1,250 INHALER, Stone, Sophie May, London Camden Roundhouse, Wednesday 19th October 2022

 

Two in two nights for me, and a swift return to The Roundhouse (following the recent Menzingers gig, no. 1,247) to see Inhaler, one of the most potential-loaded young indie guitar bands for ages, headline in their own right. Logan and I had caught Eli and his crew at Victorious Festival in August, my debut Inhaler performance after I’d been forced to miss them at the end of 2021 due to Covid isolation (Rachel ending up taking Logan, and both returning with effusive reports of their brilliance and “live” dynamism). The Victorious show for me had underlined the promise inherent on their surprisingly varied debut album “It Won’t Always Be Like This”, with chiming fist-pumping stadium rockers rubbing shoulders with loose-limbed druggy dance and hazy Summer dreampop melody, whilst acknowledging that this is still an embryonic band with a (hopefully relatively short) way to go to become the finished article. With last week’s announcement of their sophomore album, due February 2023, would The Roundhouse gig, their biggest headline show to date, offer further evidence of progress along that long and winding road?

 Logan and I had made a Camden shopping day of it for the Menzingers, so this time we headed off mid-afternoon, still giving us enough time to tube over from Osterley car park, meander up the high street and grab some Camden Market street food before hitting the Roundhouse bar just before 6, passing a massive queue on the way. As with the Menzingers gig, though, they stamped us in in the bar (hooray!) so we joined the queue about ¼ to 7 and wandered in (no running, or you get ejected!) to secure a barrier spot, extreme house left in front of the speakers. I’m not going to hear anything tomorrow… what? What? No worries on that score though from opener Sophie May, a young acoustic songstress plying a pastoral and chilled, slightly bluesy vibe underpinning her heartbreak ballads. I quite liked her “Bruises And Scratches” – about dating a skateboarder, apparently! – but found the rest gossamer and forgettable, and her comment before her set closer about writing about rock stars (“ironic, as I’m now the rock star!”) seemed a bit wide of the mark…

 However, proper rock stars awaited in main support, young Scouse rabble Stone, who bounded on at 8.15 and ripped into harsh, abrasive and dynamic opener “Keep Running” with the ferocity of tinder wolves downing their prey. The brash and brutal “Fused” recalled the excellent Murder Capital in its’ stream of consciousness vocal delivery and caustic yet hooky choral chant, yet better was to come in the excellent, fist pumping “A Change”, a paean to the downtrodden melded to a Doors-ish psych verse and rabble rousing Clash-like chorus. This high kicking, guitar strafing, knee-buckle bouncing lot really mean it, maaan, and set closer “Leave It Out”, another dramatic amphetamine fast post punk anthem, was preceded by a preamble from the vocalist about his battles with depression and a message to “love each other”. Whilst sailing slightly close to the overly harsh pounding of Idles and the monotone hectoring of Fontaines DC on (admittedly brief) occasions, this was nonetheless a breathless and breath-taking support from an achingly sincere and very promising band. Great stuff!

 Follow that, Inhaler! The place was very full by this time – a sell-out on the night, maybe? – and Inhaler’s very young and predominantly female massive were fit to burst, so when the lights smashed to black and Breakwater’s 80’s disco classic “Release The Beast” heralded Inhaler’s stage entrance, the place went nuts. Opener “These Are The Days” set the tone for the new material on show tonight, with chiming, McGeoch-like guitars leading into a huge Springsteen-esque stadium-filling chorus, clearly marking their upwards trajectory. Young Eli languidly greeted the frenzied crowd with, “hello London, it’s been a while…” before plunging into the Cure-like urgent, insistent and taut “Move On”. With the band generally lacking the overt onstage kinetic dynamism of their support, Eli relied on his laid-back Irish charm, encouraging the crowd to dance with comments like, “by the looks of it you’re a lively bunch, can you jump up and down to this one?”, before the calypso-tinged opening to “Who’s Your Money On”. “Our first visit to London was 5 years ago, to see Soulwax [here]; we stood over there!” he then remarked, pointing just behind our barrier spot before the parched, “Joshua Tree” feel of “Why Does It Hurt”, which also featured an impressive side-projected circular light show.

