YUMI & THE WEATHER + VERONICA + ELIKSA – ALPHABET, BRIGHTON 19.6.25
I first caught wind of tonight’s fundraiser when I saw Yumi & The Weather play at an Alternative Escape show back in May. I enjoyed that night so much that I wanted to make sure I got myself to Alphabet to see the band once again. But tonight is not just about one band, it is a special fundraiser event in support of #HelpMeHelpB, the urgent campaign to raise life-saving money for their wonderful friend B.
So before we get into the music and the nights events, here is the information in the organisers own words promoting the evening;
“Come on down to this stunning venue, have a great night, and be part of the community that we’re rallying to help B – a brilliant person who has been catastrophically failed by the system and is now fighting for survival.
B is a vulnerable disabled woman (with the genetic condition Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) whose life and health has been destroyed by being trapped in a spiral of homelessness for almost a decade.
B has been endangered by a lethally negligent housing association, fled violence, forced into serious financial debt, and denied access to vital specialist healthcare. She desperately needs at least £25K to pay for her urgent medical/disability care and emergency rent.
This will help her to stay alive and begin to stabilise her health, while the hard fight for her right to a safe home continues. This gig is raising vital money towards that goal.”
So like I say, it’s not just one band tonight, we also have Eliksa and Veronica playing, plus live painting of art to the sounds of Between The Air, then throw in some DJ sets by Brighton’s very own Slack City Radio DJs, and a massive raffle containing some utterly brilliant prizes, the evening really is stacked and hopefully will do its job in raising some funds for B. And as if that wasn’t enough, the whole thing is also going out live on Slack City Radio as well as the MIOHMI YouTube Channel.
Eliksa (19:30 to 20:00)
Kicking off the evening is Eliksa, the brainchild of singer/songwriter, Oscar James Godfrey, who since the age of 21 years of age has spent his time writing, painting and listening to music within the Brighton scene, his debut album ‘Songs To Cry In The Bath To’ was released in 2021. He is new to me, so I am excited to hear his sound.
The band took to the stage at 19:30 hours, with Eliksa himself introducing the five-piece band members, Noah Fox on bass, James Devine on drums, Mollie Stephens on backing vocals and Monty Tuft on guitar, (I think that was his surname anyhow). As so often seems to be the case with local Brighton bands, so many seemed familiar to me, but I’m not sure where from. The drummer James I have definitely seen with Shady Baby. Eliksa himself was striking in appearance with his face painted a yellow white colour with red circles on his cheeks much like a clown or mime. The 30-minute set kicked off with ‘Quiet River’, a nice gentle introduction to proceedings. Next followed ‘Minotaur’ an Thee Oh Sees cover, this really fit well with Eliksa’s music and vibe, which I’d describe as laid-back surfer rock/pop. ‘Push Back’ came next, Mollie’s ever-present tambourine and backing vocals really adding to the song.
‘Only A Matter Of Time’ came next, with Eliksa joking “It is only a matter of time until I actually play the song” referencing the long time he took to re-tune his guitar. This one was a slower number, but beautifully constructed. The band then played a little improve whilst Eliska changed his guitar before ‘Divorce Moi’, which started off rather brooding, but became more and more frantic. A new song came next ‘Aquamarine Lampshade’, another excellent one. What I loved whilst watching the band was just how in unison they all were, particularly the 3 guitars. Just before the final song ‘After All The Trouble’ Eliksa mentioned he was never going to put hairspray fixer on his face again referencing the mime face paint, what with it being rather hot this evening, by this point it was now starting to run down his face, and I think causing some pain in his eyes. He touched on the reason why we were all here tonight stating we should all “Stand together as a community, as everyone is being failed by the system and if we don’t stand up together who is”. I really enjoyed watching Eliksa, they were the perfect opener for the evening. He has a very unique singing style that fits so well with the music. I really hope to catch them again soon.
Elisksa:
Eliksa – vocals, guitar
Noah Fox – bass
James Devine – drums
Mollie (or Molly?) Stephens – backing vocals, percussion
Monty Tuft? – guitar
Eliksa setlist:
‘Quiet River’
‘Minotaur’ (a Thee Oh Sees cover)
‘Push Back’
‘Only A Matter Of Time’
‘Divorce Moi’
‘Aquamarine Lampshade’
‘After All The Trouble’
Veronica (20:30 to 21:00)
Second on the bill this evening we have Veronica who originally hails from Milan, but is now London based I believe. Veronica is joined on stage by her band, Eva on bass, Annie on the Nord Electro 6 keys and Olive on drums. Veronica in her own words described them as “Her sisters, her fairies, her angels of darkness”, and that is exactly how they all looked too. All were dressed in red each with blonde hair, aside Veronica herself who has the most amazing super long dark hair reaching all the way down her back past her waist. Again, this is a new band to me so I had no idea what to expect, but blimey this was something special.
