Gigs

Gig Review: Chris T-T + Thomas White + Monster Bobby

[Venue: Amersham Arms, New Cross, London]
[Date: 19 May 2008]

In the back room of a comfortable, friendly and (given the overwhelmingly powerful display of arse cracks on bar stools) clearly very local pub in New Cross, tonight’s acts are playing to a rather meagre audience. Be it the lack of promotion or the pub being fairly out of the way for the majority of Londoners things are pretty quiet here, with a smattering of people guarding their places at the bar and a few more at the back of the room hiding in the gloomy glow of the Amersham’s dim lightbulbs.

It must be a lonely venture to come out on stage first to a room that is, for want of a more encouraging word, empty. But this was the sole responsibility of Monster Bobby, tonight’s first support act. Opening his set with a selection of zany soundbites set to a toe-tapping hip-hop groove, things start out pretty encouragingly for the young performer. However, cracks in his performance soon start to reveal themselves as the choice to use a computer backing-track causes more than its fair share of issues for Bobby as he struggles to start the machine whilst still strumming on his acoustic guitar. He could clearly do with another arm or two. Unfortunately his set remains rather uneventful with a collection of dull and insipid songs all seemingly written about that whore of a muse, love. However, one stand out idea on display amongst this otherwise unexciting set is his ‘40 Winks’ album concept – a record of forty songs, all around one minute in length and dealing with different ideas around sleep. He’s certainly got some ideas but tonight there isn’t really the music to back it up.

By this point in the evening a few more people have strolled through the door and Thomas White gingerly steps out onto the stage with an essential can of Red Stripe and a projector screen, set up behind him, flashing through a variety of LSD-influenced colours and landscapes. This strikes me as an interesting idea. Given the small scale of the show one might think that it was a bit pretentious to demand a screen set up but once White eventually gets his set started, after a laptop malfunction, the combination of his calm stage presence, beautifully effortless voice and swirly visuals cause the audience to slowly become hypnotised, falling under his spell. And when he isn’t singing, with vocal traits similar to that of Jeff Buckley, he’s talking to the audience as if he was one of the locals, joking about what to do next, and laughing at an interesting start to a Nina Simone cover informing us that he’s got “ideas above my octave station!”. Despite the technical difficulties, White breezes through the set with effortless professionalism, and really puts a smile on everyone’s face.

With the support acts now mingling in the pub, Chris T-T and his band, The Hoodrats, walk onto the stage to an encouraging round of applause. The first thing that strikes you about Chris is just how normal he looks. A prominent beer belly, a roguish beard and a warm smile greet you and he really does not come across as the kind of man who has a plethora of powerful opinions on the state of the world at the moment. Opening with ‘Cull’ from ‘London Is Sinking’ at first the drums overwhelm everything else and it’s all you can do to just strain and hear Chris’ voice over the din. But a few songs in and things seem to have settled down and T-T and Co. really get into the swing of things, along with a few members of the audience who can’t help but move around to his catchy stories of London. Another round of applause is heaved upon the band when Chris asks his sister to join him on stage to sing the stirring backing vocals of ‘(We Are) The King of England’. It’s difficult to hear her over the band but the addition just adds a whole new element of unity to the night.

For the first night of the tour supporting Chris’ new release ‘Capitol’, things are really spot on. T-T’s voice sounds just as it does on the record and he closes the night on a single song encore, returning to the stage on his own to perform ‘The Tin Man’, a softer song to close tonight’s frolics. It’s a shame the turnout tonight was so poor as Chris T-T is not only a down-to-earth performer, but a genuinely talented man whose imagination has yet to hear of the word “boundary”. The problematic sound dragged things down a bit, but in true revolutionary fashion everyone worked through it and you’d be wise to check Chris T-T out on his later tour dates.

For fans of: Frank Turner, Jeff Buckley, Willy Mason
Band links = Chris T-T | Thomas White | Monster Bobby

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