Another Day, Gifthorse and the Havocks at the Elephant's Head

This was another free gig which is nevertheless ticketed on Dice. The tickets are only nominal given no one checks them and entry is free. Nevertheless, the tickets for the event did say doors open at 7. Which is a slightly odd concept as the Elephants Head is a pub and the bands play at the front of the pub. So the doors are actually open all day. So maybe 7pm is the start time? Well I arrived just in case and no, 7pm was not the start time. But, instead I arrived just as the band I had come to see, Another Day, were doing their sound check. At which stage I was conspicuous as being the only spectator. And having seen and chatted with them in the past, I got a personal "hello" from the band. 

Sorry for gloomy photo but the stage is in front of the windows in the pub and the sun was streaming in behind them, casting the boys in deep shadow. So basically a silhouette.

After which, having cleared the small stage of their considerable equipment, lead singer Louis was nice enough to come back and have a quick chat with me. Nice to feel recognised, probably on both our sides.

Then the openers, the Havocks, appeared for their soundcheck. And my first thought was that they sounded pretty good too. 

There was then a bit of a lull and the Havocks finally hit the stage proper at about 8pm. I could have had a later dinner!

So the Havocks are really a punk band, and an almost all female punk band - three quarters anyway. Many bands now come under the title "post-punk", but these girls really were pretty straight punk. The only "post" element is that they are past all that punk attitude, that spitting, safety pins and snarling stuff that was so much part of the seventies movement but is now, thankfully, consigned to the wastebin of history. These girls were just dressed normally, no need to "shock". Although having beckoned the audience forward they did tend to step down from the stage themselves to take up the room into which the audience had just edged. 

Trouble with many punk bands, them included, was that while I liked them at first, I got a bit bored with them. Punk isn't meant to be easy listening, but sometimes one would welcome a bit of variety.

After a pretty quick changeover the boys from Another Day took to the stage for a short set of about seven or eight numbers. Now many people would take the view that having seen an act once in a year that is enough. I take the opposite view - if I like a band I will see them every opportunity that arises. I find that far from familiarity breeding content, it breeds, well, familiarity. The more you hear the songs the more you like them, so going often enough has its own reward. I had seen this band a couple of months before and have signed up to see them again next month. And I enjoyed their last gig when they headlined, enjoyed this slot, and no doubt will enjoy them again at Paper Dress Vintage. I do feel they get better with time.

Big change from previous gigs was that Astile got a haircut!  The long messy locks have gone replaced by a severe crew cut. Hope this isn't first step to joining the marines! 

He opened the show with some poetry. But he had forgotten his exercise book with his jottings in it which he usually has, so came with a scrap of paper on which he had written a poem - titled "I left my poem at home". Well it made me smile!

The other thing I hadn't noticed before was just what a very good looking young man Jake is on guitar. He is a recent recruit - he wasn't with Another Day when I first started seeing them. And although I have seen him play before it hadn't struck me before how stunningly handsome he was - maybe it was lighting and he was wearing a vest. But seriously if this lad had been in an eighties boy band he would have been on every teenage girl's bedroom wall. These photos do not do him justice.

Another Day are a curious band. Lead singer Louis is not the most ostentatious of front men, in part I think because he is also playing guitar. The man with freedom to roam, in football parlance, is Astile on percussion, but here his limiting factor was the size of stage. So he did a lot of vertical jumping

Louis with his brother Jonte Hillier

And talking of Astile vertical jumping, the Hillier brothers also engaged in their trademark back flips. No room on stage for this, so they made a space in the audience. My camera isn't good enough to capture that speed of movement in low light (or maybe I just don't know the setting for fast shutter speed!)

I really think this is a band that should go a long way. They have some good songs, a certain vocal style, and are a really nice bunch of good looking lads. Looking forward to their next show. And you can tell how much I like them because I chose their next gig over seeing Snow Patrol the same night! (With a distinct financial saving thrown into the mix😀)

Headlining though were Gifthorse, another five piece band, but this time with a female singer untrammeled by guitar playing duties. Now the main failing with this band, unlike their two predecessors on stage, was the sound. Quite simply the lead singer's vocals were drowned by the band. That isn't to say she was a bad singer, quite the opposite as far as I could tell. Just that the balance on the mics wasn't set up optimally. I did much prefer Another Day, but much of that may be my familiarity with Another Day's songs over this band. As I say, familiarity brings its rewards...