'Hot Music Live Presents' fundraiser for The Tin #11
Review
From just looking at the lineup of Banoffee, Permanent Daylight, Reiss Pinder & The Illusion, I knew we had a wonderful night of the freshest local original music ahead of us at the latest (the eleventh) ‘Hot Music Live presents' fundraiser for The Tin.
However if there is one thing which beats even the prospect of artistry of this quality, it must be so many revelatory performances: each one offered something even I hadn't anticipated.
Opening the night were The Illusion: another great band to emerge from the ‘Live On Stage' project which The Tin run in conjunction with Coventry Music. Therefore there were many in the audience wholly unfamiliar with them to date but (as I do) I checked out the reactions of those watching & not only was the level of approval extremely high (and as ever there were plenty of other musicians in attendance) but I was approached by a number of people to offer unsolicited plaudits & asking for details.
I've mentioned before my admiration for the young bands emerging from the project in terms of their fearlessness on stage & staggering ability to adapt to absences of key members (I think part of the confidence encouraged by the mentors includes this resilience): you literally could not tell that there was depping going on, let alone that this was only their second gig in front of an audience not comprised of members of the project.
The Illusion have skill: they also have a commendable attitude & should go far: do look out for them.
In the case of Reiss, I am a great fan of his band HEK but hadn't ever caught one of his solo sets, so although I knew one band song he played and his current single "By Your Side", most of his set was new to me: and included some stunning new material recorded in the last few weeks which I urge you to look out for as it is released over the summer.
Obviously he is a charismatic live performer when in band context, so as you might anticipate, he commands attention when he's by himself. However what is clear when seeing him like this is why he's operating in this way: in addition to all the great rock songs he brings to HEK, he also writes deeply emotional ones which demand a stripped back delivery and in which he exposes himself to a degree which caught even me (and you know how much I rate his compositional & performance talents) by surprise.
Look out for his upcoming material: you'll be as impressed as people were last night & he tells me at his other recent appearances.
Permanent Daylight of course have been playing regularly since graduating from ‘Live On Stage' as well as bringing out a number of well received singles etc. In fact their body of work now has grown to the point where difficult choices need to be made while composing setlists. It's a good problem to have & judging by the wonderful new song they played last night (look out for Joseph channelling Johnny Marr when it comes out) their writing is developing as much as their playing. At the moment they are performing perhaps more regularly than ever before (look out for both them & Project Overload among many other bands playing at the Heart of England Music Hub Festival at The Butts Stadium on Sunday) and seasoned fans all felt that they just get better & better. I have to say that they'll get no argument from me. At this rate they'll soon be getting longer set times & then the song choice decisions should ease. Thanks too to Faith who depped on bass for The Illusion in addition to the set with her own band.
I have raved so much about Banoffee that you might think I was reaching a point where further accolades might come at a more measured pace: indeed I thought as much. But no, Banoffee are that elite level band who still stimulate paradigm shift type reassessments.
To be honest, while I knew that they sometimes played with a drummer, I'd only ever caught Ella & Cia as a duo. I consequently considered their exquisite songs as being perfectly realised live in an intimate setting. Now I know better. Like all the best writing, these same songs work well in strikingly different arrangements: and believe me they unleashed a level of power I'd never dreamed of.
The drummer was Nevaeh and in one of those moments which seem to crop up in many of these shows, I only discovered afterwards that this was only the second show they'd played together & believe me folks, you couldn't tell. They just seemed so perfect together & as I say, reinterpreted Banoffee songs in a way that stunned me.
They too now have a setlist conundrum issue: too much excellent new material nudging out old favourites including songs I fully expected.
Banoffee are quite rightly making waves now with more & more gigs in London including one at the Islington O2 coming up: the word is spreading.
Locally to us, they play the next Sofar session along with NYOTAA, who in one of those coincidences which makes reviewing such a joy, was part of the team helping out last night.
Of course wonderful music only works when you get to hear it as the artists intended, so credit to Laura Birkin who engineered the sound to perfection with the assistance of Jake from Stereotypical.
It's only three weeks to the next event in this series & what a lineup we have for you on April 10th: Duke Keats, Reign The Girl Band, Shanade & DANE-O.
Advance tickets are available via:
https://events.humanitix.com/hot-music-live-duke-keats-reign-shanade-dane-o
Audio
