If I’m honest, my relationship with The Jezabels only started because I pretended to like them to make a boy fancy me. This has since backfired in my face after I eagerly bought a ticket for their February 22 gig at KOKO, Camden, without actually asking if he wanted to come with me. Turns out he didn’t, so there I was, going to a gig alone for the first time in my life.
I got to the venue two hours early after heading there straight from uni, which left me doing laps of dodgy backstreets of Camden, sitting alone in Costa and buying lots of sweets that I didn’t actually need or want from the 99p Store to waste time. £3.97 and an aggressively hot latte later, I was still nowhere near getting inside the venue. Also – awkwardly – it was an over 18s club and my ID had been stolen along with my purse the week before. I’m 21, but a bit of a babyface at times, and I just knew that today would be the day that my youthful genes would screw me over.
Thankfully it transpired it was a 14+ gig (bit embarrassing) so whilst I was guaranteed to get inside, I’d be inside, alone, surrounded by girls who don’t read Bliss in an ironic way. I’d also never been to KOKO before, and after being smugly deadpan about it since moving to London (“oh, KOKO? Well, if that’s your thing..?) I was pretty apprehensive.
The gig was part of the NME Awards Show Tour and featured Hey Sholay and Kai Fish and as well as support act Dry The River and headliners The Jezabels. Having seen Dry The River play the Electric Ballroom in Camden as support for Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit in my first year of uni, I largely knew what to expect – checked shirts, sweaty fringes and ambiguous attractiveness.
A running theme of the evening – alongside my solitude – was my lack of real knowledge or enthusiasm for the back catalogue of any of the four bands who were inadvertently soundtracking the demise of my social life. I knew three Dry The River songs, had had sex to a Jezabels track, and had never heard of the other two bands bar a cheeky youtube search five minutes after I foolishly booked my ticket online.
I also did something else I’d never done before that night. I used the cloakroom. Only people with no friends use the cloakroom. To add to my grief, I had so many sweets confiscated from my bag after my 99p Store spree that I had to pretend to be diabetic to save face.
All night long I’d been dreading the moment The Jezzys played my favourite song – ‘Disco Biscuit Love.’ My dilemma was that it was also the favourite song of the boy I was trying to win over with my fake interest in Australian indie rock bands and ability to Spotify stalk. Should I call him? Is it too corny to play someone their favourite song down the phone? Would it make him fancy me even less than the zero percent that he currently did? WHY DID I COME ALONE?!
– they didn’t even play it in the end, which was probably for the best.
First band up were Hey Sholay, from Sheffield, whose lead singer looked like a cross between Steve Buscemi (my biggest fear after Mr Bean) and Dexter Fletcher. Their lead guitarist looked like a boy I fancied at high school who slept with my best friend, so the night was off to a flying start. After the Jezzys they probably rated as my top band of the night, making them a satisfying musical discovery. I came home and instantly Spotifyed them, which is testament to how good they were. I’d linked my Spotify to my Facebook to subtly flirt with people through our shared taste in music, but then I kept listening to Destiny’s Child. Maybe Hey Sholay would allow me to claw back some self respect.
Next up was Kai Fish who didn’t even introduce himself which was a bit of an oversight. Maybe he just expected that everyone would recognise him as the bass player of the Mystery Jets and let him get on with it. His opening song featured the chorus “ooohh, we’re having fun..” which seemed deliciously ironic as he and his band couldn’t have looked more bored from the moment they stepped out on stage in an array of oxfammed clothes and an unnecessary post-ironic beanie hat. The female vocalist, Abi May, appeared to have been a last minute addition to the set as backing vocalist, as it was announced that she’d learnt the words to the setlist in the four hours preceeding the show. I imagine Kai looked around for an ‘Indie girl. Blonde. Bit kooky. Must wear stripes.’ She fit the bill perfectly, and even pinned her fringe back, which was a nice touch.
At one point in the evening the combination of warm Becks, the mouldy pitta bread I’d had for breakfast and my perpetual ignorance towards my lactose intolerance had me dashing to the bathroom to dramatically.. not vomit. It was akin in grace to the time when cough medicine, champagne and too many canapes at the Guardian International Development Awards nearly made me sick on my exboyfriend’s Dad. I can’t tell you what song I missed, and even if I’d heard it, I probably still couldn’t tell you what it was. I imagine it involved some “oooh, oooh”s and an acoustic guitar.
My prediction about Dry The River was pretty accurate, except the lead singer looked slightly dirtier than last time I saw them, the bass player looked slightly more like Jesus, and the violinist was slightly more ignored by the rest of the band. They sounded as fantastic as ever though, and as usual Peter Liddle broke my heart with every haunting note that left his tiny fragile body.
I’d attached myself to two good looking Irish brothers after meeting them in the queue – hooray for being a loner! – but lost them between Dry The River and The Jezzys after the illness fiasco. I would have asked around but “Have you seen the guy in the checked shirt?” isn’t going to get you far in Camden. Just like the time I lost an Aussie mate in an Australia shirt in the Walkabout. On Australia Day.
The Jezabels were obviously amazing, so much so that Im willing to forgive them for the oversight of not playing Disco Biscuit Love. By the time they came on stage I was on my own again, but if I’m honest I didn’t even notice. Hayley Mary flailed around the stage to every song, and even did some sort of move that can only be described as a chicken-inspired-lunge, but she managed to make it look like the coolest thing ever. Thankfully I knew more Jezzys songs than I realised and recognised all but two of their set. Mace Spray sounded particularly good live, as did Endless Summer; their opening track.
All in all I was glad to have pretended to like Aussie music, and loved seeing how Dry The River had changed and improved since 2009. Hey Sholay are rapidly becoming one of my most listened to bands of February, and Kai Fish and his band were definitely worth seeing again. Now I just need to get this bloody bloke to fancy me..
The Jezabels – Endless Summer KOKO 22/02/2012
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