 

The Summery dreampop of “Slide Out The Window” was a lazy, hazy highlight before the boys picked up the pace with a huge, singalong “It Won’t Always Be Like This” and the undulating riff and soaring chorus of “Cheer Up Baby”, before drifting offstage, set done, at 55 minutes! Really? Yikes! Encores of the laid-back, almost Motown soul of newie “Break My Heart” and inevitable ringing finale “My Honest Face” brought it over the hour before the boys took their bows, but I was left puzzlingly wanting more – a damn fine show, no doubt, but barely an hour at a venue like The Roundhouse seemed too brief for me…

 Nonetheless, I held out for a setlist, a friendly roadie grabbing me their keyboard player’s list, then some slow crosstown connections got us back to Osterley at 10 to midnight, a swift blast home getting us back just after 1. Good gig, fine support, Inhaler continuing to show promise, but with the brevity of the set continuing for me to show they’re still a “work in progress” right now. Tix already booked for their sophomore album tour next February, and we’ll be going to Bristol expecting more. I hope they deliver!

1,249 OCTOBER DRIFT, Bristol Rough Trade Records, Tuesday 18th October 2022

 

Another chance for a close-up gig and a “meet and greet” at Bristol’s Rough Trade Records, and a possible “History Repeats” moment… I’d first seen promising young neo-shoegaze/ post-punk rabble October Drift here on their debut album release show, back in 2020 just before the world stopped (gig 1,172), as I was unable to make any of the dates on their subsequent tour. Having caught them earlier this year at my old haunt the Jericho Tavern in Oxford (gig 1,216), I knew they were in fine form, and would probably be more so, following vocalist Kiron’s tree-climbing exploits on Pearl Jam’s Summer Hyde Park gig undercard! They then announced an Autumn tour promoting sophomore album “I Don’t Belong Anywhere”, but, unfortunately, I can’t make it to any of the local dates… bollocks! But wait, they then announced another Rough Trade album release show in Bristol, and this one I can get to! Yay!

 So I headed off early doors for this early scheduled one, looking forward to some promised “sonic brutality” (the band’s words, not mine!)! Got held up by a broken down VW camper van just outside Cabot but otherwise parked up and hit the venue in good time. However, the place was very quiet and the band themselves were setting up for an acoustic performance down the far end of the store, rather than in the usual back room! Turned out they wanted to give this format a try due to only 60 advance tickets being sold, to which I say a) brave boys, putting a lot of trust and confidence in the quality of their song writing, once stripped of all the heavy guitar assault, and b) 60? Only 60? Bristol, what is wrong with you???

 I took a pew down the front of the performance area, in front of a few little tables spread out from the usual corner bar, as a RT employee placed candles on them for that relaxed hipster bistro feel! Eventually moved to a padded bench against the far wall (the wooden bench made my bum ache, so there!), just before the boys (who’d been meandering around the bar area chatting to various folk) took their places just after 7.30, Kiron remarking, “we’re about to fumble our way through some new songs…”. So, acoustic it was, with drummer Chris straddling an amp case for percussion and announcing, “this will be the most chilled version of the [new] album you’ll ever hear”!

 

Opener “Lost Without You” was nonetheless a splendid opener, the verse given a more eerie, haunting feel acoustically, before the bleak yet strident hook, which for me recalled Adorable’s more morose moments. This seemed to set the tone for much of the new material, as “Airbourne Panic Attack” similarly featured a moody, stripped back verse and huge chorus, given extra gravitas by the emphasis on vocalist Kiron and drummer Chris’ impressively powerful dual vocal harmonies, and “Feels Like” featured an equally potent chorus, underpinned by some fine percussive beats from Chris. “Webcam Funerals” (“a bit of a timestamp”, acknowledged Kiron) was a moody piece with bleak subject matter, and “Waltzer” – a “cheesy power ballad” which none of the band initially liked, according to Kiron! – featured some anthemic call and response choral lines (“I had to fight hard for [those] in the chorus!” admitted Chris) had somewhat of a Waterboys “Big Music” feel.

 By this time Chris was feeling the strain of his strident and committed backup vocals and needed a strawberry Strepsil, gratefully accepted from a lady in the front row, to keep on track! A couple of oldies followed; an excellent melodic “Forever Whatever” and a dramatic, undulating “Oh The Silence” before Chris and Kiron delivered a final, slow burn and elegiac “Old And Distant” to round off an excellent vignette, the boys’ confidence in the quality of their (particularly new) songs utterly justified.

 

Got the sole list (hooray!) and milled around chatting briefly to guitarist Daniel, before getting a more “formal” pic and signed list/ CD. Shame I can’t get to any of their local tour dates, as I bet the new material will really take flight with the full “sonic brutality” behind it, but that’ll wait for another time. In the meantime, this was a thoroughly successful gig, the acoustic format giving this young band a different dimension and revealing the shining quality of their material. Well done boys!

