MobileAct Unsigned - A Spy In The House of Gav

It’s four thirty on a dismal Wednesday in half term. On Hotham Street, Liverpool a line of roughly a hundred assorted scals and indie kids are waiting to be let in to the Carling Academy. Suddenly a film crew appear with a bearded man with middle aged spread. This is Simon Gavin, head of A&R at Polydor and music ‘mogul’ at the helm of Channel 4’s new talent show MobileAct Unsigned. A few scally girls in brightly coloured tights yell ‘Who are you?’. They’ve got a point.

It’s not X-Factor, it’s not Fame Academy, it’s not Pop Idol. That’s the line that Channel 4 want everyone to swallow. Those shows are about stuffing one more glassy-eyed warbler into the already heaving pop industry, and pulling every string available to make sure that they peak and disappear, ready for the next one whereas Channel 4 describe MobileAct as ‘a multi-platform search to find the hottest unsigned band in Britain’. Multi-platform means it’s sponsored by and utilises mobile phone technology (like X-Factor), that viewers can interact with the programme using the internet (like X-Factor) and that the public can vote on the winner by texting in (just like…oh fuck it, I’ve made my point).

So it’s the indie band X-Factor, which Channel 4 seem a little embarrassed about. They shouldn’t, the talent show has always been a staple of TV scheduling and is a legitimate form of entertainment. The problem is that the viewing public know exactly how talent shows work, and that rather than a shiny new band being presented clean and ready-wrapped by the NME, Radio One, MTV and E4, we get to see every slip up, every desperate begging session, every in-fight and every tear before we even hear enough songs to fill an EP. We get the people before the product, which is an unnatural way to experience a band.

Back at the Carling Academy there are six bands waiting to perform to an invited audience of free ticket holders and blaggers. Alex James, the bass player from Blur, and the aforementioned Simon Gavin are sat on a white leather sofa looking like Blofeld and his gimp whilst a jovial floor manager heats up the crowd. These bands have already been through an online vote and an appearance in the heats, where they performed in front of such musical luminaries as Just Jack (who when faced with a tumult of indie bands was left repeating ‘it’s not really my kind of music’ like an idiot budgie), Mutya Buena and gawking fool Calvin Harris. The bands were then further whittled down with a series of ‘interviews’ where the judges broke their spirits, treated them like scum and forced a series of contrived in-fights.

In 2003, Simon Gavin told music industry directory Hitquarters the following ; ““If all you have are TV-associated projects, real talent has a problem getting noticed.” One of the real problems with public voting as it exists on Mobileact is the unreliable ballot. Bands are asked in the early stages to get as many people as possible to vote for them on the Mobileact, which basically means that the bands with the most mates (or the most mates with multiple email addresses) do better. The TV monster which Gavin warned us of four years ago also turns artists with raw creative talent and balls into toadies of the highest degree. In the second round of the show the acts are asked to perform acoustically and are judged on this, all ready for Radio One’s Live Lounge with Whiley. Where is it written that all bands have to reduce what they do down to its simplest and most generic form? At this stage, any electro or hip hop artists are at a distinct disadvantage, and quelle surprise, it’s the guitar based indie bands which get through.

The first band to play in the Liverpool round of the knockout stages are Revenue, a swaggering lot from rock ‘n’ roll Peterborough who are the embodiment of the ready-for-TV band that the judges seem intent on putting through. For filming purposes every band has to play two minutes of their song for camera coverage (ie filming from different angles) before they perform properly. Revenue churn out their two minutes looking like they’d rather be anywhere else, turning away from the audience and messing with their instruments whilst playing. All of a sudden, they’re being filmed for real and darn it if they aren’t bouncing around and gurning like indie jesters. The passion, the effort, all fake. They turn it on like they turn their amps on, and NOW we’re rock and roll stars! The judges love it.

In 2004, in an interview for the Guardian on the rise of ‘art rock’, Gavin told Alex Petridis that “record companies are in the position that they have a very successful mainstream roster and it would be criminal not to exploit the resources….not to try something different as well”. How times have changed. Gavin’s mantra on Mobileact has been ‘It’s not commercial enough. I can’t sell it.’ It seems those downloads are pinching tighter than expected.

