electric (and yes that is most definitely a compliment) this youthful London contingent with a big local following were full of so much energy their gentle songs weren’t far from bursting. It was refreshing to hear genuine songs from a band without a contrived image of any sorts and a handful of good tunes.
Imagine The Coral swapping the driving Hammond organs for a sweet teen female backing vocal and you are as near as you are going to get without seeing these guys for yourselves. In fact that is exactly what you should do. Different to most, their songs such as ‘Runaway’ and ‘Piece It Back Together’ benefit gloriously from the question and answer vocals. As the hands ticked past one o’clock in the morning the next two, more experienced, acts would be victim of very rude/tired people sleeping in the lazy chairs of the private cinema but the youthful buzz of this folk sextet suffered no fate.
The rhythm section could have kept time for a marching band ten times their size, the melodies were intricate but never needlessly oversold. Although they may not set the world alight this bunch were exuberant ‘til the last and in a day and age where every festival and stage in the land is sponsored and gimmicked it was nice to see the songs of innocence win out over songs of experience, just this once.
