SWIM SCHOOL + NICHES + THE DAYLIGHT – AUDIOACTIVE, WORTHING 4.2.23
Last week was ‘Independent Venue Week’ celebrating the spirit of independent music venues. This annual event was created back in 2013 with the first event in 2014. One of the many venues across the country taking part this year was AudioActive Community Café which is to be found along one of Worthing’s main shopping streets at 85-87 Montague Street, BN11 3BN. This particular Worthing concert was taking place on the first floor of the building and was being hosted by local promoters Atom Presents. This is the Brighton & Hove News first venture into this establishment.
Swim School
Travelling south from Edinburgh, were headline act Swim School, which they stylize in lower case lettering as ‘swim school’. They played a series of shows for ‘Independent Venue Week’ including Worthing’s AudioActive. Swim School are a 3 piece, indie-pop band made up of Alice Johnson (vocals/guitar), Lewis Bunting (guitar) and Billy McMahon (drums). Their sound is influenced from a wide range of genres; from 90’s grunge to modern indie and dream-pop.
Swim School started their set with the grunge sounds of ‘Outside’ from their 2021 critically acclaimed debut EP, ‘Making Sense Of It All’. By contrast, the second track, the first the band wrote and released, ‘Sway’ was a quieter number.
Early in the set, Alice Johnson checked with the Worthing audience that they could understand the band’s Scottish accent. One joker in the crowd piped up “That’s not Scottish”. Jokingly, Alice reverted to a broad Scottish accent saying “Outside now. I’ll fight you in the car park. Is that Scottish enough?” (There wasn’t any fighting, by the way.) The audience found this self-mocking of Scottish stereotypes very amusing.
The fourth track of Swim School’s set ‘Everything You Wanted’ really showcased Alice’s vocals. The song and her singing started very softly, building up through the song until it was almost a rock track with loud powerful vocals to match.
Next up were two new songs. Since Swim School’s last shows in Sussex at last year’s The Great Escape, the band have seen their bass player leave and refocused as a band. These tracks were very different from each other.
First was their latest single ‘Delirious’, a song about misogyny in the music industry. There was real anger in Alice’s delivery on this song. By contrast ‘Kill You’ had such a sweet sound. These two new songs showed how Swim School can comfortably play both loud / angry and quiet / reflective styles.
On Swim School’s penultimate song ‘Let Me Inside Your Head’, Billy played a great drum sound that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Killing Joke set. On some tracks Alice put aside her guitar, but Lewis Bunting on guitar didn’t let the power of the band’s sound wane.
For the latter tracks, the band encouraged the Worthing crowd to start a mosh pit. Members of the opening band of the evening “The Daylight” didn’t need asking twice, and were straight in the middle of it.
By the end of the final song of their performance, ‘See Red’, the Worthing audience seemed to get Swim School regardless of the Scottish accents. They got a great reception, which was well deserved.
Swim School are returning to the South Coast on 11th April when they will be supporting SoftCult at The Prince Albert in Brighton. Grab your tickets HERE.
Swim School:
Alice Johnson – vocals and guitar
Lewis Bunting – guitar
Billy McMahon – drums
Swim School setlist:
‘Outside’ (from 2021 ‘Making Sense Of It All’ EP)
‘Sway’ (from 2021 ‘Volume 1’ EP)
‘Too Young To Know’ (from 2021 ‘Volume 1’ EP)
‘Everything You Wanted’ (from 2021 ‘Making Sense Of It All’ EP)
‘Delirious’ (2023 single release)
‘Kill You’ (2022 single release)
‘Anyway’ (from 2021 ‘Making Sense Of It All’ EP)
‘Let Me Inside Your Head’ (from 2021 ‘Making Sense Of It All’ EP)
‘See Red’ (from 2021 ‘Making Sense Of It All’ EP)
You can check out Swim School yourselves by visiting their Bandcamp page HERE.