The first song of this 27-minute set was I believe called ‘Rose’, instrumentally it was mostly keys, very low-key bass with some drum shimmering towards the very end, but this one was about showcasing Veronica’s voice, unbelievably powerful vocals, hauntingly good.
Veronica introduced the next song with her often-dark humour, “This one is about a boy………….he is dead”, it was called ‘This Is Where We Jump’. A great song that had a spooky vibe especially the bass line and keys, but one that still made you want to bob about. Veronica’s stage presence is great, always moving, acting in quite an abstract way, at one point she beckoned an audience member to the front, took her hand and twirled her round.
“This is my favourite song, it’s about organs”, she joked as the third song arrived, it was called ‘’Haunted’’, much like the first song played, instruments were second to the vocals. After which we were informed by Veronica “It’s going to be on my scary album, that will come out for Halloween”, she then mimicked an audience reply “Wow, how perfect”, before making us all repeat it back to her “Wow how perfect”.
“This next one is about a guy who is dead….no no it’s a lie, it’s not true” joked Veronica, to which Olive banged the drum signaling the joke. “There is a funny video with lots of pig hearts, please go watch or they will have died in vain” The song was ‘Hurt You Most’, another excellent number and upon checking out the YouTube video there are indeed pig hearts!
Veronica addressed the crowd once more “Thank you for coming, donate your money, this next one is called ‘Black Magick’ and it is about killing evil men, the ones that kill all the children, if you know what I mean, LOL, I hope you like it, it will be the title of the spooky album…Black Magick”. Now whilst all of that sounds rather dark, the song was beautiful and had plenty of Danny Elfman/Tim Burton’esqe haunting backing synth vocals, adding that extra layer on top of Veronica’s phenomenal vocals, this one had lots more drums too.
Veronica commented on how hot and wet with sweat she was on stage due to heat, clearly looking a bit uncomfortable in her dress. This is going to be our last song, so please go “One more song” to which we all chanted it, for Veronica to jokingly say “Sorry, no, that’s all, goodbye”, when a chap at the back shouted “Play the f*cking song”, everyone laughed and Veronica replied “You’re so sassy, okay so this is our last song, it’s about this guy, he was really nice, so he moved to Japan, it’s okay we are over him, actually we keep singing about it”, the song was ‘As Dancers’ which can be found on her 2023 ‘Just A Dream’ EP.
Veronica certainly impressed me, a really cool tight band, that spooky vibe going on, but darkly funny at the same time. Her vocals are unbelievable, totally capturing your attention, haunting stuff indeed. I look forward to the scary album out for Halloween.
Veronica:
Veronica – vocals
Annie – keys
Olive – drums
Eva – bass
Veronica setlist:
‘Rose’
‘This Is Where We Jumped’
‘Haunted’
‘Hurt You Most’
‘Black Magick’
‘As Dancers’ (from 2023 ‘Just A Dream’ EP)
Yumi & The Weather (21:30 to 22:00)
Yumi and the Weather is the brainchild of Ruby Taylor, a Brighton based multi-instrumentalist/producer/singer. As mentioned at the top of this article, I’d finally managed to catch a live show of theirs back at The Great Escape and was blown away, so tonight was a 100% must attend for me. The Great Escape gig was just three members, but tonight we have a four-piece band, Ed Martin on bass guitar, Rob Harvey on guitar and Tim Spencer on drums. Ruby herself switched between guitars and percussion as well as singing of course, however that extra guitar in the mix really added to things.
What a set this was, all meat and no filler with a super strong nine song setlist. The first of which was ‘Be Your Lover’ from the 2022 album ‘It’s All In My Head’ where a fair few songs in this set were to come from.
Strapping on her guitar ready for the second song in the set, Ruby thanked the crowd for coming and asked us to all move forward closer so she could see our faces, before introducing ‘Imagine’, a good solid post punk sounding number.
Next up was a new song hopefully getting released on the new album or EP later this year called ‘Not Willing’. It was a slightly slower one compared to what we have had so far, but it had a wicked catchy bassline running through it. Picking up speed we were then treated to ‘Lead Me Through Hell’. This one had a real cowboy western feel to it, this is the sort of tune you would have the car windows down whilst coasting down an American desert road into the sunset, a great song indeed.
Two powerhouse songs came next, first we had ‘Plenty Of Time’ which is a true beast of a track, definitely one of my favorites, a relentlessly fast bassline, catchy repetition of lyrics and oodles of guitar. Addressing the crowd after Ruby said “The song was an angry song about the big people at the top and a lot of systems put in place by them that are not there to actually help us, so look after each other, and keep yourselves happy”. This was followed by ‘Hustle’, a song that switches between its menacing bassline and then more of a shoegaze guitar vibe whilst Ruby sings, it’s a grower of a song, I love this one.
