Son of Town Hall

by HotMusicAl, 21 Jun 2016 Three top acts at a top venue, The Tin Music and Arts, made it easy to justify going out on a work night.

The night began with a short set from local hero, Wes Finch. I've been a fan of Wes' since hearing his first album, Asthill Grove, but this night he was to play none of that. Nevertheless, he definitely didn't disappoint. Playing solo with just his electric guitar, Wes delivered songs from his follow-up albums, Mayflower and Awena, combined with a couple of new songs, You Are Light and Just My Luck, that are fast becoming classics.

Next up was Dan Wilde, a musical wordsmith from Cambridge. Dan also has 3 albums to his name but was, this night, mainly featuring songs from With Fire In Mind. It transpires that while Dan was performing to us, Mark Radcliffe was playing his forthcoming single, Pieces, on Radio 2! Pieces is the opening track from Dan's album, Rhythm On The City Wall. You can catch the show between now and 15th July on BBC's iPlayer Radio - Dan's song features at 56m50s in. Coincidentally, Mark's radio show featured a live studio performance by The Trembling Bells who will be at The Old Grammar School this Friday, 24th June.

The final act of the night was the duo, Son of Town Hall. Not only scintillating vocal harmonies, but harmonising guitar parts too. All of the acts had beautifully lyrical melodies, but Son of Town Hall added comic theatre to their performance. They were dressed as a couple of gents from around the 1900's, the English, Ben Parker, wearing a bowler hat and the American, David Berkeley, in a top hat. Their story, pervading throughout their entire performance was that they had been out at sea for some time, just the 2 of them in a boat. From what I have since discovered via Google, this is based on the first raft made of scrap to cross the North Atlantic. However, Ben and David seem to have elaborated on their costumes as the real raft was built in the mid 1990's! They had us all grinning throughout the entire performance. Wonderful songs, pure joy, but you'll have to take my word for it as this duo was only recently formed and there is very little media to be had, save for a 7-inch vinyl single, or, they would say, wax pressing available from the dry store. I did also manage to find two videos, The Line Between & Snow In Mexico.