Just be like everybody else
Back into the gig front last night when B and I went to check out Reverend And The Makers at KOKO.
When we arrived it was pretty empty and we actually ran into my lovely work friend, Lou and her boyfriend… who was pretending to have Tourette’s to get to the bar faster… quite clever that…
First on were The Pangs, who seemed completely taken aback by the size of the crowd (maybe 50 people strong at that point) but then again they claimed to have been playing to four people in Hastings the night before so I suppose it was a step up. B instantly pointed out that their vocalist sounds a lot like Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and after that… well all I could hear was how Maroon 5-ey they were. And that’s not a compliment. However when they eventually got some fire into them for their last song, they really weren’t bad.
After that we had adorable eighteen year old singer-songwriter Cosmo Jarvis. I probably never would have figured out what he was called if it wasn’t for the fact that I happened to be standing next to his biggest fan (I thought he said his name was Colin Gonzales…) who gave me all of Cosmo’s background and one of his CDs. Nice one, dude! Jamming along with his multi-instrumentalist band, we had everything from mandolins to double-bass, Cosmo serves up poignant, funny and often heart-breaking observational lyrics about gay pirate love, teenage transsexuals, alcoholic parents… and well wanking over Jessica Alba. I am completely in love with him… and the gay pirate song… I wish I knew what it was called because it wasn’t on the CD. “Oh Sebastian, Sebastian…”
By the time Reverend And The Makers came on, the crowd had filled out considerably. Normally B and I are the oldest people at the gigs we go to…. But this time it felt like we were the youngest. I’ve never seen so many drunk men in their late 30’s in one my place in my life and I hope I never do again. I’ve been in moshpits with seventeen year old boys and been shoved, trampled and groped less than towards the back of the floor at KOKO last night. I have also come out of festivals with less beer poured on me. Everyone was so drunk I’d be surprised if they remembered which band they saw. It was dreadful… give me teenage indie kids any day, they’re a thousand times politer.
All of that said band was actually brilliant. Their rich bluesey-ska-ey sound matched the acoustics of KOKO perfectly. The Reverend AKA Jon McClure serves up his social critique in-between leering at the audience as if he was going to eat them, bobbing and weaving like a drunk boxer and shooting an imaginary pistol. We got to hear a number of tracks from the forthcoming release, A French Kiss In The Chaos, which promises to be an even darker insight into how McClure feels about “the state of things”. I would have danced if the floor had been less sticky but I couldn’t move my feet. The energy was definitely there but the crowd sapped all of mine…