All of the bands here tonight are too worshipful, too desperate and too easily persuaded. When Simon Gavin tells The Bad Robots, a ska tinged bunch with the best song of the evening, that they’re a ‘safe option’, they nod and grin like it’s the greatest moment of their lives. Alex James tells all-female The Mentalists that they remind him of 4 Non Blondes (possibly the first outing for that reference in 12 years) they giggle, blush and show mock horror before giggling again. All of these bands, being cowed by the bright lights and the backstage privileges, seem oblivious to the fact that they’re being sized up, poked, prodded and rejected based on a scant set of ideals.

I ask Simon Gavin who his favourite band of the series is. His answer is the same as host Alex Zane : Hijak Oscar. A blues/soul/folk band (their description) whose influences are either dead or haven’t released a record since the dawn of MP3. All fine and good you might say, but Gavin has spent the entire audition process saying that anything other than electro indie, indie rock or just plain indie is ‘a niche market’, or the old chestnut ‘too difficult to sell’. Hijak Oscar cannot win this competition – the votes will come from people who call blues and soul ‘their mum’s music’, and where does that leave Simon Gavin and his relevance to this show, primarily watched by 14 to 18 year olds? By the time the winning band are in a position to release their debut album, about 12 months from now, the music scene which Gavin is trying to shoe-horn them into will have moved on considerably. On the final auditions show, he told an aspiring soul singer that it was Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse who were selling records now, not Jamelia or Beverly Knight. The possibility that this might change was not mentioned, just as it wasn’t when Mr Gavin dismissed a Screamo band earlier in the series.

When I ask whether this contest will produce anything relevant to music today Alex Zane, the nicest man in television, convincingly toes the party line; “MobileAct gives these bands access to contacts that they wouldn’t get anywhere else. They’ll meet people here who will help them in the future and I think they’re all benefiting from the competition. Plus there’s the potential that we find an amazing band.”

But who are his favourite bands, and would they have entered a competition like this? “I like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, people like that. Things have changed in music now and you never know. There are platforms like myspace and bands are doing a lot of stuff themselves so they might well have done.”

It’s hard to imagine John Lydon re-writing Anarchy InThe UK for the acoustic guitar but you can see what Zane is getting at. Music has changed, the way that music is promoted has changed, the bands have to change to some extent because unlike the dark ages of Punk, New Wave and even Britpop, the processes and the people behind A&R are accessible to anyone with Wikipedia in their favourites.

I ask Alex James, cheese purveyor, whether Seymour (Blur when unsigned) would have done well in this competition. “Seymour? Seymour wouldn’t have been invited” he replies. No, Seymour would have sent in an unsolicited demo to Andy Ross, the Food records A&R, and invited them to their gig. In fact, that’s what they did, and they were signed. Ask a tiny indie label about this way of working today, and the response is different. Nobody wants demos any more, they want hype, numbers and a ready made band of followers. They want a website, some choice quotes and a million myspace friends, as well as a band who have done everything they’re about to pay the record company for before, done it better, and for free.

So what’s next for MobileAct and its confusing title? They have recently revealed that viewers will be able to re-instate one of the bands who have been ejected. The favourites seem to be Yorkshire-based The Headliners, five cheeky chaps with nu-rave clothes and some spiky indie pop songs which plough that barren furrow between McFly and The Buzzcocks. They’re adorable, and you can imagine spending five minutes in their company and not wanting to dig your eyes out with spoons. Luckily the public vote for the winner of MobileAct, so if The Headliners make it back into the competition they will almost certainly triumph. Whether this is a poison chalice for any up and coming band remains to be seen.

The Cribs - Birmingham Carling Academy 05.10.07

*This review was written for a Cribs website, if you're not familiar with the band a more detailed review of their latest album is further down this page*

Ah, Brum Academy, The Cribs’ favourite venue in the country according to them, though I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s the big sweeping balcony full of people who’ll throw empty glasses at you when you stage dive – even when you’re in the band. Maybe it’s the happy-go-lucky bouncers who put an X on your hand when you come over the top, yet turn a blind eye when your arm ends up looking like a game of noughts and crosses. Maybe it’s the fact that every single Cribs show there is fucking awesome.

Launching into Our Bovine Public like it’s their last three minutes on earth the band look possessed by the whole atmosphere. The kids have shown some mega appreciation to the fantastic Bobby Conn and Pavilion but this is what they’re after, and the energy that bounces back and forth from stage to pit is tremendous.

Gary reminds us that new single Don't You Wanna Be Relevant is "the one with the video where we look like the Archies", a comment which flies straight over the heads of the under 25 year olds in the audience but is nonetheless very accurate.

