Local UEL band Bad Blessing performed their first headlining gig at Lion Bar + Records in Hackney on Wednesday evening.
Before the show, I met up with members of Bad Blessings, and their friends in the band Divided Compass who played support. The musicians had great comradery with banter bouncing around the room. It put me in mind of way the musical ideas ping ponged between the artists of the 60s counterculture boom, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Also cool was the musicians in their element when setting up instruments for the evening.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a large turnout for this event, but the people who took the plunge and showed up and meshed into the small shop were treated to a great evening of entertainment.
The first act was an acoustic set from a friend of Bad Blessing, Olivia. She was joined by Harry, the drummer for both Bad Blessings and Divided Compass, who provided percussive assistance with a Cajon box drum. The set nicely eased the audience into the evening – they got into the show without losing the energy they’d need during the more hard-hitting parts of the night.
Then Divided Compass leapt straight onto the stage and got started with their set. They’re the only musicians there that have had their music published, so they mixed their original material alongside a suite of assorted covers, ranging from the The Animals classic rendition of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ to more contemporary tracks such as Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ and ‘Where Is My Mind?’ by the Pixies. The band’s guitarist, Graham, said the group’s influences included ‘Bastille, The Wombats and Pixies’, which explained their set sounding quite indie based (and I could definitely hear a bit of The Smiths in there).
The performance was almost hitch-less. (In the last track, there was some confusion about what key the bass should’ve been in, however they powered through and vamped it out where lesser groups would’ve shamefully re-started in the quiet.). One change I saw was Harry using an electronic drum kit rather his usual acoustic kit, but that didn’t affect their music.
In the interval before the headliers, instruments were shuffled and many shimmied to the miniature bar to order a drink or checked out the various records on display in the venue.
Now the main event: Bad Blessing. Like previous setlists of the evening, most of the music was assorted covers. But this time the music was from alt rock tracks by Paramore, Nothing But Thieves and, a surprise to me, Muse. The inspiration from these artists helped give this set a more hard hitting and raucous feel than the more subdued rocking of Divided Compass.
Despite the wealth of covers, the highlight of this show was definitely their original track ‘Spineless’ conveniently linked here for your viewing pleasure: https://vimeo.com/768262798.
Hopefully, and if music listeners have any sense, it will become a future No.1.
There was one portion of the setlist that was highly amusing: the roughly three minute interlude where guitarists Jamie and Sophie had to tune their instruments for the last few songs of the show. Naturally this space of dead air could’ve been filled with anything, but for this show it was a spur of the moment rendition of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’, complete with audience participation.
After the show closed with Paramore’s ‘Misery Business’, people slowly started to shuffle out into the evening, satisfied. The musicians started to organize and pack away their instruments and mingle with one another.
Despite the small scale of the event, the evening was quite a triumph and everyone who took the stage to perform was on top form. The consensus of everyone involved was that it had gone swimmingly. We’ll not mention the one gentleman in attendance who was out of it and left for who knows where.
Hopes are high for the future of everyone involved at this event – the performers are all planning to release more original material to the world.