GOLDENVOICE UK w/ THE WYTCHES, SPRING KING & MORE, THE DOME, TUFNELL PARK, LONDON 07TH JULY (LIV

Thursday is the new Friday right? Everyone loves a good knees up on a Thursday evening, why not make the weekends a day longer. Go out after work have a few pints maybe go to a gig seems harmless enough. You stand in the bar, 11:30PM, and think to yourself this is amazing, yeah I have work in the morning and I’m okay with that. A few bottles of water and a ropey donor kebab will sort me right out. All may seem well and good in your miscalculated inebriation until the sun rises on that treacherous Friday morning. There you are stonking headache, dry mouth and the most vivid of memory from the night before. Not to mention the lengthy day at work you have looming over your head like a dark cloud. The only silver lining to this rather glum day is the potential for the greasiest of fry-up’s known to man and let’s not forget the sole cure to all British hangovers, a big fat cuppa. This is exactly how our Thursday/Friday played out this week having headed out to The Dome, Tufnell Park to catch Goldenvoice UK’s Pop-Up gig with The Wytches, Spring King, Magic Gang, Shame and Dream Wife.

The gig was originally set to take place at Hyde Park on the back of the annual BST gigs but due to undisclosed reasons had to be moved very late in the day on Tuesday, with emails being sent out to all those with tickets. We’re not entirely sure how the evening would have played out in Hyde Park but we can say for sure it was an event perfectly suited to The Dome. Like a tardis, from the outside the venue looked small and dare we say it, run down. Maybe it was inside aswell but just too dark to tell, who knows? The venue was large with a gig room downstairs and upstairs and a huge bar along the side, which let’s face it is the most important thing. Walking along the road from the Aces and Eights pub opposite Tufnell Park tube station you could almost completely miss The Dome. It looks a bit like a car MOT garage, the only give away was the hefty queue outside and the faint resonance of drums and guitar coming from within. The bands each had a half an hour set with The Wytches on for 45 minutes, more than enough time to express themselves. Gigs of this capacity are a great opportunity to go and check out lots of the UK’s rising talents. Five bands in the space of 4 hours, you can’t complain at that. It’s also their intimate nature that make them special you could be stood at the bar one minute desperately downing the last scraps of your larger and front and centre; within touching distance of the stage the next. The bands mingle with the crowd, okay, there not superstars but it’s great to be able to interact with the bands, show your appreciation and just meet them. People were getting up on the stage mid set dancing with the bands and stage diving back into the crowd, it was like a fucking playground and when The Wytches graced the stage, as headline act, the place took a darker turn with a fairly adequate moshpit breaking out front and centre. Again no hostility or anger about the place just a crowd of people letting some steam off to some heavy rock on a Thursday night.

We won’t give a detailed review of all the bands or we’ll be here all night, but what we will say is that the standard of the evening was fantastic and all bands present/ mentioned are worth checking out. Spring King have had a pretty eventful year so far with plenty of gigging, a few festival appearances under their belt already and of course the release of their debut album ‘Tell Me If You Like To’ on 10th June. The Manchester lads have being enjoying some decent success over the past year or so with much critical acclaim and support from the likes of BBC Introducing, SXSW and NME. Their garage indie sound has infected a vast portion of the UK’s youth which was evident on Thursday night. Despite The Wytches being the evenings headliner we would argue that there was potentially more support out for Spring King. Whatever floats your boat. They got the crowd pumped with ease, their adrenaline fuelled tracks like City and Rectifier were stand out crowd pleasers. It’s no secret, they know how to smash a funky bassline in pretty much all of their songs, ‘Who Are You?’ and ‘City’ are great examples of this. The bass seems so carry the songs along giving them that enthusiastic indie vibe with a slightly fuzzy undertone where they seems to showcase the garagey side of their sound. A rather impressive aspect for us was the fact that the vocals and centre piece to the whole setup comes from the drummer. Rare you see a drummer/ vocalist in a four piece band setup. Backup vocals isn’t something we’re shy from seeing and, yeah, we hear ya! ‘What about Isaac from Slaves he sings’. That’s a different ball game he’s stood up playing a stripped back drum kit to some pretty basic punk drum lines. This guy is the full shabang, vocals, drum fills the lot. Don’t take that the wrong way either….. we love Slaves this is just a different kettle of fish. So if you’re a still Spring King virgin then we hope we’ve managed to get your arse into gear. If you are, however, sat their slightly disgruntled with the fact you need to sit through the whole album and frankly don’t have the will power or time then take a shortcut, listen to ‘City’, ‘Who Are You?’, ‘Rectifier’ and title track ‘Tell Me If You Like To’. These tracks are bound to give you that motivation you need to listen to the album in full.

The day we stumbled across The Wytches was a god send; one that will be cherished dearly for years to come. Their infusion of gothic, surf, grunge rock is quite frankly inhumane, how they manage to clamber together specific aspects from an array of incredible bands like Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Arctic Monkeys and in some cases Mr Jack White is beyond comprehension. But thank fuck they did! For us The Wytches are one of the best underground acts to come out of the UK in recent years. Still struggling to make a huge breakthrough like their peers Slaves, they seem to be scratching the surface of national notoriety. Could it simply be because the demand for their downright nasty sound is pretty withered in our millennial culture? Or just that they’re not good enough?...... Of course were fucking joking it’s evidently the former. We think our generation need to suck it the fuck up and make some room for the heavier acts out there. Seriously if you’re sat hear reading this and the reason you were drawn to the article is because of Spring King then firstly good on yah, they are a great band. However take some time continue to read and LISTEN TO THE WYTCHES. You’re missing out on so much pleasure and originality. We challenge you now, who out there sounds like The Wytches right now? And okay for all you smart arses there are bound to be some low key setup that sound just like them but we add further notation to the challenge. Who does it as well as them? If someone comes back with a result and shames us then bravo, you’ve just stumbled upon a goldmine and we want to know their name. Anyway time to get our spoon out of The Wytches proverbial arse. As always their set was rowdy, it goes without saying really doesn’t it. Opening with their NEW track ‘Who Rides?’ from the recently released EP ‘Home Recordings’ that, as mentioned in our previous blog post, was recorded in lead singer Kristian’s basement on a shoe string budget. If you want some more details on that head back in our archives and check it out after you’re done here. As always they played an array of tracks with ‘Digsaw’, ‘Wasteybois’, ‘Wide At Midnight’ and ‘Gravedweller’ all making an appearance. We didn’t get to hear ‘Crying Clown’ again this time round which was a bit of a disappointment but they have enough worldy tracks to keep us occupied throughout the night. Sticky floors, rampant moshpits, sweat condensating in the air above what more could you want. The Wytches are downright nasty and going to one of their live shows should be on every rock fans bucket list regardless of age, gender or any kind of demographic. So get yourself down to one, trust us when you’re stood in that crowd listening to their fuzzy reverb driven guitars you’ll be giving yourself an air high five. TRUST. The follow up to their debut album ‘Annabel Dream Reader’ is due for release this September 2016 so keep your eyes peeled for that and in the meantime check out their ‘Home Recordings’ EP. You can get the digital download for as little as a £ but its open for any donation so don’t be stingy support a great band. We’ll leave you with a live version of their song ‘Wasteybois’ below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBLqdjZ2gi8