1,248 FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS, Pet Needs, Truckstop Honeymoon, Mash P, Bristol O2 Academy, Thursday 13th October 2022

 

An even dozen for Frank with this one, but one which was a little while in coming… after Frank’s post-Covid lockdown “Gathering” double hander tour with Sleeping Soul cohort Matt Nasir, which we caught last August in Frome (gig 1,186), I fully expected him to burst immediately back into full-on “always on tour” mode. However, a Spring 2022 UK tour promoting new, harder-edged and more personal album “FTHC” was inexplicably canned after we got tix – all dates cancelled, not postponed – so I took a bath on 3 sets of additional fees. Bah! I therefore havered a little before getting tix for this Autumn tour (I hesitate to say “rearranged”, because of the cancellation), but Logan’s usual enthusiasm for seeing one of his gig regulars swayed me. I figure, though, after having to book and rebook, Frank owes me one…

 An early start for this one too – 6 p.m.! – so I picked Logan up after his history club at 4.30, figuring that’d be enough time… wrong, as it happened, as we left the M4 at 5.30 then took 40 minutes to crawl into Bristol. Bah! So on our arrival the front row barriers were already taken, but we got a decent spot second row, house right. Clearly this sell-out gig was taking more time to fill than last week’s… We also didn’t have long to wait for another iteration of Frank’s vaguely idiosyncratic supports; the man himself took the stage at 6.30 to introduce Mash P, a young man whom Frank had met in Sierra Leone whilst he was living on the streets, but wanting to make music. The young camo-clad high kicking Mash was clearly buoyed to perform his street rap, over a calypso tinged heavy dub baking track, but whilst I admired his enthusiasm and was psyched for his music being the way out of his previous parlous state, I’m never a fan of backing tracks in any genre… However, I enjoyed his closer, “Me I Wanna Know”, an old fashioned protest song with acoustic backup from a 2-piece band, who turned out to be next support, Truckstop Honeymoon! This veteran husband and wife duo then played some dusty ramshackle US country numbers on stand-up double bass and banjo, which mainly sounded like the soundtrack to “The Beverley Hillbillies”! Again, musically not for me (call my musical tastes narrow if you will, you wouldn’t be the first!), although I liked the wild-haired Milton Jones lookalike vocalist’s stories about raising kids in industrial New Orleans (“if you deprive your kids of all forms of electronic stimulation, they will find coal quite fascinating!”), and his reference to his 3 daughters being in the room (“picking your pockets – it’s a family business!”). Also, both they and Mash were still a whole lot better than (gig 924’s terrible support) Koo Koo Kanga Roo…!

 

Thankfully, we had Pet Needs next; on at 7.45, this young 4 piece (whom I’d casually and very incorrectly dismissed as “frantic acoustic folky skiffle” after a couple of minutes of their “Gathering” support slot in Frome last year, gig 1,186) burst on with a jumpy emo-punk opener which initially recalled last week’s Menzingers support Joyce Manor, apart from it actually sounding completed…! However, their fast and frantic (got that right, at least…) material then took an old school proto punk twist, with “Tracey Emin’s Bed” recalling The Shapes’ 1979 “Batman At The Launderette”, no less! Subsequent numbers walked this tightrope between fairly standard, if bright and vibrant, emo pop-punk and rawer ramshackle old school punk riffery, with “As The Spin Cycle Spins” a fun thrashy number about a washing machine, and “Ibiza In Winter” a singalong punk rant. Throughout, the energy and movement onstage was impressive, particularly the mic-stand juggling vocalist, and I liked his reaction to the audience’s cheers following his preamble about the band handing in their collective notices and going full-time; “you handled that news better than my parents!”. Young, enthusiastic and brash, this was a splendid support slot from a promising rabble.

 Grabbed a drink for Logan as our space suddenly got smaller in anticipation of Frank’s arrival! Straight onstage at 9 to a cacophonous noise, he and the Souls immediately launched into a rampaging “Four Simple Words” which was an apposite agenda setter for this set – like last week’s Menzingers performance, this was a full-on “punk rock show” from the outset, full of energy, venom and righteous fury. “It’s been 3, maybe even 4 years since our last show [here]; we’ve got some shit to make up!” declared Frank midway through an early “Photosynthesis”, before laying down the usual ground-rules (community, look after each other, participation, don’t be a dick), then asking for a circle pit… feigning disappointment with the size of said pit, he fired up the mosh massive with, “c’mon, that’s a Swindon circle!”

