A bitterly cold, windy evening in the West End – while some flocked to The 1975, others to HiFi/McAlmont, there was a sold out crowd for the first Haiver full-band show of three at the H&P.
First up however was Devin Casson, an 18-year-old from the Borders who has done at least one support slot down at McArts.
Playing a semi-acoustic, then full acoustic then back again over the six-song set, she wowed this crowd with her strong and versatile voice, dextrous strumming and plucking, deft songwriting and relaxed between-song chat. From the quite confessional-style ‘Honest With Yourself’, the more upbeat ‘Jinx’ through the somewhat more jagged ‘Too Much To Ask For'(?) (dedicated to her “big cousin” in the audience, “The only person who would watch that three hour Taylor Swift movie with me”), she ended on the bluesy ‘Left To Love’ – funnily enough Taylor Swift was the main artist who came to mind listening to this, along with a bit of Joni Mitchell – so without getting too hysterical, yes BM does think Devin is pretty talented (and she was hand-picked by Haiver frontman Billy for this gig so…) and hopes that the promised “recording” will happen sooner rather later, because this would appear to be a major new talent…
There was quite a pause before Haiver kicked off, enough to survey the array of gear on the stage, quite a bit including several keyboards, full drumset and several guitars, meaning this was going to be a bit different from the “just Billy and Brett” acoustic show at Connect last summer.
BM also understands there was a bit of delay in getting these dates booked as the band felt they weren’t quite ready, but now the hour had come, no going back. Billy Kennedy, late of Frightened Rabbit, was the evident frontman here, taking to the stage with a guitar and flanked by Brett and the others on guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and piano (there was a bit of alternating depending on the songs).
The first (new BM thinks, most of them are) song’s rousing guitar chords, harmonics and crunchy backline should have blown away any nervousness on their part, however between songs Billy did admit he was still a bit trepidatious, giving the audience a bit of an insight into his post-Frabbits life, (trying to hustle a recording deal and bringing up his young daughter). Songs about wasted potential (some great piano on this one) and loss (‘So Slow’, a more acoustic number) were clearly written from the heart and it was difficult to avoid some of the raw emotion within the lines and melodies – Billy played ‘Roadless’ (“it was a co-write, never expected to be up here singing it myself”) and directly addressed Scott’s death in the song ‘Funeral’ (key line “I didn’t know where to look”), a pretty brave thing to do (“I hope he likes it”), followed by the muscular ‘Hell’.
Later in the set there was a brand new song ‘Tortured’, very moving, a Creedence cover (‘My Back Door’), an emotional run through ‘Living In Colour’ (a song which really does give out more revelations with every listen), the set ending with the previously released (acoustic) ‘So Slow’, with the refrain “Life goes on, slower pace, darker days” – very well put…
So maybe quite a cathartic evening for Billy and the audience, but after praising the support act again he referred to “looking forward” to two performances the following and “more gigs soon” – BM looks forward to what will surely be a great debut album on the strength of tonight…
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