Niches
The middle act on the bill in Worthing on Saturday night was Niches, a young, exciting female-fronted band from Brighton. The band consists of Lilli Southgate (vocals and ukulele), Louis Salanson (bass), Matt Gavin (guitar) and Alfie Paterson (drums). For their performance at AudioActive, they were joined by an additional guitarist.
Niches started their set with ‘Honey Honey’ which was a very catchy tune with an indie pop sound and hints of 90’s Manchester dance music. Noticeable from this very first song was the quality and power of Lilli Southgate’s singing.
On the second track, titled ‘Paint’, vocalist Lilli added her ukulele to the band’s sound. On the third tune, ‘Festival Song’, the bassline really kicks in. Louis Salanson’s bass gave this track a bit of a Latin dance feel.
There was plenty of variety from the guitar sounds within Niches’ set. While the fourth track ‘Fly Away’ was built around the ukulele and acoustic guitar, the fifth ‘Supernatural’ featured a heavy bassline from Louis with a jangly indie guitar sound from Matt Gavin.
Lilli introduced the next number as “Here’s one you might know”, and everybody did recognise Niches’ take on New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’. Louis’s funky bassline wasn’t Peter Hook (and wasn’t meant to be), but really worked well.
The band ended with their most recent releases ‘High Tide’ and ‘Gone In A Blink’. ‘High Tide’ started off with a simple but powerful vocal accompanied with just the bass guitar, before building into a dance track. The opening to their closing song ‘Gone In A Blink’ wouldn’t have been out of place on a ‘Rocky’ soundtrack.
Niches claim on their website that they “will leave you humming along for days”, which sums up the band’s sound very well. A very striking performance, built around Lilli’s wonderful singing and the tight and varied drums and guitars from the rest of the band.
Niches:
Lilli Southgate – vocals and ukulele
Louis Salanson – bass
Matt Gavin – guitar
Alfie Paterson – drums
Niches setlist:
‘Honey Honey’ (a 2020 single release)
‘Paint’ (unreleased)
‘Festival Song’ (a 2021 single release)
‘Fly Way’ (unreleased)
‘Supernatural’ (unreleased)
‘Blue Monday’ (A New Order cover)
‘High Tide’ (a 2021 single release)
‘Gone In A Blink’ (a 2023 single release)
The Daylight
Opening for Swim School at Worthing’s AudioActive was genre-hopping indie/alt rock band, The Daylight. The Daylight, from Hereford now residing in Brighton, were formed by lead singer and guitarist Jacob Chandler and drummer Alex Probert-Jones. The duo was later joined by Scott Johnson on bass and then Char Haywood on keyboards.
The soundchecks overrunning meant that The Daylight were late starting their set. Their opening number ‘Department Of Dreams’ had a dream pop sound. On their next song ‘The Echo’ the bass and drums were more prominent. The quality and power of the drum sound from Alex was a highlight throughout The Daylight’s performance, setting the tempo and tone without over dominating the rest of the band.
Unfortunately, for the first few of The Daylight’s songs, the sound quality was noticeably tinny. Thankfully this did get sorted later in the set.
Their song ‘Ghosts’ talked about coping with grief after the loss of a loved one and how it can take its toll on your mental health. Many of Jacob’s lyrics are a poetic take on the everyday trials and tribulations.
‘Hidden Love’, the band’s most recent single, built from a quiet opening to a very lively song. ‘Ocra’ started with Jacob chanting as much as singing, before turning into a more post-punk sound. Unlike many songs in their set, this had a cleaner finish, rather than fading out.
For me, The Daylight saved their best song to the end ‘What You Doing Alone’. Despite the sound issues at the start of their set, The Daylight produced a very good opening to AudioActive’s ‘Independent Venue Week’ event. They could be a band to look out for!
The Daylight:
Jacob Shoobridge-Chandler – guitar and vocals
Alex Probert-Jones – drums
Scott Johnson – bass
Char Haywood – keys
The Daylight’s setlist:
‘Department Of Dream’
‘The Echo’
‘Ghosts’
‘Five Years’
‘The Weather’
‘Hidden Love’
‘Ocra’
‘What You Doing Alone’
