As part of our celebrations of Independent Venue Week we make our second visit to The Black Prince in as many days. As it is Northampton’s (dare I say, Northamptonshire’s) best venue that’s no real hardship and when there’s three great bands on offer, well, it’d be rude not to. Now that the more established, heritage artists are shuffling off towards the great gig in the sky, tonight’s gig proves that there’s plenty of fresh talent to keep live music in ruddy health for many years to come.
Opening act Chargr immediately spike my interest with their angular and jaunty sound, and with songs such as ‘Junk’ in their arsenal they really can’t go wrong. They operate with a strong groove and soon get the whole crowd bobbing in unison with their highly infectious energy. The great thing about this bunch is that it’s hard to pick out one definite influence; I detect a touch of early squeeze in ‘Just A Bad Guy’, but mostly these guys sound like themselves and it really is quite refreshing. On the subject of refreshing, the band throw oranges to the crowd during ‘Orange Moon’ and, like half-time at the footie, gives us sustenance to reach the end of their set.
We are currently living in the golden age of singer/songwriters, it seems that any fool with an acoustic guitar can make a million pounds (sit down Ed Sheeran!), but it takes actual talent to make the form interesting, and that’s where John Myrtle steps in. Of course, that Mr. Myrtle has the kind of voice that could make the telephone directory sound dynamic doesn’t hurt, plus he really knows his way around a fretboard and that makes his parred-back performance simply spellbinding. His lyricism is very much from the Ray Davies songbook, insofar as that it deals with the minutiae of modern life, thus we get songs about dogs (‘The Dog Song’) and slugs (‘Cyril The Slug’), and why not? However, there’s also the usual songs about relationships (such as closer ‘Get Her Off My Mind’) but this set finds an easy equilibrium between the cerebral and visceral. To paraphrase Judge Dread: “Nice one, Myrtle!”.
This is not The Bug Club’s first visit to The Black Prince, having played here a few years ago. It’s a very welcome return and it’s good to see that the crowd has grown exponentially since their first visit, and that’s one of the delights of Independent Venue Week; it’s a joy to see a band who are destined for big things playing a smaller stage and hopefully tonight will provide stories for future generations (“if everyone who said they were there, was there…” etc. etc.). Anyway, when The Bug Club hit the stage, the shit gets real, their rapid fire vocals (imagine John Shuttleworth on speed) and jerky movements make for a kind of sensory experience that attacks the eyes and ears simultaneously. Post-modernist rants over spiky beats makes each song a bomb that explodes with effervescence and tracks such as ‘If My Mother Thinks I’m Happy’ and ‘We Don’t Care About That’ shower the venue with good vibes, like some strange kind of musical party popper. The band are slightly irreverent, but that makes them no less powerful and it means that set closer ‘Quality Pints’ comes around far too soon. Of course, they return for a few encores, but in truth they could have remained on stage and played for perpetuity and we’d have been happy.
