White Lies at EartH and Lafayette

I was very excited when I first saw this gig advertised, or rather two gigs. One of my favourite bands, While Lies, were going to perform two of their albums, Rituals and Big TV on consecutive nights at one of my favourite venues, Lafayette. Only downsides were that none of my friends could make the dates, and Lafayette is  a small venue so wasn't sure that I would be able to get tickets.

Well, the good news was that I got tickets. And then came the bad news. Somehow the ticket agency had sold too many tickets. My contempt for ticket agencies generally, and SeeTickets in particular, knows no bounds. I mean, your only job is to book tickets online, for which you charge a ridiculous amount given there is no manual posting etc. How can you sell too many? 

Anyway, their answer to this was to "upgrade" the Friday night to a bigger venue, EartH, and give the option of a second night at Lafayette, ie they would play there both Saturday and Sunday. As it happens the latter suited me very well as now I could get some friends along. And then the tickets could only be used from the SeeTickets app. Which is utterly useless. I couldn't find them, so had to ring up, and basically I don't think they had uploaded them.

Now I hate EartH. Only been there once before to see Hot Chip and I got dripped on by an air conditioning unit in a packed overheated cellar of a hall.

So what is wrong with it? Well firstly it is in Stoke Newington and unlike Lafayette it is a pain to get there. No convenient nearby tube. I got a bus. But mostly it is a multi purpose venue, which means a featureless basement. The name is annoying too. EartH stands for Evolutionary Arts Hackney. Hate it when they stick capital letters in the middle of a word. 

Anyway, away I went to see Rituals being played. First up was a young singer songwriter on his guitar.

And then we got the main act. Who performed their first album in full first, then went off and did a sort of greatest hits set in the second half.

Two days later I turned up for the second part of this gig, with the feature album being Big TV. Not as good an album, but a much more enjoyable night, partly because of the vastly superior venue and partly because I had a friend along.

Much of the attraction of the venue is that because it is so small one can go up on the balcony and still be close to the act. And as the balcony is effectively only two deep, I could stand at the front with my six foot five friend behind me and then he isn't annoying anyone else by totally blocking their view. And we were just yards from the bar. Which Eoin made a lot of use of!

On top of that, since it is just round the back of Kings Cross it is very easy to get to. And as it is purpose built as a gig venue, it is perfect for its use!

So after same singer opening, on came White Lies

 A truly enjoyable night. Excellent band at top of their game. Look forward to a new album.