Jaws

Last night, on the final night of a short UK tour, in a sold out, sweaty and rowdy Hare and Hounds, Jaws gave more evidence that this B-Town lark isn’t just a flash in the pan.

As a Birmingham native, the whole B-Town thing inspires two rather contrasting feelings. It’s great to have some bands to be excited about and some attention at a national level, I just wish they didn’t have to give us a shitty nickname. But I digress.

With a young and restless crowd whipped into a frenzy across four (at least two more than any gig needs) support bands, by the time Jaws took to the stage and burst into Breeze, the whole room was a swirling mass of leaping, shoving and jumping. And the faster Donut only poured more fuel on the fire for the wildly juvenile audience.

A gig shouldn’t be judged on the floor though, and what was happening onstage was quite the opposite. Dressed ready for a trip to Hawaii in the early 90s, Jaws produce their sweet and jangly distortion-tinged pop so effortlessly it borders on lethargic, like they’re chilling on a real beach and not just surrounded by inflatable palm trees.

Looking barely older than the kids throwing themselves around in front of them, the band don’t quite have the showmanship yet (“Birmingham is the best place in the world,” was frontman Connor Schofield’s repeated mantra), but they display the raw materials that should see them match or even surpass their friends and current Birmingham starlets Peace. They certainly have the songs.

And with only a handful released so far, their set was short but sweet; a great-sounding new song and an early song supplementing the six that will make up the Milkshake EP, released on 22 April.

Jaws were hailed as “the undiscovered gems of the Birmingham scene” by the Guardian in December, in a lengthy piece profiling them alongside Peace and Swim Deep. With gems like Friend Like You and Surround You already inspiring reactions as frenzied as those witnessed tonight, they won’t stay undiscovered for long.

Benjamin Francis Leftwich

It’s almost 18 months since Benjamin Francis Leftwich released his debut album, but last night (17 October) he brought a fresh Snowstorm to Birmingham’s Irish Centre.

For whatever reason, some music just works better in the cold, grey months of the British autumn and winter. And, as his album’s wintery title may suggest, Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm benefitted from being performed on a dark and chilly October evening.

Like the precipitation he so often writes of, Ben is a magnetic figure on stage, easily creating a palpable atmosphere with his warm guitar sounds and breathy, enduring vocals. His presence draws a hushed response during songs and rapturous applause in between, with cries of love and lust from the audience a regular occurrence.

Playing the entire album, the gig had a great balance between the stripped down sound of Ben playing solo, and the fuller sound that his band created around him.

Highlights included a full-band version of Stole You Away, featuring moody slide guitar and a bluesy solo, an extended version of Don’t Go Slow, which built from quiet into a rousing crescendo, and closer Atlas Hands, which was played completely unplugged and drew one of the softest and sweetest singalongs of any gig I’ve been to.

Alongside the songs from his long player, Ben also played Hole in My Hand and Maps from the A Million Miles Out EP, previewed two new songs from the forthcoming In The Open EP, and even found time for a slow and delicate cover of Arcade Fire’s Rebellion (Lies).

The new songs - the EP’s title track In The Open and Manchester Snow, which Ben reveals has a rather risqué story behind its title, involving 23 rendezvous’ with a Manchester girl in the space of one week - sound great live and point towards a fuller sound Ben is creating.

As he is on Twitter, Ben appears a very down to earth guy on stage, constantly thanking fans for coming out and the venue for having him. Following him on Twitter is a must if you want to learn more about modern life on the road, he is often found asking after a spare washing machine or shower, and personally thanking fans – myself included – that have tweeted about buying tickets or enjoying the album.

And as Ben mentions some of his recent tours, it seems he has been on tour constantly for a long time now. But still filling venues after several lengthy tours with the album is an indicator of its lingering impact, and his fans appear as dedicated as he is.

With the new EP - to be released next month - offering a glimpse into what is next, this talented young Yorkshireman is continuing to brew up a storm.

Ben Howard & Daughter

It took its time in coming but my first gig of the year was seeing Ben Howard and Daughter at the HMV Institute on Tuesday (28th Feb). It was worth the wait.

Ben played every song bar one from his debut album Every Kingdom, bookended by B-side opener Depth Over Distance and encore song Burgh Island, a new song about an island just off the coast of Devon that is close to my heart as well as Ben’s.

It, like every song throughout the night, was played with boundless energy, even the ‘quiet’ ones, as Ben called them, were delivered with passion that matched the precision.

This was equally matched by a crowd as adoring and enthusiastic as any I’ve ever been a part of. Every song and every word from Ben was met with deafening screams and hysteria. Every quiet song was silently observed, every big chorus chanted back by a few thousand, as you can witness in this guerilla footage I found on YouTube.



It’s also worth noting that it was a mixed crowd, made up of all ages, with a slight lean towards female, plenty of whom embraced the following day’s tradition in order to shout early proposals to the 23-year-old.

“We played here last year in the room downstairs and were shown this room, we all said we would love to come back and play it and it’s amazing to have sold it out,” said Ben during his performance, a great example of the upwards trajectory he is on.

While his gig several days earlier at the Shepherd's Bush Empire is the date he will probably remember most, this whole tour has the feeling of witnessing something special, an artist on the brink of making it big. With a US tour this month and a US release of his album in April, as well as another UK tour later this year featuring larger venues still, taking the next step should be easy for such a great live act.

He certainly has the talent. Already an excellent songwriter, he also showcased his guitar prowess, easily switching between acoustic and electric during the performance proving he can wail as well as he can finger pick.

Each member of his band could be found in the dictionary under the word multi-instrumentalist, all switching between drums and strings and even playing both simultaneously at times. The four shared a great camaraderie on stage, all seeming delighted to be doing what they are doing. There were several points when Ben couldn’t even sing he was smiling or laughing so much, a great thing to see.

Highlights for me were Only Love, the first big singalong of the night, a loud and rousing extended version of The Wolves to close the first set, and the same for The Fear, which ended the gig.

Seeing Ben’s album at number 10 on Spotify’s UK Top 100 and two songs from it in their Top 100 songs, added to the recent success of (admittedly more pop-orientated) troubadour Ed Sheeran suggests Ben can have an impact on the charts as well as on the live scene. I'm convinced he is destined for great things.



I was equally excited to see support band Daughter, whose two devastating-in-a-good-way EPs became an obsession of mine in 2011. While only playing five songs, Elena Tonra and her band produced a hypnotic sound that resonated long after they had left the stage. Headline shows outside of London would be greatly appreciated.