Ryan’s taking his t-shirt off, which to me signals he’s coming into the crowd, This he does, managing to kick me square in the head in the melee. (If you’re reading this Ryan I’ll settle out of court). The jeans are ripped in half, the shoes come off and the next thing I see Ryan is being passed back to the waiting security guards who carry him away. Someone helpfully yells ‘Shit, he’s dead!’, but thankfully just knocked out.

Moments later the band re-appear. Gary says ‘Thanks for raping my brother’. They did play something at this point but I can’t remember what due to a) beer and b) the aforementioned kick in the head. Ryan comes to Gary’s mic to sing a sweet rendition of Shoot The Poets and finally retreats, to Casualty probably.

As the lights come up someone is trying to persuade a roadie to give him Ryan’s forgotten t-shirt, like it’s the Shroud of Turin. And now we all know why this is The Cribs’ favourite venue

Monumental Hypocrisy

Who’s up for a trip around Parliament Square then? A swift visit to the Churchill memorial, swerve Abraham Lincoln where some tourists from Arsecreek, Kentucky are posing, and past Benjamin Disraeli, whoever he is.

There will we find the newest monument to a man who has demonstrated and inspired greatness, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Let’s just remind ourselves what this man stands for. Influenced by Ghandi, Mandela’s first political activity involved giving free legal advice and representation to blacks who suffered under the National Party. After non-violent actions failed, Mandela co-founded and led the armed wing of the ANC in paramilitary training, guerrilla warfare and sabotage. To put it lightly, this was one serious motherfucker.

Mandela began his struggle in the shadow of Ghandi, but drifted towards what Malcolm X would later describe as equality ‘by any means necessary’. It was arguably the Sharpeville massacre which turned many moderate ANC members into armed revolutionaries. In a South African township in 1960, a group of over 5,000 people converged on the local police station. They asked to each be arrested for the crime of not carrying their identifying passbooks. As the crowds grew, armoured tanks surrounded them, and opened fire, killing 69 and injuring another 180.

Lt. Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the unit which committed the massacre, had earlier been quoted thus; “the Native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For them to gather means violence." A similar feeling seems to have been behind a piece of legislation which makes the unveiling of a statue to Mandela despicably ironic. If, tomorrow, the government unveiled a piece of discriminatory legisaltion, it would be against the law to protest about it in the shadow of Mandela’s image. Since 2006 it has been illegal to mount a protest in Parliament Square without the express permission of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Anyone entering Parliament Square with a placard could be arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and held whilst a DNA sample was taken from them. The same could happen to anyone who had a permit to protest (a contradiction in terms really) but who used a loudspeaker. In fact, this could now happen to anyone, technically for doing anything at all, as the definition of an arrestable offence is now anything for which a policeman arrests you. It’s the kind of Catch-22 situation that the phrase was coined for.








The passbooks which those at the Sharpeville massacre were protesting against being forced to use were basically ID cards. They held a person’s name, employment details, photograph and fingerprints. They had to be presented on demand and not carrying one was an arrestable offence. Sound familiar? Imagine being arrested in front of that statue for failing to produce your compulsory ID card, which unlike the paper versions given to the blacks in South Africa, can also record your biometric data, and can hold an unlimited amount of information due to its chip technology.

Mandela had no qualms about moving towards armed resistance when the freedoms at stake were so precious. Surely a better tribute to his efforts would be to lift the restrictions on demonstrating in Parliament Square and to send the ID cards legislation to join the Passbook in freedom’s own Room 101.

Swindler's List

Daily life is full of decisions. What shall I have on my sandwiches? Where should I park? Should I download child pornography for the purposes of spurious ‘research’ into the area of childhood as a whole for a one line appearance in a BBC Three late night comedy drama, or is that a bad idea fraught with pitfalls?

Decisions, decisions, decisions. But in what form of reality could you reasonably be expected to decide whether you prefer a serial killer, a dwarf, or an animated crab? I’ll tell you where, in a land called Listopia, where even the most idiotic of people can claim to be film buffs because they can enthusiastically rate fictional characters depending on their resonance in their pathetic daily lives.

We all know that lists are big money these days. Lists on TV can last for six hours and straddle a whole bank holiday weekend, and will guarantee news coverage and promotion when the Daily Mail gets upset that ‘Gaz twatting Mozz’ is the nation’s best loved street crime on YouTube. Lists in magazines always guarantee big sales, because everybody wants to match their personal outrages with those of their film/music/tv heroes. “Jimmy Page better than Jimi Hendrix by one place! I’ll firebomb the offices of Mojo before I will allow this travesty to stand!”

