I thought I would throw in a bit of a wildcard to my gig-going schedule and have a Friday night out at my favourite pub, in Brighton to boot. Not having heard any of the three bands playing tonight, I was interested to see why the (ittedly small) venue was sold out, presumably because all three acts were local to the Brighton area. Bring it on!
The first slot was filled by a very young looking group of lads, playing under the moniker Picture Day. There was quite a crowd to greet them, although it was quite apparent that about 75% of those assembled seemed to be friends or family of the bands playing tonight. For a band which doesn’t seem to have any online presence they played well and seemed relaxed and professional on stage. I think I would file their musical style under middle-of-the-road guitar-driven pop-rock: they didn’t exactly rock my world but the tunes washed over me in the same pleasant way that more recent Lonely The Brave tracks do. They introduced their flatmate, Jess, to accompany them on a cover of “Since U Been Gone” (as in Kelly Clarkson not Rainbow) and, after a flat start, it turned into a pretty good rendition, to be fair. Their closing song had a more upbeat tempo and was all the better for it. Whilst the music was well executed and they were a likeable bunch, they should really focus on making their songs a bit more memorable if they want to snag in the more casual punter moving forward.
The room had filled up by the time Jaymadeit came on stage, largely with the frontman’s mates, which became more and more evident as the set progressed. He stated early on that “This is our first ever gig” but then expected everyone to sing along to their fairly standard Radio 1 R&B/pop/rap fare. Having said that, a lot of those crammed in to the venue did seem to know the words to the songs. At the time, this seemed a bit strange but a search of the internet yielded a few different entities using the Jaymadeit name (a music producer in the states seems to be the most prominent), so I am not completely sure how many of them relate to the band we saw here but they are clearly followed on social media outlets such as Deezer and TikTok, etc.
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Lyrically, the songs are just about the everyday things in life: “Offie”, “1Key”, “Way Out”, “Wasted”, etc. with the frontman’s drawling pop-rap style reminding me of Damon Albarn at times but ramping up the cockney now and again. An example snippet: “I’m not sorray for da fings dat I said…no sympaffy…when there’s nuffin’ left…” Blur influences are glaringly obvious with respect to the instrumental aspect to the tracks too and the chorus to “1Key” has strong echoes of a very big house in the country… The fact that this was their first gig was evident in the slightly shaky performance, at least for the first few tracks, but Jay(?) had plenty of ego to go around and this helped them punch on through such shortcomings. A huge ego will only get you so far though. Some of their songs were actually quite catchy (subsequent listens definitely helped), it’s just a shame that so many things about them rubbed me up the wrong way.
Now I know it may be unfair to judge a band based on the kind of crowd they attract but it’s very difficult not to mention how consistently rude and obnoxious they seemed to be: barging through to the back of the room, whooping, jeering and shouting before and after each track because they clearly know the guy personally, and chatting and catching up with gossip over the actual songs. I am more used to avid fans cramming to the front to cheer a band on, not hiding at the back of the venue, jostling others out of the way. This was a bit of a head-scratcher for me but I suppose I am used to different crowds (the line-up wasn’t really very Moshville Times, if you know what I mean?). Most of this demographic disappeared off once their mates had finished playing – missing the headliners – so yeah…they were those kind of people.
The headliners tonight were a Brighton three-piece called The Stealers and, I have to say, it felt like stepping out of the Championship and into the Premier League, in of musical quality. They are another young band and this was the last date of their short UK tour – a homecoming of sorts. They play hard rock with a modern twist which had heads nodding and feet tapping throughout their set. Psych rock song “Your Money Your Time” is a real cracker, full of meaty riffs and vocal to and fro, which made it ideal for crowd participation. “Last Train” and “Some Kind of Way” were other highlights, showing off their strong song writing abilities, with arrangements full of driving riffs and hooks but controlled by a pop brain.
New single “She Said” impressed me too with its nice jangly guitar sound and smashing drums. They could easily a band like Foo Fighters on their next UK dates, which indicates where I think they would sit at the moment. The bassist used his bottle of beer as a capo during one song (but I can’t which one) which may have been used for effect or could have been done to look cool. It did. Either way, this showed confidence. The drummer broke the usual mould by jumping down into the crowd to teach us how to sing along with a particular song. This wasn’t really necessary and it would have been more impressive if he had set the kit up down in the crowd to play the song, Antiflag style. This showed enthusiasm, if nothing else, and it’s good to see a drummer refusing to just sit quietly at the back. He also shot to the back of the venue as soon as they had finished their set, to man the merch stall; a good understanding of the importance of connecting with an audience on a personal level.
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Note to self though, that you invited your mum and dad to the hometown show, and maybe cut down on the swearing… Turns out that I was standing right next to them and it looked like there would be an interesting de-briefing in the car on the way home…
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