Frank Turner / Captain Black / Jay Jay Pistolet

Apologising for his apparently not up to scratch voice, Jay Jay Pistolet, or Justin as he is otherwise known, clambered upon stage armed with an acoustic guitar and strummed his way through a short but impressive set of folky gems recalling Dylan’s ‘I Want You’.

	"whilst Turner is by no means life changing or the greatest gig you’ll see all year, you could do a lot worse than heading along to see him if he plays near you"

He is definitely one to watch out for, and despite his previous apology his vocals sounded great to me, with a unique raspy quality to set him apart from the rest of the singer/songwriter bunch. Whilst not being the most technically gifted guitarist in the world he more than made up for it with the fact he can actually write a good song and never was in danger of veering into middle of the road dullness. At times he reminded me of a lo-fi version of the late and often overlooked Matthew Jay, which is no bad thing at all.

Up next were London five piece Captain Black. Imagine if you can bear to, a cross between The Proclaimers and Razorlight, does that sound bad enough? Well times that by a rubbishness of ten and you might come close to the sound of Captain Black. Recycled riffs, ridiculous clapping intervals, dance moves even your dad would be ashamed of, boring drum beats and a singer that sounds like Johnny Borrell, this band seemed to have it all going against them, so it was no surprise they received a lukewarm polite ripple of applause from the crowd compared to the genuine whoops and claps that the previous act rightfully deserved. Their new single ‘Come On Up To Our House’ features the rather annoying repeated chorus of “...why don’t you come on up to our house...” and the answer Captain Black is because you are awful.

The previous act however was not enough to dampen the spirits of a rapidly expanding crowd who mingled their way down to the front for former Million Dead front man Frank Turner’s headline set. Accompanied by three members of Oxford’s Dive Dive (as a backing band) he launched straight into my personal favourite track from his album 'Sleep Is for the Week' – ‘Wisdom Teeth’. This song is one of the quieter moments in an otherwise fairly upbeat and jovial set with Turner providing short snippets of banter between songs to keep the eager audience entertained. One such snippet of information Turner provided before strumming his way through the honestly titled ‘Thatcher Fucked the Kids’ was that he had found out the previous night that the bassist from his backing band stood as Tory Councillor several years ago and had in fact had tea with Mrs Thatcher. This came as no surprise as he was a dead ringer for Harry Enfield’s portrayal of Tory Boy and this led to some light hearted booing from the crowd and shouts of “Fascist!”

The band left Turner midway through the set for some more folk tinged acoustic numbers before returning for a rousing finale featuring new song ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ amongst more familiar favourites with the fans. By this stage it began to seem clear that Turner has two distinct types of songs, the politically tinged acoustic folk song reminiscent of Chris T-T or the rousing, slightly anthemic heavier number. He pulls both off well however the second category in particular began to become predictable towards the end of the set, with each song featuring a finale where Turner sings the chorus a touch louder and more passionately than before to try and create some sort of epic finish.

The crowd clearly loved it though and the band once again disappeared leaving Turner to finish the night alone with his acoustic guitar once more. He treated us to a pleasant cover of The Postal Service’s ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’ before finishing up with a couple more of his own compositions. So whilst Turner is by no means life changing or the greatest gig you’ll see all year, you could do a lot worse than heading along to see him if he plays near you, but if Captain Black are supporting you might well want to turn up late.

FUTURE GIGS

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