Gig review: Lupen Crook @ The Beacon Court 2/10/10
We get to the Beacon Court at around 8pm and it’s already noticeably busier than it gets most nights, this is a good sign! On stage already is The Flowing. I’m not sure exactly how many people are officially in this band as the personnel on stage seem to change frequently; a guitarist, a trumpet player and a female backing singer come and go but there is one constant, the singer. With red & white ‘petrol pump attendant’ baseball cap, faded blue jeans and an even more faded yellow t-shirt with its sleeves cut off, he looks like he’d be more at home on the set of ‘My Name Is Earl’ rather than on stage at the Beacon Court. Bad dress sense aside, he has a good voice, though each song seems to be sung with a different accent including a Jamaican patois, and plays his acoustic guitar exceptionally well but the songs were a little flat for my liking, they lacked hooks and wereforgettable.
Next up are The Sans Pareil, playing indie punk with a shade of folk and generous helping of attitude. They have two vocalists, a guy who tends to shout the lyrics rather than sing them and a girl who doesn’t have a very pleasant voice that doesn’t really add anything other than a bit of tambourine and some seriously dodgy dancing. Add to that a guy who’s playing what looks like a child’s acoustic guitar and the violinist playing his instrument like a guitar and The Sans Pareil are quite an odd bunch. I’m not familiar with their songs but they sound OK live, though I’m not sure I’d invest in a CD. In fact the most interesting aspect of their set was watching the girl singer from the first band doing some demented dance that made her look like she had dislocated both her arms, and her friend who had come to the gig in her nightie. Well it is Gillingham.
The Singing Loins, Medway’s answer to the Levellers, are the first of tonight’s bands that I have actually heard a couple of times before. Playing folk punk, the lead singer (who could pass for Freddie Star) plays a homemade box with a couple of strings attached, and the songs are modern day folk songs telling tales of life in suburban towns. It’s quite clear the ‘Loins have been around for some time, partly because they sound tight and professional and partly because they clearly have a huge following, when they play ‘Song For The Underdog’ and ‘Please Take My Scissors Away’ the crowd actually start dancing – you could be forgiven for thinking they were tonight’s headliners.
By the time The Singing Loins leave the stage the crowd has grown significantly in size making tonight one of the busiest nights the Beacon Court has seen for some time, I hope no one starts a fight! Lupen Crook, here to promote their third album ‘The Pros and Cons of Eating Out’ take to the stage and rip into the album starting with ‘How to Murder Birds’. Tonight the more intricate folk aspect of Lupen Crook’s songs takes a back seat in favour of the more energetic punk element for the live experience. That’s not a bad thing though, the set is electric and the band are on fire. The slower songs from ‘The Pros and Cons of Eating Out’ are left out to make way for some crowd favourites which sadly means no ‘Pirate’s Wife’ or ‘Ode To Fucking Everyone’. After what seems to be about 50 minutes the band finish an excellent, storming set with ‘Hour Glass’ and leave the stage with, disappointingly, no encore. Well I say no encore….
After a break of not more than 10 minutes all hell breaks loose and a family fight breaks out (it’s Gillingham, it had to happen). Details are a little sketchy but it appears to be between one of Lupen Crook’s band, his brother and his dad. Amidst the sound of breaking glass, women wailing and one girl screaming ‘get an ambulance, he’s just hit his fackin’ dad’ fists are flying in all directions and blood is spraying everywhere. Like a Jerry Springer show set in the Wild West, what starts off as your everyday father/son fist fight soon escalates as people who seem to have no connection join in for the hell of it. Eventually the ambulance and the police turn up and peace is briefly restored until one of the original fighters bursts back into the pub shirt off, nose displaced and fists flying. Another quiet night in Medway, time for a kebab methinks!
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