Sweet Unrest, Chive and Suspire at the Stags Head

Two of my friends had expressed an interest in going to a pub gig, so I arranged this outing to the Stags Head in Hoxton on a Friday night. My aim was to see Sweet Unrest again, who apparently were headlining this gig in place of their usual residency at the Camden Eye, supported by two bands I had never heard of, Suspire and Chive.

First up were Suspire and we thought they were ok, until the next two bands when you saw the striking improvement in standards! They were a bit shambolic, and their drummer was a stand in (although very competent one). We reckoned the act was really the band of the guitarist on the left below. We based this view on the fact that he insisted on singing as lead in one number, despite having a truly execrable voice. Stick to what you can do!

Then followed Sweet Unrest, from which I surmised that the second act had scratched. That and the fact they seemed to be late on, and Jack (lead vocalist) was clearly late as one of the other band members was on the phone to find out where he was during the sound check. But on he came in natty blue jacket, quickly got ready and they were into their set with usual gusto. 

One thing that quickly became evident was the stage was nowhere big enough for the five of them, not with Jack's energetic movement. He also came down into the audience and was stood right next to me. Intimate venue!

Given how hot it was inevitably the plush jacket didn't last long and soon Jack was baring his chest

And from the sheen on Jack's chest below you can see just how hot it was! 

So that is when I thought the gig was finished - rather early. My mate Alan decided to head home, but as we were stood there, the tiny room having almost completely emptied, we saw a couple of blokes appearing with guitars. I asked what turned out to be the drummer if there was another act on and he confirmed they very much were. So Simon and I stayed to see Chive, who it turned out were the headline act. They were also really good. A trio (so better fitted to stage size!) and both guitarists had decent voices. They announced they were playing a different pub on 9 May, and Simon and I have pencilled that in too. Yes, that impressive!

So I met Tom, one of the guitarists of Sweet Unrest, as we left and introduced Simon to him (how cool I feel introducing my friends to band members!), but said I thought his band were supposed to be headlining. And he said, so did they! The gig was booked by their manager, and to be fair the poster for the gig had Sweet Unrest written at the top with the poster photo below being a shot of Jack, so it was a reasonable assumption.

Anyway, will see Sweet Unrest again soon no doubt, and probably Chive too. That is the thing with gigs at this level - you just come across other bands, and they don't just come to Town every other year on tour, they play various London gigs so you can see them often.