 

Frank appearing to wave to my friend, the prodigiously talented photo artist Martin Thompson...

At this point I lost my 15 year old son, straight into the pit where he stayed for the rest of the gig! Hashtag myworkhereisdone (again)… Frank then introduced a savage, venomous “1933” with [I’m] pissed off that I [even] have to sing an anti-fascist song in 2022!” (us too, Frank, us too…), before then introducing the band, including new drummer and Swindon native Callum Green, Frank countering the inevitable boos with, “I like Swindon! I’ve had some good gigs there!” Hooray! The subsequent, excellent “Untainted Love” was also preceded with a story from the voluble Frank about Johnny Cash dining with Bono, then uttering the line which Frank co-opted for this song; “I sure do miss drugs!”

 Frank and the Souls were totally on fire tonight, and Frank was as fine a raconteur as singer as well! “One Foot Before The Other” was stunningly dark, dramatic and hard-edged, before Frank headed into his acoustic interlude via a touching “Miranda” (preceded by a lovely exposition about how his relationship with his father has improved since she came out as transgender), a rousing singalong double of “If Ever I Stray” and “Next Storm”, and “Wave Across A Bay”, another touching number, this time about his friend, the late Scott Hutchinson. Said solo break was however probably my highlight; “There She Is”, dedicated to his wife Jess, whose birthday was today (!), then a sharp change of tack with a vitriolic “Thatcher Fucked The Kids”, and a pointed political preamble before a haunting “Be More Kind”, including the comment, “[we now have] a fresh bunch of dickheads that literally no-one voted for!” The band then returned for a swaggering and slightly Hold Steady-esque “The Gathering” and slow-burn “Polaroid Picture” before a powerful, fist-pumping “Get Better” ended a set chock full of utter bangers.

 A four song encore, rounded off with a roof-raising singalong to “I Still Believe” and Frank’s profuse thanks for our attendance, took us up to 2 hours. Wow! Logan emerged surprisingly unscathed from the pit and we both grabbed fairly easy lists, running into friends Kieron and Jo on our way out. I then noticed, despite having only gently (for me) jigged around at the periphery of the hectic mosh, that I ached to utter buggery and my knee had seized up, so t’was a slow and painful egress and careful drive home via the kebab van for a couple of hungry boys, reflecting on a brilliant, notably harder-edged show from Frank and the Souls. Well, Mr. Turner, you said you had some shit to make up; consider any debt fully repaid!

1,247 THE MENZINGERS, Joyce Manor, Sincere Engineer, London Camden Roundhouse, Saturday 8th October 2022

 

October’s Dance Card is coming thick and fast; after the previous night out with daughter Jami seeing Beabadoobee in Bristol, here’s a trip up the Smoke for a boy’s punk rock day and evening out! The punk rock in question here being of the new millennial rather than the original 70’s variety, however, with an intriguing triple bill topped by Scranton, PA’s The Menzingers. A band who I was ironically late to the party with, fully jumping onboard with 2017’s “After The Party” which saw an evolution from their punkier roots and into a more expansive heartland blue collar rock recalling favourites Jimmy Eat World, The Gaslight Anthem and The Hold Steady. I’d loved this and their subsequent 2019 effort “Hello Exile”, a couple of splendid Bristol SWX shows (gigs 1,069 and 1,174) also putting them firmly on my gig radar. Unfortunately, the closest their first post-Covid UK tour took them to the ‘don was North London’s Roundhouse (Menzingers vocalist Greg Barnett taking some stick from me for not playing Bristol on this tour, at his Exchange solo gig earlier this year (gig 1,231)!), but hey, it’s on a Saturday, so… boy’s afternoon out in Camden, right?

 So Logan and I hit the road at lunchtime, parking up at our booked Kentish Town bolt-hole just after 3, following a difficult last half of the journey, no doubt influenced by the train strikes, and necessitating a loo stop at the busiest McDonalds ever on the busiest retail park ever, just off Western Avenue! Much nosing around Camden Market and some fine Chinese street nosh later, we hit the Roundhouse’s side bar just after 6, only to have our tix scanned and bags checked in advance of the 7 pm doors. So we’re in… sorta… eventually joined the snaking queue on the stairs at 7 and grabbed barrier spots, house right, chatting to our neighbours before openers, Chicago’s Sincere Engineer, on at 7.30. Their brand of urgent and insistent power chord driven poppy punk, overlaid by angst-ridden drainpipe throated vocals from vocalist Deanna Belos, was derivative but fun, and I particularly liked the early “Nowhere Fast” and a later song, allegedly about depression but lyrically centring around corndogs! Deanna tried to banish her obvious nerves by asking the early audience if they had any questions, some wag down the front (ok, me…) asking, “Cubs or White Sox?”, the vocalist immediately firing back, “Cubs!” The Superchunk-like penultimate number about Lake Michigan, featuring an accelerated ending, was my overall highlight of a pretty decent set.