Total Film magazine have already delivered their Top 100, as voted for by people who find Empire too mentally challenging. Readers placed The Empire Strikes Back at number one, rather predictably, in a list so masculine that it virtually sprouted chest hairs. The gangster, horror and sci-fi genres were so overwhelmingly represented that you get to number 18 in the list before you find a film with no violent deaths. Total Film have now unveiled the voting forms for their newest list, the Top 100 Movie Characters, and the result is a trip to Listopia so surreal and unfathomable that David Lynch must have been the guest editor.

Only in the fields of entertainment are enthusiasts expected, nay encouraged, to rate completely disparate paradigms against one another. In Annie Hall Woody Allen jokes about the pointless awards industry and wonder whether they will crown ‘Best Fascist Dictator – Adolf Hitler’. But that would at least draw some lines of comparison – Maggie probably wouldn’t make the cut if there was a panel involved - unlike the idea that a sci-fi film about killer robots can be judged equally against a Swedish language dadaist introspective about fruit trees.

To help those film buffs who don’t actually know or like any films, Total Film has compiled a list of characters to choose a Top 100 from. As well as fictional characters from literature (Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, Gandalf) there are real people (Johnny Cash, Bonnie Parker) and all manner of weird inclusions. Nowhere does the magazine attempt to justify or explain its reasons for compiling this list. Is it to measure the skill of actors in taking a script and developing a character, including voice and movement? If so then Johnny Depp’s rendering of Captain Jack Sparrow is certainly a relevant entry. Caspar on the other hand owes very little of his ‘character’ to the voice actor playing him in the children’s movies. There’s a even a clue for the kid in the description ‘the friendly ghost’. Not rocket science really, just don’t make him a bastard platypus who speaks fluent German.

Elsewhere amongst the prescribed choices is ‘The Monster’ from Frankenstein. Unfortunately the IMDB lists four films called Frankenstein, including a frankly strange method attempt by Robert De Niro and the 1931 version with Boris Karloff. Other multiples occur with Alice In Wonderland (8 versions), Aladdin (3), and Cinderella (24). This would suggest that it is the character in general that is being celebrated and not the film character at all. If that’s the case, why is there Hightower from Police Academy, but not Dr.Jekyll? Are we voting for Jude Law or Michael Caine as Alfie?

There are so many errors and omissions in the list that it becomes painfully clear that the magazine is putting this out as a money making exercise. Who is Willy Wonker? What the fuck is Toy’s Story? Who is Romeo ‘Montigue’? Don’t they know that Danny Zucco is in Grease and not ‘Greece’? Or is this a straight to video version that I haven’t seen? Also, if the Total Film journalists are choosing the list from which to vote, should they not be fired immediately for suggesting that of the millions of characters ever committed to celluloid, the dad from Jumanji and the whale from Free Willy are among them?

In the October issue of Total Film, this feature will probably take up around ten pages. That’s ten pages that could have been used to discuss relevant and important issues in film, such as funding for independent films which haven’t been produced by George Clooney and don’t have Oscar nominees in them, or the state of British film industry, or the fact that cinemas like FACT in Liverpool are forced to screen summer blockbusters instead of foreign language films to keep on the sweet side of the distributors. Instead we have the eternal question – is Sebastian the crab better than Idi Amin? If only we didn’t have to wait til October to find out….

The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever

Fuck the NME. Fuck them right up the arse with a pointy stick. Fuck XFM. Fuck polka dot dresses, new rave and the ‘re-birth’ of indie guitar music, because without all that overblown, empty dollar green garbage, The Cribs new album would be number one for a hundred million years and The Kooks would spontaneously combust in the face of the awesome power of three brothers from Wakefield who write the best songs this fledgling century has seen.

As you might have gathered, it’s hard for me to undersell The Cribs. Their presence in British music is like a little Radio Caroline, bobbing about in treacherous circumstances, battling through the jaunty and the desperate on the airwaves to re-assure you that you’re not going mad. Their first album, ‘The Cribs’, was a DIY effort which burned through 40 odd minutes of adrenaline guitars, shouting and Beatles-esque melodies. It was a gem which was left in the dust as the majors pushed out The Thrills, The Coral and other soft going singalong albums in time for festival season of 2004. The follow up ‘The New Fellas’ was a hook-led classic. Something of a climb down from the rattiness of the first album, but it held chart worthy songs like ‘Mirror Kissers’, ‘Hey Scenesters’ and ‘Martell’ which amused the Radio One playlist for a good few weeks. With Alex Kapranos at the helm, some were expecting a sharper, more poppy album this time round. ‘Men’s Needs’ is anything but a compromise to the current scene. You can hear the influence of Kapranos as vocals are shoved up front, the distortion has been reduced and the hook lines and iron-clad melodies are given a starring role.

