WUNDERHORSE + EADES – GREEN DOOR STORE, BRIGHTON 5.4.23
The Brighton and Hove News Music Team were tentatively waiting to see if tonight’s sold out gig from Wunderhorse at the Green Door Store was in fact still going ahead. This was on account of the quartet having to cancel last night’s gig in Oxford due to illness.
Thankfully we got the green (door store) light and we headed off to the venue, which is conveniently located beneath Brighton Railway Station. On arrival it was immediately obvious that this was a sold out event judging by the amount of punters actually queuing in order to get into the venue! I’ve never witnessed this here before and it was a clear indication that Wunderhorse were seriously underplaying their current trajectory and it’s certain that they won’t be playing this size venue next time around!
There’s clearly a buzz about this outfit at the moment, no doubt off of the back of the launch of their debut long player ‘Cub’ which dropped on 16th September last year, as well as on account of founder and frontman Jacob Slater having acted in the highly rated 2022 Danny Boyle ‘Pistol’ mini-series which was based on the memoir of Steve Jones, the legendary Sex Pistols guitarist who helped usher in a punk revolution in Britain. Jacob was playing the part of Pistols drummer Paul Cook. My partner, Jordan Mooney (RIP) was an advisor to the series and the only person allowed on set who wasn’t in the series. Thus she got to see Jacob and his chums (Toby Wallace as Steve Jones; Anson Boon as John Lydon; Christian Lees as Glen Matlock and Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious) rehearsing and playing the Sex Pistols material for the series. This is no doubt something that everyone gathered here tonight in the Green Door Store wished that they had also witnessed. Jordan was famously played by Maisie Williams of ‘Game Of Thrones’ fame!
This evening was my first encounter with Wunderhorse, although other members of our team have previously seen them playing live. In fact they were here in the Green Door Store on 6th June last year when they were supporting North London act ‘Sorry’ – Review HERE. Other encounters were at the ‘Green Man Festival’ in Wales on 18th August last year; and ‘Rockaway Beach’ at Butlin’s Bognor Regis on 9th January 2022.
Back to this evening and the lads grace the stage at their allotted slot of band at 9pm and they played for 56 minutes and in that time they furnished us with a dozen numbers. Their intro music was ‘Over The Rainbow’ by Judy Garland, which got a number of the crowd singing along. Jacob isn’t one for idle banter and thus there was no phoney “we love you Brighton, we are so excited to be here, you are the best audience of the tour blah blah blah”, it’s a case like Joy Division did, just let the music do all of the talking….and it did!
The concert room (a former stable) was filled to the rafters with an equal number of men and women, with a majority erring towards late teens and early twenties, but amongst those there was a decent smattering of more mature folk. All were transfixed by Jacob and his chums who were using a couple of guitars, bass and drums. I noted the two guitars were Fender’s with one being a Telecaster.
They began with ‘Butterflies’ from their ‘Cub’ album from last year. This was to be the first of no less than nine numbers culled from the eleven song record. The trio of exceptions would arrive during the second half of the set. The rocky drumming lead ‘Girl Behind The Glass’ was given an outing next, after which ‘Leader Of The Pack’ (not The Shangri-Las one) was delivered with its decent amount of twangy guitar-work.
By this stage in proceedings, it is blatantly obvious that Wunderhorse won’t be playing this size venue again, in fact I would even suggest (as I said above) that they have already underplayed themselves here and could have upgraded to one of the town’s larger venues. But they didn’t and so it’s up and close personal with Jacob and his mates all the way!
There’s a definite stadium band feel of this outfit and given the chance and right breaks, that’s no doubt where they could be heading, especially in The States, as there’s that American rock vibe with Wunderhorse, no in the sound of the lyrics but solely with the rock musicianship of offer tonight. I would guess that given a chance to hear their material, fans of a range of acts from the Paul McCartney Beatles era to Tom Petty to Nirvana would get on board with Wunderhorse.
The relatively sedate and haunting ‘17’ was up next, with the striking lines “Don’t go; Don’t leave me here; Where it feels like I’m dying; That feeling of fear…”. ‘Mantis’ followed, which one would think was called ‘Beautiful World’ judging by the lyrics “Ooo; It’s a beautiful world; Ooo; It’s a beautiful world; Yes it is!; It’s a beautiful world; Oooo…”. This was my favourite tune thus far.
Wunderhorse wanted to try out a couple of unreleased numbers next ‘Arizona’ and the echoey ‘Beautiful Night’ with its great use of slide guitar. This hit us like a cool breeze that slowly increased throughout the number and I suggest that it would make a great single.