 We kept our barrier place but spotted our friend and “live” favourite Ben Sydes and his lovely lady Evey, so I popped over for a chat; they declined to join us down the front, Evey citing inappropriate footwear (!), and, partway through main support Joyce Manor’s set I figured, they may have made the right choice… JM’s heavily bass-driven verses and shouty superfast emo choruses initiated a serious mosh behind us, with a high number of crowdsurfers flooding over our heads! Their generic emo/ pop punk numbers also often seemed to end before they were ready, a breakneck “Heart Tattoo” (their 7^th or 8^th number?) being the first one to sound fully formed! A slower outlier, the Jimmy Eat World-like “Falling In Love Again” was an early highlight; the superfast “Victoria” nicked its’ circular guitar riff from Green Day’s “Basketcase”; and set closer “Leather Jacket” was a chunky and hooky swayalong. That aside, this superfast 20+ song (!) 40 minute set (a Ramones/ Dickies-like pace!) suffered for me from a lack of variation, so felt like a relentless bombardment at times…

 Everyone took a collective breath then, and I figured, it’s not going to be that mad for The Menzingers, right? They’re not that stridently “punk” any more, right? Right? Wrong, as it happened… the lights darkened at 9.40 as The Ramones’ “Do You Wanna Dance” roared over the P.A., The Menzingers’ entrance music ultimately serving as an appropriate agenda setter for their performance. From the start, they were fully up for delivering a fast and frantic, powerful and potent, raw and ragged, fully “on it” punk rock set, opener “Good Things” kicking off an even bigger mosh and re-initiating the deluge of crowdsurfers, encouraged in no small part by co-vocalist Tom May, a red-faced whirligig of perpetual motion throughout, Zebedee without the big fuck-off spring… After an early, anthemic “America (You’re Freaking Me Out)” May exclaimed, “London, Holy Shit! It’s not often we get to play at such a legendary venue!” his cohort in crime Greg Barnett countering with, “we played [a venue in] Philadelphia to 2,600… I’ve heard that thanks to some finagling of the numbers, there’s 2,601 in [The Roundhouse] tonight!”

 

So, it seemed that tonight was officially The Menzingers’ biggest ever headlining gig; that being so, they played up to the occasion quite brilliantly. “Telling Lies” was a pointed metaphor for trying to come of age in this fucked up moment in time, “House On Fire” practically raised the roof with its massive repetitive hook, and “Your Wild Years” was a personal favourite; I think there was a little Baah-ston in everyone’s attitude tonight…! Oldie “The Obituaries” saw Greg and Tom lead the “I will fuck this up” hook singalong, before a frankly awesome, yearning “Anna” which was a breathless yet heartfelt set highlight. Wow. An unplanned “Casey” and “In Remission” rounded off the set, an incredulous Tom fulsomely praising the enthusiastic crowd. But that wasn’t it… first encore “Lookers” nearly topped “Anna” for me, Greg holding his mic aloft and conducting the crowd in the hushed opening lyric singalong, before Joe Godino’s pounding drumbeat launched the song into hurtling, relentless life. “After The Party”, their manifesto number, rounded off a superb performance, easily the best I’ve seen this increasingly special rabble.

 And I learned a bit about my 15 year old son as well; despite the relentless pounding and shoving from the moshpit behind us, he stayed strong and lasted the course, singing along and giving as good as he got, particularly in fending off one particular dickhead who tried to relieve us of our barrier spot, late on. A just reward was Tom’s setlist, which we gratefully accepted before saying farewell to Ben and Evey and ambling slowly back to the car, a Joyce Manor-esque breakneck drive down the inky black M4 seeing us home just after 1.15 a.m. Battered and limb-weary the next day (me, not Logan!), although that may also have been due to my Covid booster I’d gotten before hitting the road to London. Nonetheless, this was just a superb showing from The Menzingers, capping off another great boy’s punk rock outing!

