Indie, Indie, Indie at Signature Brew (Part 1) - Closer, Highstone, Revivalry, Scale

I had already got tickets for the Sunday festival On The Meadow (not on a meadow, but in a brewery) , so I thought I might as well attend this free festival the day before at the same venue. I hadn't heard of any of the acts on the Sunday, so it is fair to say these are even more obscure (sorry, "up and coming") acts. So some could be a bit rubbish, but usually there are some good acts on these big bills.

In fact I very much enjoyed almost all the acts, with the exception of the first act I saw. As I have said before, one usually expects the openers to be the weakest act. But they were not actually the openers, just the first act I saw. They were on stage when I arrived. I had just decided to have lunch and then mosey on down for this, so I think there had already been a couple of acts on before this group. I think they were Masquerade, but difficult to be sure especially as the following act were not on the bill I had been sent at all 

So why did I like them least? The music was fine. It was the vocals. The two girls who fronted the band just had really harsh sounding voices. Strong, but just hard on the ears. Well my ears anyway.

As you can see below from the end of their set, this really is at a working brewery. There are vats all the way down one side. But its a surprisingly good venue. Cooler than outside (that doesn't mean it was cool, just not an inferno), good lighting and easy to access to Signature Brew beers which are both good and reasonably priced. Such a nice contrast to Finsbury Park the weekend before. But of course at Finsbury Park the crowd was in the order of 20,000. I counted 15 at one stage here, and I doubt it got above 100 even for the headliners

So the first act I saw all the way through were Closer. And they were not on the bill. I only discovered that by asking one of the guitarists. And got chatting to the mother of two of the band members. This was apparently one of their first gigs under a new band name and line up. She described herself at the proud mother of the twin brothers on drums and lead vocals.

It was only seeing the drummer helping out after wards that I recognised him. I asked if my memory served me right that he had played here before and indeed did so twice in the same day as he had to fill in on drums for another act. He confirmed I was right and he was organising this and co-organising the event tomorrow. So I looked up this blog for my review of last year's On the Meadow and lo he and his brother were in the opening act then. Anyway, really nice switched on young man. So, unusually, the photos below start with the drummer. Always hardest to photograph the drummer. Usually obscured by other band members, or in poor lighting.

With his twin brother

But the added challenge with him is that he sits quite low while drumming, with the result that his face was generally obscured by his cymbal - I was taking lots of photos in the hope that the brass work would be flat or he would be head up! I quite like this one

One reason I didn't cotton on to them being identical twins was simply because the vocalist wore sunglasses. The eyes are obviously important!

Highstone followed. I was drawn to them for two reasons. First was the quality of the vocals of their lead singer. He just had more subtlety and range than any of the other acts. They and the following acts all had good strong vocals, his just had greater variation

The other attraction was this young man on lead guitar - the attraction not being how good a guitarist he was (he sounded fine), or how good looking he was (and he did look very cool), but his t-shirt. Not too easy to see from the photo, but it was Smiths t-shot from the Queen is Dead tour, not only had I seen the real Smiths on that tour back in the day, but had also seen the Smyths performing this as a fortieth anniversary tribute only a few weeks ago. Talking to him afterwards he said he also goes to see the Smyths. And talking to the lead singer I found they were playing the Finsbury next Saturday. So you know where I will be.....

Next up, Revivalry. Three young lads who to my surprise were all 18 or over as they looked younger. (Or maybe I am getting older and everyone looks....)

I feel I can confidently assert that they are the biggest band on the Cleethorpes music scene. Said this was only their third time in London, but they would be coming down again in October and handed out flyers for their tour. And if I wasn't on holiday then I would have considered seeing them.

Strong points - the enthusiasm of lead singer and the drummer. Starting with lead vocalist. Sad that he was playing to such a small crowd but he gave it all he could, and when he couldn't get the audience to come forward to him, he leapt off stage and came to us.

All three band members dropped down to do a little acoustic song in the middle of the largely empty auditorium.

And yes I mentioned the drummer. I really needed to have videoed him. He was just totally frenetic - great to watch and of course being a trio he was pretty much centre stage

And last of this first half of my review of Indie, Indie, Indie - Scale. They were fine. Indeed one of the good things about this line up was the uniformity with my tastes in guitar bands. But with that it is hard to stand out. And possibly this lot stood out less than the others!