Another sold out gig at this cosy West End (ish) venue, and another very enjoyable evening.
First up was Motopia, aka Mairead Feighan, playing in her Motopia guise for only the third actual gig, accompanied very ably by Andy Mclaughlan on acoustic guitar. The six song set showed a lyrical maturity with social consciousness, humanity and some great wordplay/couplets and lines, along with a rich vocal.
There was also audience participation as well as a short stamping-your-feet routine, which loosened things up. There is a huge amount of potential here, especially the edgier numbers like the closing ‘Addicted To The Poison’, but actually all the tracks were great. As far as BM knows there is no music released into the wild yet but after the gig there was at least one verbal negotiation in progress with a representative from a well-kent local label… watch this space…
BM loves She Drew The Gun’s full band performances, last witnessed at the now somewhat notorious Doune 2022 (er, let’s not go any further on that…) however this was a different proposition – lead singer and chief songwriter Louise Roach doing effectively a one-woman show (although bandmate Anna Josephine Donigan did very ably assist on some of the tracks on bass and keyboards) of acoustic numbers and spoken word.
Hailing from Merseyside, the band have carved out a unique niche in the UK scene and are known for raising people’s consciousness while also giving them a great time musically. It is a hard balancing act between preaching to people and entertaining them/blowing their minds and SDTG seem to get it right pretty much every time, in BM’s experience anyway…
Alone on stage, appearing to be instantly at ease with the audience and clearly relishing a less fraught scenario musically, (there have been a few dates on this tour so far, including Edinburgh the previous night) Louisa was a bit nervous at times. She needn’t have worried though – everybody shutted the f— up during the quiet bits of spoken word, where she was spoke mainly about personal tribulations and a sort of voyage to recovery from some pretty dark places. There was plenty of humour, some of it black, and warmth as well, with many of the references being to family members and recalling memories of growing up etc which we can all relate to.
There was politics as well, with both small and larger “P”s… A selection of SDTG tracks were played, from probably the one that got them noticed in the first place ‘Poem’ to more recent efforts such as ‘Behave Myself’ and the closing ‘Resister’.
Defiant and strong yet not afraid to show vulnerability, and armed with killer tunes (in any format, stripping them down tonight just showed again how good they are), Louisa and her cohorts show by example that music is vital, something that brings people together, and together we are stronger…