Hey Sholay Save The Day

To the Macbeth pub in Hoxton last night where a seemingly disastrous mixture of acts were playing half-hour sets on the venue's tiny stage. We arrived in time to see a death goth rocker (aged approximately 45 and dressed like your dad) screaming down the microphone that God hates us all. We sat out the rest of his mid-life crisis at the back of the room for the next 20 minutes with a glass of wine. Then there was an extended break, punctuated by another glass of red while we wondered what was going to hit us next.


Our patience was finally rewarded in the form of Hey Sholay, an as-yet unsigned 5 piece from Sheffield, who belted out 30-minutes of joyous indie electro pop. Lead singer Liam Ward's voice and mildly eccentric 'dancing hands' are entirely unique and distinctive and although he is boy band handsome, he has something of the Steve Buscemi's about him which, when the band get their break, is going to have the freaky girls forming a less than orderly queue.

The songs are ace and the sound is far tighter than many signed bands manage to achieve during a live set.  Highlights are the pop-tastic 'Dreamboat' and the final song of the night 'The Bears, The Clocks, The Bees' whose psychedelic play on the lyrics 'I know it sounds strange but I don't know how to change the clocks' lodged themselves in this blog's head all night and most of the following morning. Cool, without being too cool for school, Hey Sholay deserve to be a regular fixture - not just in the mainstream music community - but on a very decent label's roster.http://www.myspace.com/heysholay

James Vincent McMorrow: From the Woods, to the Southbank

I fear that Hit, Don't Miss may hold a terrible curse over the fate of James Vincent McMorrow.

Every time our paths almost collide, the following things happen: A bolt of lightning strikes him down and he loses all short-term memory. All of his treasured musical instruments and equipment get stolen when his car is broken into. He comes down with a debilitating flu, which almost makes him unable to perform the biggest solo gig of his career.

Two of the previous statements are true.

I think it’s fair to say I was/am mildly obsessed with ‘Early In the Morning’ as an album. It even became my Fall Asleep To record for a while. As with foreign language tapes, I now feel I have a deeper unconscious understanding of this Irish folk singer's music than any other fan possesses on the planet. Just saying.

You can imagine how excited I was back in May then, when I had the opportunity to direct an acoustic performance with the man himself.

He drove himself and all his equipment to London in between gigs specifically to sing for me. Yes, me (technically is was for Hit, Don't Miss, but anywho…)  The night before his performance, vagabonds broke in to his car and stole all the precious instruments and recording equipment he had used to create his masterpiece. To put it mildly, he was crushed.

Hence we never filmed his acoustic performance and his Cardiff gig that night was cancelled. Was this all our fault? Sad smiley (terrified) face.

Seeing JVM perform live has been in the diary for a few weeks and each time my eyes flicked past Tuesday 31^st May, it felt like someone was giving me a mini hug. Cue Tuesday night. What could go wrong? Well put it this way - JVM has never been struck down by lightning, or lost his short-term memory.

It’s ridiculous, but I did feel responsible for the man flu, which struck JVM the morning of his largest solo show. As he dragged himself out on stage, telling the audience he was essentially on the verge of death, I was sure our curse over him had continued. I suggested leaving before he sung a note, fearing that our presence would result in a stuffed leopard falling from the rafters in a freak accident.

Thankfully me and my fellow blogger didn’t leave and he went on to give everything he had in front of us, on that stage. Describing himself as ‘rough around the edges’, we were left in awe by his vocal tone, which seemed to effortlessly surge out of him. I'd like to think that if visible to the human eye, his voice would resemble a soft woolen patchwork quilt. Cosy. 

It’s testament to a stand-out gig when a song you’ve heard a hundred times on CD, vinyl or on your MP3 player is transformed by hearing it live. There are rare occasions when something happens within the four walls of a gig venue (or field), which transforms the way you hear a song forever. A mystic spell if you will. This happened to me that very evening in the mighty Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Centre. ‘Early in the Morning, I’ll Come Calling’ is officially my new aural addiction, it's a musical equivalent to a river of caramel with chocolate button boats. Scrumptious.

Prefaced with a warning that his man flu may prevent him from making it through ‘From the Woods’, his performance of this song burst with a passion and a raw desperation that left us all teary-eyed.  This was my highlight of the whole show. Maybe he ramped it up a gear to get him through feeling so ill? Whatever the reason, it was a truly sparkling performance which teetered on the edge of being a beautiful tragedy.

Back on that day in May when James Vincent McMorrow lost the beloved equipment which helped craft his outstanding debut, he was filled with superstitious anxiety (sorry about that again). However, if Tuesday night’s performance was the result of being pushed out of his comfort zone and to the edge of something scary and new, then our curse may well have turned in to a blessing. It could have been worse - leopards could have fallen from the sky after all. 

Lord of the Flies: A flawless production and a showcase for the next generation of outstanding British actors

Alistair Toovey as Ralph

Hit Don't Miss nearly did miss this stunning visual treat at the Open Air Theatre in London's Regent's Park, due to adverse weather conditions on the day we were booked to see the show. After windsurfing down the Euston Road (open-toed sandals and cropped jacket acting as woefully inadequate board and sail), we approached the theatre with grumpy trepidation despite assurances by the play's publicist that the sun was 'DEFINITELY' shining in Regent's Park.  Unusually for a publicist, she was telling the complete truth, and the fairy lights above the bar, lanterns on the lawn and glimpses of the battered fuselage and simulated smoke coiling to the sky from the outdoor stage made us so excited that we nearly forgot to buy two large glasses of red wine before finding our seats.


The novel upon which this play is based, about a group of schoolboys whose plane has crashed on a tropical island with no adult survivors, is universally acknowledged to be a timeless and outstanding examination of the human condition in adversity.  A big job then for the man entrusted with adapting it for the stage, but one that award-winning writer Nigel Williams does with sensitivity and success. The set design is  fantastic, harbouring the dual qualities of haunting beauty and complete functionality, and offset by some of the best lighting we've seen in a very long time, from Bush associate artist, James Farncombe. The spaces that are lost and found, highlighted and rejected, made terrifying, welcoming, violent and safe through the use of the Jon Bausor's design and Farncombe's lighting is an absolute joy to behold.

Alistair Toovey as Ralph and George Bukhari as Piggy

The absolute highlight of the evening though, is the cast of unstoppable young actors, most of whom are making their professional stage debut in Lord of the Flies. They are the most exciting ensemble cast since The History Boys, Alistair Toovey, George Bukhari and James Clay move and function on the stage as if they had been born and raised on it. Bukhari's physicality as Piggy is exceptional, provoking humour and sympathy in equal measures.  Clay, as the bully Jack is utterly terrifying and entirely convincing, and Toovey as Ralph, the impressionable moralist of the story, portrays his character with a delicacy rarely seen in such a young actor. The role of Perceval the child was played on the night we visited, by Harrison Sansostri, whose vigour and innocence and head of curly blonde hair appeared to leave every female in the audience desperate to rescue him with a cuddle and a fairy story.   

 

We say: the best young ensemble cast since The History Boys 

The rain held off throughout the evening, but this is England after all so be prepared for the chills as soon as the sun goes down; take several layers with you (and a hip flask for extra warmth probably wouldn't go amiss). The play runs until the 18th June - get your tickets now and catch this highlight of the summer season before it's too late.