Written by Scarlet Hall
After a laborious two-hour train journey, I arrived in sunny Brighton. Whilst waiting for a friend, I lay on the beach almost nodding off listening to people getting freaked out by the seagulls!
Once she arrived we headed over to the infamous Hope and Ruin, a pub & venue I’ve heard a lot of good tales about. We headed upstairs when we got there and watched the support band, Hutch.
One of the first few things I noticed about them was 1. There was a lot of natural beachy long hair and 2. One of the members was barefoot! I liked it very much. They describe their sound as “twang pop, post-yacht-rock, soft psych” and I think that is a pretty perfect description, it’s music that puts a smile on your face. It’s weird and experimental in all the right ways. I’m still thinking about one of the songs that I’m assuming is called ‘Sandworm’ as the lyrics talked about what noise a sandworm makes?! I wasn’t familiar with hutch before the gig but I can happily say I’m very pleasantly surprised, they give you unconventional lyrics with a 70’s esc look! What more could you want!
After a short break, Blood Wizard was on. A project by Nottingham based musician Cai Burns who is also a member of punk trio Kagoule.
Blood Wizard offers Burns a space to explore songwriting and his complete potential without preconceptions or expectations. His sound is very different from Kagoule, Blood Wizard has definitely got more of a warm folk, indie vibe which works beautifully with his voice.
I was familiar with Blood Wizard before the gig but purposefully didn’t listen to the entirety of his debut album ‘Spaghetti Western’ after knowing I’d be going to see him, I wanted to hear
it all for the first time live. I’m very glad I did, I think it changed my experience of getting to know the songs especially based on how the audience reacted to certain ones such as ‘Halo’ which seemed to be the crowd pleaser!
My favourite, however, was ‘Somehow I knew ’ I was really excited to hear it performed live and it did not disappoint. I loved how raw the sound was, you could really hear all the individual instruments like the little shaker which looked like a wooden aubergine that Faye Robinson was playing as well as the keyboard/synth!
Since following Blood Wizard on Instagram for a while, I’ve noticed the theme of the colour red throughout his artwork, photos, clothing and even his front door?! (Don’t worry I’m not a stalker, I have just seen a lot of pictures of this door!) So I was pleased that the lighting changed when they entered the stage to just pure red. It all tied together very nicely and created a lovely sort of story to the character of who Blood Wizard may be. I’m very excited to see what’s next for Blood Wizard and am proud that I witnessed their third ever gig as I know they are a band that will go on to do lots more!
Go check out Hutch on Instagram
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