January’s normally a bit of a slow month for gigs, the “Dance Card” habitually stuttering to a start like an old jalopy, before becoming its’ usual turbocharged beast from February onwards; such purports to be the case for 2023, with this the only January gig before a 6-gig salvo in February, followed by another 5 in March! Nonetheless, this promised to kick off the gigging year with a bang, in the company of Coach Party, the impressively spritely, snarky Isle Of Wight indie-popsters and recent “live” favourites of both myself and my gig buddy Logan, playing what for them must be as close to a hometown gig as possible on the mainland, at Southampton’s excellent Joiner’s Arms. Sold out too, this one, so if we expected – and got – fireworks at their Louisiana last May (gig 1,225), Coach Party may well take the roof off a packed-out Joiners…!
Beef
joined us for this one; with Logan now in his GCSE year, his gig attendance is restricted
to weekends! So, the usual M4/ A34 beat route got us down to the South Coast in
fairly short order, whence I grabbed a parking spot practically outside, and we
joined the queue for doors at 7.30. The Coach Party folks were manning the merch
stand and greeting fans, so I said hey to this affable bunch, the “Isle Of
Wight’s Ass” story getting another airing…! Into this dark and scuzzy back room
for opener Fiona Lee at 8 sharp; a young singer with a pile of cascading blonde
curls and a nice line in octave straddling, sometimes almost operatic vocal
gymnastics, she played some intelligent and tuneful pieces with a distinct
post-grunge/ US alt-college pop 90’s feel, Alanis meets “Shame About Ray”-era
Lemonheads, maybe? An early track was inspired by Leonard Cohen, no less,
suggesting she either had a good or bad upbringing, her parents either
introducing her to Cohen’s deliciously dour and morose canon, or driving her to
it! An angry post-breakup number also saw her hit her guitar pick-up and accidentally
kill the sound during a impassioned shouty rant moment, but it was actually the
better for it! Either way, this was an impressive opening set from a
distinctive young talent.
Up next were Stockholm’s Girl Scout, on at 8.30 in front of a full crowd – Beef had checked them out beforehand and compared them to recent live faves Alvvays, and as alvvays (!) he was pretty spot-on, vocalist Emma Jansson embellishing their breezy summery C86 pop opener with similarly lilting and undulating vocal inflections to Molly Rankin! Girl Scout’s oeuvre veered from Beths-like deadpan Blondie-influenced pop (“Mothers”) through Pixies-ish harder edged stompers (“Monster” – “about being a little shit when you’re 16 years old!” joked Emma – yeah, got a couple of them at home!) to amphetamine hurtling post-punk with eminently singalong hooks (“Fell In Love With An Asshole” and excellent closer “Do You Remember Sally Moore?”), all played with verve, enthusiasm and no little deadpan humour. A perfect accompaniment for the main course tonight, then, and a band I’d like to seek out in their own right again…
A quick loo trip and a squeeze back down to our front spots, house right, before the lights smashed to black at 9.20 and Coach Party joined us onstage to a girly pop/Rage Against The Machine mashup backing track. Clearly in no mood to fuck about tonight, this lot, and after some squalling feedback they were straight in with the brilliant “Can’t Talk, Won’t”, sounding powerful, hard-edged and tough, and delivering a frankly incendiary, elemental version of this, IMHO their best number, to an enthusiastic reception. Follow that!
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Thankfully
quality control was maintained, as tonight Coach Party were superb, sounding
notably harder-edged than previous viewings, yet retaining their ear for
splendid snarky melody and undulating guitar riffery. An early, “shoutout to my
dad!” from vocalist Jess preceded a debate about dads (!) and a slow-burn “Bleach”;
the soaring, almost doo-wop melody of “Three Kisses” followed a tale about a
Sunday Times reviewer declaring it their best number; and a brilliantly chunky “Nothing
Is Real” was delivered, “in the key of nasal!” by Jess, recovering from a bad
cold. Steph then treated us to some line dancing moves (!) prior to an irresistibly
groovy newie “Hi Baby” and an acerbic, snarling “Shit TV”, the guitarist then channelling
her inner Bob Mould with some squalling feedback and primal screaming during an
impressive punk rock “Breakdown”. “FLAG” rounded off another breathless and breath-taking
Coach Party set, encore “Parasite” providing a punctuation point on proceedings,
before Steph kindly sorted me with drummer Greg’s list. Nice!
The least I could do then was to buy some merch afterwards, before saying hearty farewells to the band and hurtling Northwards to the ‘don, home for midnight. A fantastic start to Gigging Year 2023; the roof did stay on The Joiners for Coach Party, but only just... and with the band on this type of form, the sky’s the limit…!
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