More than anything this album is threatening the boundaries of what the indie revivalists expect from a record. There is not one second of filler on this offering, listen to any big seller from The Kooks, The Feeling, The Killers and try and say the same, the words’ll stick in your throat. In fact, it’s difficult to keep a straight face discussing these bands in the same breath as The Cribs, although they’ve been lumped together by every magazine and radio station going. The record starts with the spastic rallying cry of ‘Our Bovine Public’, reducing The Cribs so-called rivals to porridge in the space of 2 minutes and 16 seconds. Any one of the next eight tracks could be a single, horrifically catchy equality anthem ‘Men’s Needs’ has been, and ‘Moving Pictures’, the half mournful, half hopeful tune that feels like you’ve always known it, is the next one out of the bag. The big surprise of the record is ‘Be Safe’, which marries a marching bassline to the spoken words of Lee Renaldo (of Sonic Youth) and a rousing event chorus. It will sneak up on you and assault you before delivering you battered into the end of the album and the warm waters of ‘Shoot The Poets’, a sweet anti-love song with a touching vocal from Ryan Jarman.

In all probability The Cribs will survive the poisoned association with the increasingly generic indie scene, and will still be releasing albums as brilliant as this one when the likes of The View are ‘pursuing other projects’. In the meantime, The Cribs are flicking vs at the bands they recently lambasted on stage at Glastonbury and going off on tour to be with the already converted, who are getting smugger by the minute.

The Cribs - Liverpool Academy - 25.05.07

Originally published on Twistedear.com

Remember when pop music used to be fun? Roughly 5 years BC (Before Coldplay) when bands didn’t really care whether they were taken seriously and didn’t date models or actresses because they weren’t really handsome or fucked up enough? Those were good days, and The Cribs are slowly dragging them back.

You won’t catch the Jarman brothers campaigning against climate change, or being papped for Heat magazine, but you will find them pumping out riff-led anthems whilst jumping around and sweating, you know, like bands are supposed to. At the Liverpool Academy Ryan Jarman, on vocals and guitar, wears a constant look of confusion, as if he still can’t believe that this happening to him. He sweats like Joan of Arc and bounds about the stage, oblivious to the plastic jewellery and beer dregs that are being flung onto him. The Cribs have risen in the public psyche with TV appearances, festival headline slots and their new album and single going top 20. But to look at them perform you could be fooled into thinking that they’ve only just graduated from booking their own gigs at the local conservative club. The energy, the hunger, the newness – it’s all still there.

The Cribs have always attracted a healthy mix of indie kids and townies - a bit like Oasis they have that duel appeal that stems from bouncy guitar lines meant for pogo-ing and lyrics that sound apt when they’re being yelled at taxi drivers after 12 pints of Stella. The brothers Jarman are also popular with the ladies – Ryan and Gary are twins but there’s a ‘nice’ one and a ‘dirty’ one, and then there’s little brother Ross, ripe for corruption. One love-struck lady feigns an injury and is taken into the backstage corridor for a rest, only to make a run for it when security’s back is turned. When Ryan hurls himself into the pit as customary at the end of the show, his shirt’s torn up within seconds and feminine screams emerge from the melee. It’s just like the golden days of The Osmonds.

Their first album ‘The Cribs’ was recorded somewhere between a shed and an underpass by the sounds of it. It’s lo-tech to the extreme with bits of odd toy-like effects, outtakes and shouting . Somewhere within each two minute classic a chorus and a hook are dumped in, and against all the odds it works. By the time ‘The New Fellas’ came along the hooks were clearer and the songs fully formed. Singles like ‘Mirror Kissers’, ‘Hey Scenesters’ and ‘Martell’ are their true pop classics and these are still the songs that lead to the most screaming and singing along. Most of the crowd could probably play them more accurately aswell but it just wouldn’t be the same. Rather than balking at the hits, the band revel in them, swaggering and smacking away at their instruments saying with every stroke ‘We wrote this!’.

