FALSE EYED DOLLS + NOAH AND THE LONERS + BIGHEAD TEA DRINKERS – GREEN DOOR STORE, BRIGHTON 7.2.23
It was a tad parky out in Brighton tonight, but thankfully we quickly warmed up inside the Green Door Store as the venue was packed with eager young punters ready to take in the delights of a trio of local new rising stars.
On the bill this chilly evening are False Eyed Dolls, Noah And The Loners and Bighead Tea Drinkers.
First up at 7:48pm are Bighead Tea Drinkers, who are a young Indie rock band based in Brighton, which is made up of Freddie Brindle (vocals/guitar), Ellie Hart (guitar), Kian Ramsey (bass) and Marshall Tyce (drums). Freddie and Marshall hail from Essex and wrote some material together at the tender age of thirteen.
They have since relocated to Brighton to study at BIMM Institute, which as an organisation has been turning students’ passions into their career over the past 35 years. Previous alumni have included George Ezra, Fontaines D.C. and Natasha Bent. It is whilst studying at BIMM Brighton that Freddie and Marshall met Ellie and Kian. As a quartet they decided to form the Bighead Tea Drinkers.
This evening, they take to the Green Door Store stage and from the very first notes it is obvious that tonight’s volume is going to be loud. The performance room is filling up with punters as charismatic frontman Freddie leads us on a trip through their half dozen twangy guitar toe-tapping anthems across the next 25 minutes until conclusion at 8:13pm.
Freddie is learning his craft well, as he is already at this stage in the band’s young career able to get punters onside with his polite enthusiasm. He flits between vocals and his Fender guitar, whilst Ellie puts her left-handed PRS Custom 24 guitar to good use, and Kian masters his Squier Mustang bass, whilst Marshall endeavours to keep his drumset from toppling over.
Ironically, their best preferred tune for me was one that was written when Freddie and Marshall were thirteen, that being ‘Your Not Gangster’, which initially sounded like the classic 1960’s ‘Batman Theme’ by Nelson Riddle and then morphed into a straightforward punk number. The previous tune, ‘Immature’, was penned at the same time, but the song after, ‘The Way She Goes’, was a new number, which had more than a whiff of Arctic Monkeys about it. They concluded their pleasant set with their 2022 single, ‘Tokyo’, which they informed us can be found on Spotify.
The Bighead Tea Drinkers will be playing a headline gig at the Green Door Store on Monday 20th February. Support will come from Not Sarah and The Q-Days. This is a one night only event run by Smashbox promotions who are all event management students at BIMM Brighton. This event is a charity event and all profits made and being donated to Battens Fighters Forever. Purchase your tickets HERE.
Bighead Tea Drinkers:
Freddie Brindle – lead vocals, guitar
Marshall Tyce – drums
Kian Ramsey – bass
Ellie Hart – lead guitar
Bighead Tea Drinkers setlist:
‘Where Is The Love?’
‘Why Don’t I Care?’
‘Immature’
‘Your Not Gangster’
‘The Way She Goes’
‘Tokyo’
After a 27 minute live music hiatus we are back in the distinctive Green Door Store music room to witness a thrilling lively set from soon to be rising stars Noah And The Loners. This outfit of young punks is fronted by late teens singer songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Noah Lonergan, with Amber Welsh on bass, Joseph Boyle on guitar and Noah Riley on drums. Noah and the Loners have something to say and they’re saying it loud. Their powerful compositions certainly capture the zeitgeist of Gen Z – from personal tracks on teenage love and Noah’s experience of toxic masculinity as a trans man, to political blasts at racism, corruption and the climate crisis. The band’s sound is influenced by X-Ray Spex, The Clash and Buzzcocks, along with the alternative stylings of IDLES, Paramore and Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes.
Noah has been singing since he could talk and first picked up a guitar when he was eleven. He started gigging with his schoolmates a couple of years later, and his and bassist Amber’s first band ‘Polarized Eyes’ gained national airplay on Tom Robinson’s BBC Introducing Mixtape on 6Music, when they were just fourteen. Subsequent tracks gained stellar reviews and radio play on the likes of BBC Radio 1, Radio X, BBC 6Music and Amazing Radio. Noah And The Loners are the youngest artists ever to be signed to Marshall Records and have released their compact ‘Teenage Tragedy’ single.
This evening, the punters will discover that Noah and the Loners’ live shows are full of fire and fury, and are surely on a trajectory for bigger things in the future! You can immediately sense that this outfit has something new and refreshing to offer in a sometimes stagnant world of punk. Rebellion Festival take note!
