The third "Hot Music Live Presents" fundraiser for The Tin
Review
Last evening's "Hot Music Live Presents" fundraiser at and for The Tin Music & Arts certainly rose magnificently once more to the challenge of meeting the considerable heights of the previous two.
This time, Shanghai Hostage, Concrete Fun House, The Caroline Bomb & The New Obsession delivered what people were predicting to be a high octane night from the moment they saw the lineup.
To be honest, the standard of all aspects was such that my own reviewing capabilities were stretched: as you'll see, I needed help finding anything like the right words.
The plight of independent music venues is becoming clearer all the time but what last night demonstrated was both the fierce loyalty of very diverse audiences to places where people of all ages & needs can enjoy the best grassroots original music and the quality of artist nurtured within them. The fight to support them must go on.
I was struck indeed by the diversity in so many respects of the crowd last night: the age span between the younger attendees and the more mature was clearly in excess of fifty years. And they gave back. Just as I reported last time, the wild enthusiasm throughout was infectious & palpably drove all bands onto their finest performances.
I guess The New Obsession might be the least known name for now: another band coming out of the Live On Stage project which The Tin and Coventry Music collaborate on, this was their second Tin gig of the week but their first in front of a more general audience rather than just their own age group. This really spurred them on & there is no doubt that this young band (none has yet celebrated their sixteenth birthday) relished showing new people, especially ones with much experience of live music, their performance skills & growing body of highly original material. And to demonstrate their range of skills, once their set was over, their drummer, Preston, did a great job working the stage lighting for the other bands.
I struggled to find any words for the breath taking performance of The Caroline Bomb, so I ran that past Joe of Concrete Fun House (a novelist in another part of his life) who offered me "flabbergasted" as a term which described both him & band mate Tom when they first saw them. It fits. So that word makes its debut in my articles as do the band in live format (their "Dead Eyed Nation" appears on ‘Hot Music Live Presents Volume Thirteen'). Otherwise there is nothing I know to adequately reflect the power & idiosyncrasy of what they do. Like all these acts, genres are of no use in relation to describing what they sound like: the songs stop & start repeatedly & head off into exciting new directions all the time. Punk energy is part of it, but not the whole answer. You need to see them yourself to find out what all the fuss is about.
Concrete Fun House are another group who've swiftly gained a reputation as a live act: their debut single & album should add to that soon. Their Spring Tour brought them to Coventry last night & takes them down to the Beehive in London on April 26th (alongside fellow Coventrians HEK and other bands from across the country): the word is spreading fast.
I put it to the band that they seemed to have moved up yet another gear in terms of what they are doing (the confidence of so many successful gigs is taking hold) but apparently other people had beaten me to it with the same observation. That's validation for you. Again, punk fury & adrenaline are pointers to what you get, but there is more including a great deal of wit & humanity: again, if you've yet to see them, you ought to get them high on your "to do" list.
Headliners Shanghai Hostage need the least introduction: long darlings of the local live scene & with plenty of singles already released, nevertheless this was my first time of seeing them with (relatively) new guitarist Ben. And they had new songs to share to boot.
Described by Michelle from Duck Thieves as "funkalious", I'd not quibble with that all, only to suggest that perhaps they are just getting more funky the more they play? Concluding a pretty wild night by whipping the already frenzied audience to new heights, all I would say is that their gigs tend to end with dancing nuns: this time it was really more like moshing nuns. A sight you had to be there to appreciate in all its glory.
A big hand too to all the team at The Tin: the acts certainly catch the attention but the calm, hard work of those working is too easily overlooked. It was a wild night & a busy one for them. There was even an existential threat to the event before it began which was overcome with patience and ingenuity & the knock-one effects to timings was not even apparent to anyone in the audience. The sound was powerful & raucous yet perfectly curated by sound engineer Phil Morley.
The next one in this series is on Friday 23rd May & features Monday Nights, What About Eric?, Creaking Twitch & Robert James Grey: tickets are available via this link:
https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/hot-music-live-presents-monday-the-tin-at-the-coal-tickets/14371513
