Words and Photos: Victoria Wai.
With reports of the cold snap coming, there was definitely a sea of hoodies and big coats gathered into the venue for the way in advance SOLD OUT tour for English Teacher as they took Mercury Prize winning debut album This Could Be Texas on the road, as a follow-up to the Spring SOLD OUT tour of smaller venues.
The mix crowd of young and mainly older gig goers and even families gathered and huddled early for warmth and with excitement for a band that is still relatively fresh to the industry as a whole but quite a few years in the making and 2024 has been THE year for this quartet of Lily Fontaine, Lewis Whiting, Douglas Frost and Nicholas Eden.
In the thick of the purple haze, with half still donned in their hoodies, English Teacher boomed into R&B then I’m Not Crying You’re Crying before slowing down and Lily taking her place by the keyboard for Broken Biscuits. Being close to the gig goers for the first few numbers I felt something I’ve not felt at a English Teacher gig, like something was a-miss but once you got into the thick of the crowd, it seemed that those at the front were simply in awe of the lyrical deliverance of Lily backed by Lewis, Douglas and Nicholas, and at most live shows the addition of Blossom Caldarone on the cello.
The joy of being able to stay for a show after photographing the first three numbers and move about is not only getting a different viewpoint of the stage but also seeing the difference in dynamic of the audience and as the show went on, you saw certain parts of the crowd fill in gaps closer to the stage and being a SOLD OUT standing audience if you viewed from the back you would think, was this show really at capacity, and I can tell you it was. It was with an audience that, with or without the accolades, know that this could possibly be one of the few times they can get this close to their next favourite band, though saying that the Boiler Shop at 1000+ cap is a far cry from the 250 capacity venue I first saw them in.
The rest of the night saw a great mix of mainly the debut album but for those from the early days we were treated to three songs from the Polyakward EP, that also received high critical acclaim and some new ones thrown into the mix but when Mastermind Specialism is about midway through the set, this was my moment to be in silent awe of the band. More songs followed which all seemed to go by too quickly as most phones went up for the ‘big hits’ Nearly Daffodils and The World’s Biggest Paving Slab before we are sent out into the night with Albert Road making us yearn for more cos you know there’s going to be more but whether it will be in these ‘just about perfect’ sized venues or the bigger ones that they are easily destined for, is something of a ‘watch this space’ thing.
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