Entitled Sons at the Half Moon in Putney

I do like catching a new band. And a new venue.

So I piled down to Putney on Saturday night to see the Entitled Sons. The Half Moon is a traditional live music pub, which like other small venues prides itself on the big acts that started there. Their big name is the Who. I must confess when I got there I was rather surprised at how small the venue was. And not the usual crowd behaviour - everyone clustered at the back not rushed to the front. Although the back might only have been 6 metres from the stage! I took up a spot at front but right at the side despite the vacant middle solely because it allowed me to lean on one of the speakers. Normally I lean on the barrier, but this place was too small to have a barrier! Eventually security had to usher people to the front.

Now if you go to see an act in the back of a pub, you expect any support act to be pretty rubbish. My second surprise was how good the support act, Bowen, really were. I normally find an indie guitar band with a female lead singer is a bad sign. Only because most female vocalists just don't have the voice to carry over a crunching lot of rock guitars, either too quiet or too shouty. But this girl was really good.

 

And then onto Entitled Sons. They have a very particular claim to fame - they are literally a family band - four teenage brothers and their father on bass. They performed all their own compositions with just the one classic rock n roll cover. But their strong point is not so much the music as the stage presence, plus they can really play their instruments despite their youth. Especially the two youngest, Raff on lead guitar giving it all the rock star treatment, and the 14 year old on drums.

But the star is Charlie on lead vocals who has a real rock voice and properly plays the stage. Only catch was he desperately needed a bigger stage than this!

A really good experience, I will catch them again. All the excitement of youth but none of the gauche introspection. What they would be really good at is a small festival. The issue wasn't the intimate venue, just the available square metres on stage!