Now onto their third album, produced by Alex Kapranos, The Cribs have polished their recorded sound but retain that no-frills performing style that makes them such a great live prospect. There are bum notes, inadvertent tempo changes and moments when no-one on stage seems to know what’s happening next. The crowd chimes in with ‘der der der doo doo da da’ which signals that they want to hear the three note riff of ‘Another Number’ from ‘The New Fellas’, and the band start it up dutifully, as if they’re glad of the idea. As a member of the audience one feels like they wouldn’t quite know what to do without our cues, it’s a comforting thought, we’re all in this together.

Down in the venue foyer, minus three pints of sweat but with half a dozen new mates the Crib-ettes are still singing twenty minutes after the band have vacated. A girl is lipsticking her phone number on the bus outside. These are a simple but happy bunch, you could do worse than to join them next time round.

Willy Mason - Liverpool Carling Academy 05.05.07

In March 2006 Willy Mason played a sold out show to roughly 300 in the smallest room of Barfly Liverpool. This year the show sells out again, only this time the venue is the 1200 capacity Carling Academy. Such is the draw of the New Yorker whose mix of accessible political anthems and songs about cats has attracted all kinds of music lover to his warm and intimate shows.

Can a show still be intimate when there are 1200 people there? It’s strange but it can. The heat in the Academy is immense but the bar is virtually ignored once Mason hits the stage, with little brother Sam on guitar and Nina Violet on viola. The subject of the tour is Mason’s second studio album If The Ocean Gets Rough, and like other artists he has enabled fans to listen to the album for free on MySpace for the last two months, ensuring none of the killer ‘We Don’t Know This One’ moments which can distract the casual attendee. This tour has been preceded by a series of ‘Living Room’ gigs, where Willy shows up at the house of a fan and plays literally in their living room. Seeing his stagecraft, you can believe that nothing changes between the set in a lounge in suburbia and the set in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire or the Leadmill.

If The Ocean Gets Rough has had a mixed reception by the popular music press in general, who were so pleased with themselves for liking the Grandma’s Basement EP but cooled towards Where The Humans Eat. It’s not a firebrand Willy that has emerged from the hype of the first album and perhaps that’s where the industry criticism comes from – this is personal writing about his Martha’s Vineyard life and his frustrations at the hypocrisy and greed of the modern world. Mason is still only 23, a fact that can be forgotten when he performs so assuredly, and his world is still that of a young American, wondering why his generation can produce such poetry and passion and yet still find a functioning illiterate in the White House. Willy works through the album steadily, throwing in older tracks along the way. There isn’t a huge difference between this album and the last, a fact which has led to criticism from some quarters. What happened though to the idea of constancy? How much can a 20-something’s world view change over 2 years? What does change is the confidence with which Willy Mason tells stories, like the son mourning his father in ‘The World That I Wanted’.

At the Carling Academy the crowd is almost reverential. “He’s fuckin’ brilliant inne?’ remarks one young man, who wouldn’t look out of place on page four of the Daily Mirror with a black rectangle over his eyes and ‘Asbo Teen’ as the headline. To say that the crowd is ‘mixed’ is an understatement of epic proportions. As Mason picks the opening bars of ‘Where The Humans Eat’ (the aforementioned cat song), a fifty-ish white haired man and a pierced emo teenager look at each other with glee as if to say ‘I love this one!’. A few rows in front stands a old school punk next to three shaven-headed lads in tracksuits. Seems that frustration, left wing politics, domestic animals and lilting ballads about the sea make up that elusive uniting force amongst the youth of Britain.

The band’s sound is balmy, full and responsive. Underpinned by gentle resonant bass lines and brush-struck drums the instrumentation rushes back and forth like a dying tide behind Mason’s raw moans. This is the sound of a long-touring band who have had time to adjust to each other and they never falter. After finishing the night with the much loved ‘Hard Hand To Hold’, Nina Violet fiddling for all she’s worth, Mason wanders back on stage to allow one more burst from the choir. ‘Heads or tails; So Long or Oxygen’ he says, flipping a coin. Of course he plays both, because he’s the nicest man in folk.

In the wake of the local elections the doom-mongers who wrung their hands over youth political apathy would have been heartened by the sound of 400 18 to 30 years olds singing ‘Justice, equality, freedom to every race’ at the top of their lungs. ‘Oxygen’, Mason’s own non-partisan manifesto draws the most joy from the steaming crowd. He has a habit of adapting and changing his third verse to ensure that his is the lone voice for at least a part of the sing-a-long anthem, announcing truths like a scruffy statesman while the throngs look on with pride.

Willy Mason – believe the hype and get your tickets early next time, or you might have to depend on him showing up to play in your living room.