Entitled Sons and Bones Ate Arfa at the O2 Academy Islington

While I am sure much of the audience will have seen Entitled Sons before, I strongly suspect I was the only one who had seen the support, Bones Ate Arfa three times as well!

Now it so happens that the first four times I had seen Entitled Sons they were playing the same sort of venues that I had seen Bones Ate Arfa in. What one might call "intimate" venues, ie very small, dives, often at the back of, above, or below, pubs. It is just that Entitled Sons have stepped up a league and now playing proper venues like this. What Entitled Sons have suddenly done is attract a young female audience. Big time.

Now normally I like to be right at the front of gigs. This is mostly because I am vertically challenged. If I am not a the front I don't see much. However given Entitled Sons have now a devoted following of schoolgirls I feel a little self-conscious to put it mildly if I was among them. But the Islington Academy offers an alternative - a balcony. So that is where I headed on entrance, and to my great delight it was entirely empty. Evidently the girls had not discovered it, as frankly most would have had a much better view from up there. I say all this only to explain the angle of my photos.

So first up, Bones Ate Arfa. I have to say that although I was delighted to see them on the bill, I was  equally surprised. I just didn't see them as the right match for Entitled Sons, or at least not for the Entitled Sons audience. They are heavy, grungy and in my view more of a lads band. And of course I had only seen them in pubs.

The first great thing I took from this performance is that hey actually suit a bigger stage. I just lacked the imagination to see what they might be like with a bigger audience and more space to fill. They did it all admirably.

My second surprise though is that they went down very well with the teenage girls! I really don't think the guys are used to being screamed at by adoring teenagers. Bones in particular seemed to lap it up, while at the same time looking rather astonished! Anyway, much as I have enjoyed seeing them (and indeed have a ticket to see them in Brighton in December - watch this space), this is the first time I have coma away thinking they just might make it to the big time, as opposed to just being three lads having a good time. Hopefully they will manage to do both.

So then on to the main course, Entitled Sons. They came on to to the expected chorus of excited screams. This all seems such a contrast to the first time I saw them at the back of the Half Moon pub in Putney when they had to encourage the audience of well under a hundred to come forward rather than hog the back wall. Here the front was jealously guarded by teenage girls and the show was sold out - which means a crowd of about 800. Indeed one can see how quickly their fortunes have changed by the fact that the show was originally booked for the smaller O2 venue here which has a capacity of 250 but sold out at once.

I do hoe that the fact that they have played the teenage schoolgirl market so well does not mean they get dismissed as a mere "boyband". After all, the Beatles were a boyband. They are actually very good. Their songs are catchy and all their own (this is the first show I have seen where they dropped their Johnny B Good cover from the set). Lead singer Charlie is packed with charisma and has a superb slightly gravelly rock voice. Raffey on lead guitar acts like a second front man (without contributing at all to the vocals). And he can clearly play a guitar very well. But it all adds up to them being very entertaining to watch on stage as well as good to listen to.

Billy on keyboards takes rather a back (or at least, side) seat

Raffey does love a venture into the crowd....

Dad Graham very much leaves it his sons to take the limelight

Having previously removed his jacket to display his "Lover Boy" t-shirt, Raffey and brother Laurie from drums then come to the front as Charlie tries to do his hard sell on the merchandise. (It is common knowledge these days that you don't make money from records any more. It is all ticket sales plus a large chunk of merchandise, which at this level primarily means t-shirts.) And while other band members chuck into the crowd a t-shirt they had at the edge of the stage, Raffey peels off the shirt he was wearing and throws it into a crowd now going wild with excitement, and proceeds to perform the rest of the show stripped to the waist. I was slightly surprised younger brother Laurie didn't do the same as he was wearing a band vest, and its usually the drummer who has the hottest job on stage. And I am sure it would have gone down well!

Eventually Laurie got his spell in the limelight. At least in enough light that I could capture a photo or two!

 So yeah they were great. Great performance.But...

But? Well I feel they are becoming maybe a little too professional. It feels a bit over rehearsed. A bloke I got chatting to who had (with his wife and daughter) already seen them twice on this tour, said all Charlie's banter was word for word the same every night. Which also make me wonder if all the very nice hugging that Cherie does on stage with all his brothers and his dad is actually totally choreographed. Maybe I am over thinking this but I get the impression that Charlie has the personality to ad lib more. Leave the script behind and have confidence in your spontaneity, young man!

And one very annoying thing - nothing to do with the band, was the lighting. Too often the stage was left in mostly gloom. But far worse were flashes of retina searing lights that came on. Maybe only affected those of us up in the balcony. And if only flashes that would have been ok, but sometimes, particularly on their opener, they remained still and dazzling for ages. At better venues that sort of thing is checked out. Well next year they progress to Shepherds Bush Empire, a larger and more professional space. That's a 2000 capacity venue. Hope the sell out that one!