The fifth 'Hot Music Live Presents' fundraiser for The Tin
Review
Fantastic live music is definitely what inspires a reviewer but the odd irony helps add a little splash of extra detail too. And last night the fifth of the ‘Hot Music Live Presents' fundraisers for and at The Tin was full to the brim with the former & had a few of the latter too.
Again, keeping with the overall HMLP philosophy of emphasising the diversity of original music making in Coventry and Warwickshire, the four bands were very different in style (though not in attitude).
First up was a treat for King of the Alps fans as it was (so far) their only scheduled live show in 2025. I hope for more, but those present can for the time being feel a little smug at catching it.
As we shall see, the four groups are in middle of very different live runs: not that you could tell. Experience, craft & I imagine plenty of rehearsal meant that King of the Alps were on top form, delivering their exquisitely crafted songs about the human condition with verve & panache. What few of the audience probably realised is that as they are currently in one of their core member duo phases of just Paul & Simon, the equivalence of the various third members was delivered via a gizmo which wouldn't play ball just before they were due on but which thanks to the ingenuity of Joe on the sound, was worked around with pretty much no practice on the new set up. Big thanks to Joe for the whole evening in fact. As I have said before, diversity has its value but sets challenges for sound engineers.
Permanent Daylight have been playing regularly in contrast to the band they followed on stage & this is another group whose reputation is rising both steadily & swiftly. Other bands on the lineup who'd not caught them were eager to do so & it's worth reporting that Mason Le Long who has worked with them since their inception felt that he'd not seen a better performance from them ever. Like King of the Alps, Permanent Daylight have adapted to a reduction in membership and with bassist Lou off to study, Faith has switched to that instrument alongside Joseph on guitar and Mollie on drums. The single "Picking Up Pieces" which has only just come out features the quartet but again: you couldn't tell, so well have they adapted to life as a trio.
At this point I'll slip in two of those ironies. One is putting on a gig mentioning the word "hot" on a day like yesterday. The searing sets by all four bands must be understood in the context of the heat onstage: it really pushed their physical comfort and should have sapped energy. But yes, you guessed it, that was not evident. All I would say is how much I admire their collective refusal to sell the audience short and their obvious love of playing which got them through. However they all made a beeline for outside as soon as they came off & so did the audience. Thanks to Caroline of Alchemista for repeatedly inviting the latter back in for the music.
Thanks too to Gutter Puppy for helping staff the door before going on stage which really helped the Tin team. The next irony is that their new (debut) album is called ‘Enjoy Hot'.. you couldn't have made that one up.
Delivered on the same stage as their Covtember set of 2023 which gave rise to the album, as usual Adam & Ryan stripped to their waists (wise) and as usual there was a great deal of jumping about and enthusiastic exuberance which is making so many waves live at the moment. As of course are the excellence of the songs & Connie's considerable stage charisma. Gutter Puppy have been playing more than any of the bands (largely I suppose off the launch of the album) and seem in great demand: the key metric being that these gigs have all been in different towns. Their reputation is spreading like wildfire and there is no dependence on a hometown crowd.
Finishing the evening was the third band with a recent release: Monastery who brought out their ‘From the Banks of the Styx' EP a few days ago: and again a record with a title & theme not unconnected with hellfire seems ironic.
They've not played as much locally recently as Permanent Daylight or Gutter Puppy (Liv & Josh of course also have been involved in the increasingly busy HEK who played at the first of these fundraisers back in February) and so it was good to see them back with this lineup (the others being the rhythm section of Kyle & Lewis) which won ‘Godiva Calling' a few years back. As you might imagine, there was no rustiness at all & they seemed to have a lot of fun revisiting songs they wouldn't have played in a while. Would you want to play thrash metal in a heatwave? Thankfully genre style conventions allowed for some pretty suitable options in terms of vests, shorts etc. As with King of the Alps, hopefully Monastery will get some dates on their live calendar for the latter part of 2025. We certainly got a great reminder of what we've been missing.
Next up for this series of gigs is one on July 18th with The Session, Trust Club, Homebread & Stereotypical which I think will be completely up there with the ones to date in terms of highest quality & diversity. Most people I hope will leave having discovered a great new band. Tickets are available in advance via this link:
https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/hot-music-live-presents-the-the-tin-at-the-coal-tickets/14371533