The house lights turned purple next to match the title of the next song which clearly was the most well received to date. The band rocked out on this number and the loudest applause so far was the end result. Having livened it up, the lads then took it down again with ‘Morphine’ from ‘Cub’, a slow chugger of a number that saw Jacob switch his Fender for a Gibson for this and the next two numbers, those being both sides of their very popular ‘Teal’ single, beginning with ‘One For The Pigeons’ which segued into ‘Teal’. There was some rather decent twangy guitar playing during this section, something that the likes of Richard Hawley would certainly approve of. There was even a hint of U2 during ‘One For The Pigeons’ which folks swayed to. Suffice to say ‘Teal’ was the best received tonight with almost everyone singing along and was also for me their best number.
Jacob switched back to his Fender – and showed us exactly what it does – for their final number, the longest of their set, titled ‘Poppy’ and the lads psyched out and then they were gone. Chants of “one more song” were ignored, and that was that. Many made their way to the merch stall or bar for one last top up for the journey home.
Wunderhorse:
Jacob Slater – vocals, guitar
Harry Fowler – guitar
Peter Woodin – bass
Jamie Staples – drums
Wunderhorse setlist:
(Intro tape) ‘Over The Rainbow’ by Judy Garland
‘Butterflies’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Girl Behind The Glass’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Leader Of The Pack’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘17’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Mantis’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Arizona’ (unreleased)
‘Beautiful Night’ (unreleased)
‘Purple’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Morphine’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘One For The Pigeons’ (from 2021 ‘Teal’ single)
‘Teal’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
‘Poppy’ (from 2022 ‘Cub’ album)
Support this evening came from Eades who hail from West Yorkshire, Leeds to be precise. These guys take influence from New Wave, Post-Punk and Garage Rock completed with a unique Lo-Fi recording style.
The outfit played ‘The Great Escape Festival’ in Brighton last May when they rocked on up at The Prince Albert on 13th May. Tonight they are playing literally over the road from that venue and it’s great to see so many punters in the venue nice and early in order to take in the support artist.
I’m sure that Eades were over the moon with the attendance for their performance (as mentioned above) as folk were queuing through the bar and right outside the venue. I haven’t witnessed this before at this venue! Suffice to say that during their eight song 31 minute set which ran from 8:00pm to 8:31pm, the room became more and more packed.
The equipment of choice for this quintet was Fender Mustang bass, Fender Telecaster guitar, a rather compact Rickenbacker guitar, drums, Roland keys with another keyboard and use of a shaker. All of the lads were on vocals, some main and some backing.
They opened with their 2023 single ‘Reno Pt.2’, part one so to speak was delivered mid-set. Song two was ‘A Welcome Goodbye’ which can be located on last year’s 2022 ‘Delusion Spree’ album. So far, so good, they are offering us decent indie fayre and the punters are responding accordingly! Well in fact, the longer the set went on, the more the crowd loved them!
A couple of as yet unrecorded tunes were up next in the form of ‘Liquid Gold’ and ‘Constantly’, after which ‘Reno’ (found on their ‘Delusion Spree’ album from last year) was given an airing. Every number has been totally solid and there’s surely great potential here, with the right management and promotion.
They played us out with a trio of tunes, their 2020 ‘I Want More’ single, followed by the unreleased ‘Fight Or Flight’ and closing with ‘27 Years’ (from the 2021 ‘Abstract Education’ EP).
Eades are a very tight unit and although this amazingly is our first review of the outfit, despite them having played in Brighton on four and five previous occasions (slacking or what!), I’m certain that we will certainly be in attendance next time around. I would even controversially state that I totally understand that I may well just be in a minority of one here, but I honestly slightly preferred Eades to Wunderhorse! Cue backlash! Check out Eades material on their Bandcamp page HERE.
Eades:
Harry Jordan – lead vocals and guitar
Tom O’Reilly – lead vocals and guitar
Sam Wilde – bass
Dan Clifford-Smith – drums
Tom Barr – keys and percussion
Eades setlist:
‘Reno Pt.2’ (a 2023 single)
‘A Welcome Goodbye’ (from 2022 ‘Delusion Spree’ album)
‘Liquid Gold’ (unreleased)
‘Constantly’ (unreleased)
‘Reno’ (from 2022 ‘Delusion Spree’ album)
‘I Want More’ (a 2020 single)
‘Fight Or Flight’ (unreleased)
‘27 Years’ (from 2021 ‘Abstract Education’ EP)
