The folks at DIY Magazine and Kilipresents have got together to put on a select 6-date UK tour featuring the rather wonderful LYNKS and very exciting VLURE, plus the addition of local support bands.
DIY is a national music magazine and website, bringing you the latest news, reviews, interviews, videos and downloads. Kili are a new live promoting brand run by renowned concert and festival promoters, Kilimanjaro Live.
The tour kicks off in Leeds on 23rd February, before heading off to Newcastle on the 24th and Glasgow on the 25th, and then three days later will be heading down the A23 to Brighton, where they will be setting up camp for the night at the Komedia on Gardner Street. After which they will conclude the tour by visiting Birmingham and Bristol.
The Brighton & Hove News have previously reviewed both LYNKS and VLURE on two separate occasions and we thoroughly enjoyed their performances.
We last caught up with LYNKS, aka Elliott Brett with his Lynks Shower Gel friends, when they appeared at Patterns on 5th November as part of the ‘Mutations Festival’. The review read as thus:
“I made a beeline over to Patterns in order to catch the uncompromisingly entertaining ‘masked drag monster’ Lynks who is once seen, never forgotten, and thus the venue was rammed and ready to take on board the light-hearted atmosphere of arguably the most raucous drag shows to his pop performances. Bristol artist’s debut release and statement of intent was ‘Smash Hits, Vol. 1’ under the banner Lynks Afrikka. This queer icon appears to be crossing boundaries judging by the range of different folk here this teatime”.
“There’s no equipment on stage other than a laptop and microphones. After the ‘God Save The Queen/King’ intro tape, the energetic seriously choreographed set begins as Lynks and Lynks Shower Gel – that’s the name he gave his two partners in crime – take to the Patterns stage. Prior to their entry, I heard several punters discussing what they thought Lynks might be wearing, on arrival, he certainly didn’t disappoint. This is a truly entertaining act with songs littered with comical lyrics that make us laugh. We are all here to have a great time and Lynks and chums dutifully oblige. Lynks informs us that he’s 25 years old and that Brighton has a special place in his heart as his grandparents live here. Standouts being ‘BBB’ (“Big Bad Bitch”), the Vengaboys-ish ‘Silly Boy’ , ‘How To Make A Béchamel Sauce In 10 Steps (With Pictures)’ (yes that’s its title and we were shown how to make it, “continue adding milk’), hands down winner was the Bobby O and Patrick Cowley-esque ‘Pedestrian At Best’, which is a Courtney Barnett tune. In summary, Lynks offers the vintage Electro 808 sound meets Kraftwerk’s ‘Numbers’. Think modern day Divine. A great fun set!”
The Brighton & Hove News last caught up with VLURE on 12th May when they played on Brighton Palace Pier at Horatios as part of ‘The Great Escape‘. Our report read as thus:
“Post-punk quintet Vlure (stylized as VLURE) formed back in 2018. A trio of them hail from Glasgow (frontman Hamish Hutcheson, bassist Niall Goldie and guitarist Conor Goldie), whereas keyboardist Alex Pearson comes from Reading and drummer Carol Kriekaard originated in The Hague in the Netherlands. Back in January this year, they dropped their 5 track ‘Euphoria’ EP, which took over the mantle from their terrific ‘Shattered Faith’ debut single release, which came out in March 2021”.
“This evening at Horatios their set commenced with a poem from a colleague of theirs and this set the tone for frontman Hamish’s in-yer-face performance as he too addressed the crowd with his enthusiastic barrage of Glaswegian burrs during their 30 minute set. The format being preacher vox, guitar, bass, drums and two keyboards Thirty minutes being the ideal time in which to lay down the gauntlet and to gain a whole host of new VLURE fans, which surprisingly included my colleague Martin J Fuller, who was instantly hooked and this performance was his favourite of the whole TGE and it was my third favourite as well. I knew exactly what I was going to get, having seen them live two months ago, but Martin hadn’t heard of them before. He asked me what they were like prior to the set was due to start (after a few Prodigy tracks were endeavouring to blow the speakers) and I told him “They will take to the stage and then BANG!” and indeed bang it was! To me, they are a wonderful conglomeration of SCALPING, The Ninth Wave and The Murder Capital rolled into one, with added KLF and mid 1980’s to early 90s synth and an industrial EBM vibe. An energy filled set that pushed it to the max and concluded with ‘Euphoria’, but the highlight was ‘Shattered Faith’”.
The local support band for the Komedia Brighton concert on Tuesday 28th February will be CIEL, who we have witnessed playing live on many occasions. They are certainly an act that are making a name for themselves and we last caught them live at their headline gig at The Prince Albert on 20th October. We actually reviewed their first ever performance as a band, which was back on 19th December 2018, part of that report reads thus:
“First up was CIEL, which is pronounced SJƐL. This has been up until tonight the solo project of one Michelle Hindriks from The Netherlands. Michelle attended the terrific BIMM musical school a few years ago and Brighton has been calling her back for the past eight years and so two months ago Michelle decided to come and live here, in order to build the next stage of her life”.
“Michelle bravely opened up her UK gig account with a solo number entitled ‘Monochrome Coast’ which is a ‘Twin Peaks’ style number found on her EP. She took to the stage and crouched on the floor and sang away – a surprising start! CIEL produced shoegaze style mellow dream-pop. The highlights of which were track three ‘Naked’ which sounded very Cure-esque or even like fellow countrymen Clan Of Xymox, and also their final number ‘The Shore’”.
You can catch all three of these great acts at Komedia Brighton on Tuesday 28th February. You can purchase your tickets directly from the venue HERE or from Gigantic HERE.
