Despite having an absolutely stonking cold, I force myself out comparatively late at night to the Prospect building for what is billed as an intimate outstore performance from Little Simz in support of her (absolutely banging) new album Lotus. Now. In absolute terms, I absolutely do not think we can agree on “intimate” as being an appropriate adjective for even the second, smaller room in Prospect, the Crane Room, at a capacity of 1500. But, relatively, Simz is playing two nights at the O2 in London later in the year, so I suppose this as good as it’s ever going to get - after all, gone are the days she reminisces about on stage of playing Thekla years ago. Due to the aforementioned cold, I aim to get there not very long before on-stage time, which means I am stuck at the back of what is basically a concrete rectangle. I can’t see for shit, there’s pricks all around me, and I’m already not in a very awake mood. So I tell myself, even knowing she’ll be saving Gorilla for the last song, I can leave any time I like, and given most instores tend to only be like 30 minutes, if I leave at that point, I’ll have got my money’s worth. From the moment Simz is on stage, though, there isn’t a moment I would rather leave than stay for another song. Reeling through an 18 song setlist, having already done an early show, her enthusiasm and energy are infectious (hopefully moreso than my cold). Even only on a single listen, my favourites off Lotus (Thief, Young) hit hard live. The setlist is wide ranging, if sadly lacking in NO THANK YOU cuts, but as we ride the wave of a Gorilla finale, including an acapella version of the first verse before launching fully back into it, no one is arguing.
Mahoney insists that my birthday present for him this year is to buy myself a ticket to join him at Willi Carlisle’s gig at the Louisiana a few days before the big day itself. Who am I to say no? I run out of time to do any prep work for this, having never listened to Carlisle before, and looking at recent setlists, there’s be a lot of ground to cover first, so I decide to go in blind (deaf?). Mahoney tells me that I should expect something almost akin to an Edinburgh show, and that intrigues me. He’s not wrong. Carlisle is an affable performer, long motor-mouthed monologues between songs in a country drawl, amusing without trying too hard. He moves between traditional folk songs and his own material, from solo vocals to banjos and guitar. It’s a rallying cry for acceptance, of queer identities and the van life. His new album is out at the end of June, and I very much look forward to getting to listen back to Big Butt Billie, a song that manages to rhyme “great satan” and “never seen a finer they/them” on falling in love with a non-binary server at a diner. It’s good gear! Shame about the crowd, including the guy who decided that cheering wasn’t sufficient to express his enjoyment and instead alighted on barking. Support from Ags Connolly, a man from Oxfordshire with the voice of a proper honky tonk country singer. Enjoyable stuff.
Despite having tickets for the much larger, further away, seated, mid-week Cardiff gig as part of the main Scissor Sisters anniversary tour, I was thrilled to see a Bristol warm-up date announced for just after I got back from New York, in what was once SWX but is now apparently Electric Bristol. The fact that I was stuck in front of some real pricks who had clearly had too much coke and still enjoyed myself is testament to how good this gig was. Eschewing the “one set of the album, a second set of the greatest hits” approach, this is a happy jumble of the two. Starting with the imperial stomp of Laura, it’s an instant transportation back to my final year of primary school. The number of big, good singles they had from that album that I knew in 2004 is quite something. I am beyond thrilled to get I Can’t Decide thrown into the mix, along with She’s My Man and, of course, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing off, in my opinion, their superior follow-up Ta-Dah!, but that’s not this tour, so I take what I can get. The hits go down a storm, the album tracks still get a good response, and they end the main set with a heartbreaking Return To Oz. There’s a moment in Take Your Mama where Shears hits a slightly but noticeably bum note, and his amusement at noting and correcting it is contagious and a good sign of how live this really is. This is still the size of venue they should have been aiming for in the first time, considering that Cardiff still I don’t think is sold out, but here we are. Tom Rasmussen is a fine support act - “oysters for lunch, ass for dinner” is oddly catchy as a chorus, and it’s the right energy and vibe for this night.
My friend Mahoney introduced me to Man/Woman/Chainsaw with the statement/question of “I can’t tell whether they’re actually good or not?” before inviting me to go see them at Rough Trade last year. I understand the confusion - they are every young Windmill scene with overwrought vocals and a violin player, abominably young, and with the rich scent of privilege behind them. But they are very good indeed. I massively got into their EP after that gig, and have been very excited to see them again since. So I find myself coming to London for the occasion. Put it this way - this gig made me genuinely wonder whether it’s even worth going to shows any more, because I fundamentally hate modern gigging. The screeching teenage girls, the middle aged men trying to film the whole show from the front row, the kids trying to mosh to music that should not and indeed cannot be moshed to, the constant talking - it’s all awful. So that this gig is still an early highlight of the year says something. They play with such intensity and cohesion on stage, it’s quite something to behold. I hope that for their debut album they can afford the production values that songs like Grow A Tongue In Time and EZPZ deserved but didn’t quite receive on the EP. They lack, on record, a heft and an atmosphere that elevate them live. Get Up And Dance, a currently unreleased song, could be huge if done right, as could they as a whole. I can’t wait to be moaning about paying 40 quid to see them at SWX in five years time. First support act Expiry are fine if unremarkable, but Dog Race are a deceptive sight to behold. The lead singer’s voice and performance are not what you’d expect of her, but it’s quite arresting.
I swear I will be going to other gigs this year that are not the band Divorce. A quite last minute waitlist ticket from DICE means I’m going into this with a spring in my step, which is quickly unsprung by the crowd around me, most noticeably the guy who insistently filmed 2 minutes of every song, which… I’m not the guy who complains about how you should “put your phone away and live in the moment”, I take a few photos here and there, but this guy was whip-panning around the stage like he was Damien Chazelle, right in my eyeline the whole time. I genuinely had to move for the encore. This should nominally be about the gig itself, so let’s move on - they’re really great musicians, who are playing very well in sync, and clearly having fun with it. The whole of the new album, plus a few others, which means all the quiet bits are also nicely represented, harmonies and all. A big response to Checking Out as the final song of the encore, and the roof could have been taken off. DUG are exactly what they appear to be as a support act, leaning much more country, but are remarkably personable and I’d happily go see them again in the future.
We kick off 2025 in gigs quite late in the year! I first caught Divorce supporting Everything Everything last year, and was quietly captivated. They are back now with their debut album and here are a few songs from it, supposedly stripped down but it’s the whole band with all their real instruments - not even a reduced drum kit in sight! All My Freaks is the energy highlight of the thing, but it’s all good fun. A quick chat in the signing and I’m off home at a reasonable hour - god loves an in-store.