“What’s the time Mr Wolf” Ruby asked Ed, getting concerned about overrunning, Ed replied “I’ve never been called that before” as he checked his watch, “Really!” exclaimed Ruby causing laughter all round. 5 minutes left was the answer, “What!! Only 5 minutes, we can do it, we can do it, start” replied Ruby and took us instantly into ‘Night Walk’ a slower song, but not without its gorgeous, layered guitar explosions.
The next song was dedicated to the organiser Rosie as it is her birthday next week, it was called ‘Can You Tell’ another smasher, Ruby’s soft voice is a joy to hear incredibly melodic, nothing harsh or abrasive, it melds fantastically to the lush basslines and guitars.
At this point it seemed the set was now over, Ruby said she was going to bring someone on stage and we all needed to sing ‘Greensleeves’, but looking at the stage door, no-one was there, so she came back and spoke about the impending raffle, but that was also not ready, so chants for one more song were bellowed out. Prompting Ruby to say okay, but then realised she needed her guitar capo which was downstairs, “Don’t worry I am quick and will run”. Ed spoke to the crowd “The jokes on you, (the song) actually is Greensleeves”. Organiser Rosie now came up on stage telling us we will get one more song, but we can buy some more raffle tickets in the meantime.
Ruby re-appeared and got her guitar plugged in and we all got our bonus song, ‘Howl’, yet another smasher, fast frantic and a brilliant way to end the set. Now the mystery guest had arrived and The Stella of Artois was brought on stage to us all singing ‘Greensleeves’, a lady dressed in the most amazing white knight outfit, but emblazoned with Stella Artois logo, I believe the intention was for her to pull the raffle numbers, but as tickets were still being sold and folder it was time for the Slack City DJs to put some tunes on and for everyone to have a quick break.
This was an awesome set, such great songs, Ruby herself is a person that seems to radiate positivity and fun, always upbeat. When I think back to The Great Escape, she had spent a couple of days doing all the sound tech work for the gigs in her venue right up until starting her own set and tonight she had done a lot of the organising and I doubt had any sort of break prior to playing. You have to give credit where credit is due.
Yumi & The Weather:
Ruby Taylor – vocals, guitar
Ed Martin – bass guitar
Rob Harvey – guitar
Tim Spencer – drums
Yumi & The Weather setlist:
‘Be Your Lover’ (from 2022 ‘It’s All In My Head’ album)
‘Imagine’ (from 2022 ‘It’s All In My Head’ album)
‘Not Willing’ (unreleased)
‘Lead Me Through Hell’ (from 2023 ‘Feed The Wanting’ EP)
‘Plenty Of Time’
‘Hustle’ (from 2018 ‘Yumi & The Weather’ album)
‘Night Walk’ (from 2022 ‘It’s All In My Head’ album)
‘Can You Tell’ (from 2022 ‘It’s All In My Head’ album)
‘Howl’ (from 2022 ‘It’s All In My Head’ album)
Between The Air (22:45 to 23:15)
The final slice of entertainment this evening was to come from Between the Air playing from the DJ booth whilst Jamie Broughton (of Big Long Sun) painted live on stage. A camera was set up above Jamie so what he was doing could be seen by all projected on to the back of the stage wall. Jamie then sat on the floor in front of his paper and got to work using black & white acrylic paints, black and purple inks using a pipette and black marker pens. Whilst he painted, cool and very arty music was played by Between the Air. It was quite something to watch and hear, not something I can say I’ve seen or done before. Sadly, I had to run to catch my train a few minutes before Jamie finished, so I didn’t get to see the end result, but I did manage to watch a good 25 minutes of the 30, I should be able to see the finished article on the YouTube stream as can you.
www.instagram.com/between_theair
Between each band, we had the Slack City DJs; Johnny Continental DJ & Tula DJ (AUX Cable) both played, hitting us with plenty of great songs in keeping with the vibe. They kept things moving when the timings got a little bit out of sync as the evening progressed and no doubt kept the late night crowd going until midnight and shut down.
All in all, this evening really was an excellent event, huge kudos goes to those that gave up their time for the cause, the bands, the Alphabet venue, Slack City Radio, all those raffle prize donators, and last but not least Rosie and Ruby who orchestrated and organised everything. It was great to see such love in the room, people really rallying about for their community and a good cause. It really did all feel special, I even won a raffle prize, lucky number 8 never lets me down!
As mentioned before, the vast majority of the evening was broadcast live on YouTube and Slack City radio, so if you want to watch and hear for yourself, go forth and check it out on the link. It’s not a patch on the sound quality live in the venue, but it will certainly give you a flavour of proceedings – Watch it HERE.
And once you are done, why not make a donation, any amount you like as every penny really does count.
www.gofundme.com/f/HelpMeHelpB
