Sweet Unrest, Bones Ate Arfa and Candide at the Camden Eye

I did what often do if at a loose end on a Friday night - go to the Sweet Spot at the Camden Eye. Sweet Unrest have a  residency so basically play there every other Friday night with a couple of support acts. Always a good night, so off I trotted and duly found Jack and Tom, lead vocalist and guitarist, outside the pub before getting things started. If you are wondering, below is the Camden Eye pub - the venue is on the first floor above the main bar. Bands generally play in the bay window you see a the front.

The opening act were a trio called Candide, whom I did enjoy. A weird synthesis between punk and prog rock, which when I was at school would have been opposite ends of the popular music spectrum. Vocals and many of the songs were definitely old school punk, but then they would meander off into long guitar parts, a la prog. They could certainly play - vocalist on the right had a voice in a punk manner, one on the left had, well, shall we say, more confidence in his own vocals than was merited!

But no lack of enthusiasm, both in their playing and support for the subsequent acts.

The middle act were then a cut above the openers. A little bit of  research on the internet came up with a description of their genre as "psychedelic street punk/desert garage rock", neither of which terms I had heard before, so was not really any the wiser, nor more able to convey what they did to the reader. So a trio, heavy, guitar based but to be honest the star for once was the drummer. A lot of the vocals might fall into the screamo category, but not altogether.

They are loud and aggressive sounding, and like most of the aggressive sounding vocalists I have come across, the lead singer when I spoke to him afterwards was charming and softly spoken. The oral equivalent of not judging a book by its cover I guess. 

I spoke to the guy at the end partly because he was sat two feet away from me, and partly because I wanted to find out whether they were London based and therefore would have further gigs in the capital so I could see them again. Turns out they are from Brighton (which I consider, musically at least, to be a suburb of London anyway), and he said they were playing the Old Blue Last at the end of the month. So I have bought my ticket for that as they will be headlining. But as memo to them, if you are playing a gig in London as a support and then playing another time, tell the crowd that piece of information so they have the opportunity of going. Don't wait for us to prise the information out of you. That isn't the game!

Bones Ate Arfa is an unusual name even by the standards of rock bands. It sounds vaguely ethnic, but in fact the reason for it (I discovered) is that it is simply the nicknames of each of them. By a process of elimination, I guess the guitarist below is Bones (he was standing next to me while Candide were playing and he is built like a pipe cleaner, so I imagine that is how he picked that moniker up), the drummer is Ate (or 8 as he has the numeral on his baggy American football shirt) leaving the softly spoken screamer on vocals as Arfa.

Now I couldn't get a decent photo of the drummer because he was furthest away from me, the lighting at the Camden Eye is not the best and because he was almost constantly in motion, so anything I could capture was a bit of a blur. He was really the focal point of the band, which is unusual. But being a trio he was effectively centre stage with guitarists either side, he had this great infectious grin on his face throughout like he was leading his best life and the long curly hair, which he proceeded to thrash around as he attacked his drum kit with real vigour, produced a great look. Like  a sedentary whirling dervish. (He might not appreciate, and would be too young to understand, the comparison with Animal, the drummer from the Muppets!) Just a great performance.

And so this must be Arfa, with distinctive green guitar and trousers that have about 6 yards more material than strictly necessary😂. I can't quite imagine just listening to them. Like the headliners, they feel very much a live band. You have to experience them. So looking forward to their show at the Old Blue Last. Would be nice if it was fairly full. They deserve an enthusiastic audience.

And to finish the boys from Sweet Unrest. Always a good show. Perform is what they do, and they don't seem to tire of it, particularly Tom and Leon on guitar. But unlike the preceding act, no doubt that Jack, the lead singer, is the centre of attraction.

Tom left and Leon right

These guys, literally, need a far bigger stage. Confining Jack to a small space at one end of a pub is like sticking a polar bear in a small cage. Cruelty

A really fun evening. i look forward to the next time. I think I may have other plans for the nights of their next few shows, but they are on a couple of larger bills later in the year, one at the Dublin Castle, one at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, both of which have a bit more space, especially the Electric Ballroom in December which also features the lovely Lucca Mae who supported Sweet Unrest at the Sweet Spot a few weeks ago. More gigs I go to, the more acts I like and want to follow to more gigs. A virtuous circle.