Saturday 1 March 2008

Stornoway at Jericho Tavern


After Greg's recommendations, W and I went to the Jericho Tavern last night to see Stornoway play.

Special credit to Franziskaner for making nice beer.

Anyway, the music... I had briefly listened to theiur MySpace page and thought they were a kind of folksy Belle & Sebastien style band.

Very pleased to see that some of them started the gig wearing masks. In particular, you can't complain when a man wearing a horse head plays the trumpet. Very surreal in a kind of pagan-trippy-hippy kinda way. Like the Wickerman or something. Reminds me of the time I saw a man with a Zebra head walking past my lab door...

Although I was coming to see them I was expecting to see two support bands, but no-one else seemed to play. I wouldn't mind if it was a free gig but when you've paid money you kind of expect artists to turn up. Never mind, it was Stornoway we wanted to hear.

Their two songs of particular note are "The Good Fish Guide" which is worth listening to simply because it is a bit mental. "Here Comes the Blackout" is a fantastic song, surely worthy of a bigger stage. Go to their page just to listen to that song alone (don't forget the fish though). I'd consider buying their E.P. for that song alone.

One thing that I really hated about the gig was when horse head took off his head to reveal that he was in fact human. Unfortunately he started to read poetry. It really was the most pretentious, contrived crap I have ever heard in my life. He obviously thought he was quite good judging by the enthusiasm he put into the performance. I can only assume it was a friendly crowd familiar with this tosh, otherwise I would have expected a few pint glasses to be projected towards him. I hope horse head sticks to the trumpet when they gig outside of Oxford.

So, one song I really love, and I might buy their E.P., but I doubt I would see them play again thanks to horse-head.






Picture credit: Stornoway Fish Smokers - Stornoway's premier supplier of smoked fish, kippers, salmon, and shellfish.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The horse and the poet are two different people, so don't let that put you off! First StornoGig I've seen where there's been poetry - I think they were trying to make up for fact that the support act didn't turn up.

Major_Grooves said...

Thanks for clearing that up. I actually wasn't 100% certain they were the same person.

It did suck that the support act flounced.

I almost feel bad for criticising them now... but the poetry did suck.

On the off-chance non-horse head poet man ever reads this - don't let my dislike of your work put you off! (I'm sure your mum thinks it's great ;) )


Anyway, I did spend most of this weekend listening to Stornoway MySpace, so I did kind of like it. Poetry was just off-putting.

Anonymous said...

I was wondering why the stornoway smoked fishy guy was on the Comprehensionclothing facebook site. Now I understand.

(contented sigh)