1,246 BEABADOOBEE, Pretty Sick, Bristol O2 Academy, Friday 7th October 2022

 

One with the daughter of the house before a run of gigs with my little man! I’d picked up on purported “Gen Z icon” Beabadoobee, pseudonym of Brit/ Filipino singer/ songwriter Beatrice Kristi Laus, thanks to her 2020 debut album proper, “Fake It Flowers” which fitted in well with a whole clutch of female fronted powerpoppy band discoveries of that year (Soccer Mommy, Tiny Stills and so on) with some dreamy post-grungy college pop, principally recalling Boston’s Juliana Hatfield and her pre-solo band, the excellent Blake Babies. Jami liked it too, so we booked tix for this one before she released her sophomore effort “Beatopia” earlier this year, this one being a more low-key and slower grower for me but still featuring some chunky powerpop which should come across well “live”…

 This one was a sell-out too, so we decided to get there as early as possible, which still meant a pick-up after Jami’s Aerial Silks session and a swift drive down a dusky and damp M4. Bad traffic in Bristol however saw us parking at a frustrating 20 minutes after doors, and we exited Trenchard Street car park to be confronted with a massive queue going down the hill, doubling around the load-in area as well! Thank fuck for O2 Priority entrance, I muttered as we swanned past the snaking queue and got in, only to find… the place was already rammed! With the floor already chock full of Bea’s frenzied massive, we headed upstairs, grabbing the last bit of barrier overlooking the stage, extreme stage left. Clearly I underestimated the appeal of this young performer, a point underlined by my server at the top bar informing me that people had been queueing up at 10 a.m. for this one! Furthermore, even the appearance onstage of a mic check roadie was cheered to the rafters… this place is going to go off the scale when the headliner emerges…!

 Openers, New York trio Pretty Sick, took the stage at 8 to probably the loudest ovation of their career to date, kicking into an opener which totally appropriated the drumbeat from The Stone Roses’ “I Am The Resurrection” but settled into a down and dirty grungy Babes In Toyland screamalong. Subsequent numbers, including their drum-dominated, sleazoid best song “Devil In Me” were generally mid-paced, balancing tinges of messy grunge and discordant college pop, strongly recalling Veruca Salt, with vocalist Sabrina Fuentes’ gravelly vocal inflections also resembling Shireen of The Slingbacks! Mining a similar seam to my current faves Francis Of Delirium, albeit without the quality of tuneage, I liked them fine whilst acknowledging their application to be on the soundtrack of “Singles” is about 30 years too late…!

 The 90’s slacker grunge mood continued between bands, as the P.A played the likes of Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and even Sonic Youth’s Carpenters tribute “Superstar” to pass the time! The place was fit to burst, and the lights smashing to black at 9 p.m. sharp was greeted with deafening screams. Laudably, young Beatrice took the stage at the same time as her band, opener “10.36” immediately getting pretty much the whole floor jumping. An early “Care”, my favourite from her debut, ticked in like Ben Kweller’s splendid “Wasted And Ready” then excelled with some grunge-tastic riffery overlaying a dismissive vocal, a circle pit (not the last of the evening…) forming for the final instrumental break. “Worth It”, next up, was a very Blake Babies-esque number with some fine off-kilter riffs, and Jami loved the hooky “Charlie Brown”, which apparently featured on the soundtrack to her favourite recent TV programme “Heartstopper”!

 A couple of fluffy raccoons were thrown onstage for Bea (this is apparently a thing, a big toy raccoon being sat atop the bass drum) before the pure college pop of “She Gets Me So High”, which was delivered with Bea’s very Juliana/ Tanya-esque clear choirgirl vocals; then the more introspective “Sorry” needed a restart, as someone was dragged out of the pit (again, not the last of the evening…), an otherwise taciturn Bea urging her young fans to be kind to each other. Whilst the final third of the set, taken primarily from “Beatopia”, drifted a little for me, a later and rockier “Back To Mars” lifted things back up, and set closer “Talk” was for me the set highlight, bright and poppy, short and snappy, to round off an equally short and snappy 18-song set which ultimately barely cleared 1 hour! However, by this time Jami was flagging, so we chose to miss the planned 3 song encore in favour of a quick departure, grabbing a beanie for J then a quick snack before racing home, back at 11! A fun “daddy/ daughter” evening out nonetheless, in the company of a talented young performer clearly destined for much bigger venues. And Jami loved it too, so all good!