The band’s 31 minute set commenced at 8:40pm and ran until 9:11pm. The equipment of choice being Fender Kurt Cobain Jag-Stang guitar (red option) for Noah Lonergan, Fender Telecaster guitar for Joseph, Epiphone bass for Amber, and the drums for Noah Riley. They open with a quickie titled ‘Just Kids’ which I must confess sounded like Noah was shouting “Your Sh*t”, which is very punk indeed. Next up was ‘Crash Landing’ which is about the Tory Government and begins as if it is a Dead Kennedys tune. ‘Inferno’ followed, this is about the climate crisis and a lively moshpit ensued. All sensible subjects so far, so let’s break the mould with ‘Garden Camping’, it’s a tale of the quartet camping in bassist Amber’s garden.
Back on the sensible subject front, they delivered ‘About Him’ which highlights the evil of alcoholism. ‘You Make Me (Fall Apart)’ was penned about relationships and no doubt brought on by vocalist Noah’s experiences in life. There was a little guitar shaking for this number and it was heading into Nirvana territory, the Jag-Stang doing its job then! More life experiences followed in the form of ‘Real Boys’, referencing Noah’s trans man journey. The punk anthems followed with my favourite tracks of theirs, the rapid ‘Losing My Head’, which is about….wait for it….losing your head! Their forthcoming single (out on 24th February via Marshall Records) was up next. It’s called ‘Protest Anger’ and Noah ordered the lively packed room to all crouch down on the uneven floor and then when commanded to jump up in unison like Jack-in-the-boxes, we dutifully obliged. They signed off with their Green Day sounding ‘Teenage Tragedy’ anthem with its “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” chorus.
Here is a band that are seriously hot on the heels of the likes of The Lambrini Girls and Monakis. They are a tight quartet and must keep at it as they are great. Noah had enough charisma to fill the whole venue, which is a special gift that needs to be nurtured. A must see live band for punks of all ages!
Noah And The Loners:
Noah Lonergan – vocals, guitar
Amber Welsh – bass, backing vocals
Joseph Boyle – guitar
Noah Riley – drums
Noah And The Loners setlist:
‘Just Kids’
‘Crash Landing’
‘Inferno’
‘Garden Camping’
‘About Him’
‘You Make Me (Fall Apart)’
‘Real Boys’
‘Losing My Head’
‘Protest Anger’
‘Teenage Tragedy’
www.instagram.com/noahandtheloners
After a 31 minute ‘recovery break’, we were back at it again. This time it was the turn of an interestingly named duo called False Eyed Dolls to entertain us for 42 minutes from 9:37pm to 10:19pm with their loud rumbly eleven tune set.
The band consists of Jed on drums and Ed, who throughout the set switched between his white Squier Fender Telecaster Deluxe guitar and another different black guitar, which I couldn’t quite work out what it was. Ed is from Nottingham, but is now Brighton based. I’m not sure where Jed hails from.
Ed’s very first notes certainly threw down the gauntlet on the sound front. His guitar was sounding so meaty and his vocals on opener ‘Nervous’ reminded me of Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy. At this stage, the nearing capacity audience weren’t as wild as they had been half an hour earlier, preferring to be in the main stand rooted to each other’s individual spot and simply absorb with their eyes and ears. Maybe False Eyed Dolls are that kind of band?
Song two, ‘Sinking Ship’, was we were informed “an older number” and it was more of a heavy rock affair, and as it turned out, was for the further duration of their performance. For just two blokes on stage, they sure did hit it heavy on the decibel levels, even a tune like ‘Swoon’ wasn’t sounding anything like a sweet nothings, but more like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The lads gave a debut live outing for their tune ‘What I Want’, which for them was a slower number. This was followed by ‘Glossolalia’ (pronounced ‘Gloss-oh-lay-lee-uh’ which is the Latin word for ‘speaking in tongues’) which is going to be released this Friday, 10th February and sounded as if it could have been a SKiNNY MiLK track.
‘Let’s Talk’ was up next and was one of the first tunes they ever wrote and was the best thus far and as a result the first murmurings of a mosh began. ‘Hocus Pocus’ followed, not the Focus one, but it did sound a little varied from their other material with its jaunty licks and beat. ‘A Thousand Pieces’ also had a catchy riff….when the guitar lead stays plugged in that is.
It then dawned on me that the lighting for this set was just solid all the time (mainly greens and then blues) as opposed to Noah’s all singing and dancing flashing lights and strobes, which whipped up the crowd nicely. Maybe this is what this performance lacked?. ‘Shudder’ was listed as an encore track, but the duo simply launched into it with much bravado. They briefly vacated the stage but the punters invited them to make an immediate return. They did, minus their tops and showing off their vast collection of tattoos, as I had previously thought , very SKiNNY MiLK. The heavy rock encore track being ‘Don’t Love Me’, which some fans near me at the front were shouting for.
False Eyed Dolls:
Ed – guitar, vocals
Jed – drums
False Eyed Dolls setlist:
‘Nervous’
‘Sinking Ship’
‘Swoon’
‘Make It’
‘What I Want’
‘Glossolalia’
‘Let’s Talk’
‘Hocus Pocus’
‘A Thousand Pieces’
‘Shudder’
(encore)
‘Don’t Love Me’
www.instagram.com/falseeyeddolls
