The life of a furry diary writer is, it has to be said, not one of unbridled feasts or glorious chariots sweeping us homeward bound. In fact, on the ever-giddying small gig circuit we are more used to warm lagers and slow-moving night buses. Yet even at our lowest gigging ebb there are still flashes of glamour, fizzings of alternative greatness lurking in secretive shadows.
We say this not to show off like fancy dan pandas or cause severe attacks of the FOMO truth, more to rationalise the utter unreality of our abnormally normal night-to-night existence as loafers lurking beneath the underbelly of the exotic gods of rock’n’roll. To wit, a Monday night in Brixton uncovers an evening of wind-up fun at a cloak and dagger gig for Steve Lamacq’s indieth birthday down at the Windmill.
Filling the headline-shaped hole we have our very own HAMISH HAWK, vibrant of texture and whiplashed of tongue and very much marching onwards with his ‘A Firmer Hand’ album in between grand tour dates with fellow Scots Travis. In the mid-evening zone we find 86TVs, whose untrammelled faith in the electric guitar and the hectic hair-sweating indie melody is only gently undermined by the rumours swanning around tonight about The Maccabees – the White brothers’ previous hectically electric combo – reforming for 2025.
Another band whose future career path is a frequent topic of conversation open up the night, that band being IDLEWILD. Now heading for three decades on from the glorious grubby days of ‘Captain’ tonight they sound, well, grubbily gloriously fractious, singer Roddy hiding in the shadows while guitarist Roddy takes shape-throwing centre stage as they bound through a short, sharp, snotty set. There are happified people in this room who had no idea this band were still a going concern, let alone that they were going to play ten feet away from them in South London. Where the idlewild things are, indeed.
Another happy Monday, another hefty nightlife of surprises, this time in North London at the Lexington in the company of the vigorously-christened HOPELESS C**TS. Relax, girls – it’s just OPUS KINK playing under a magic made-up name. They’ve brought along some good friends for this secret show as well, those friends being the abruptly-monikered Y. Why? No no no, it’s just Y.
A mongrel collision of a band Y are, too – bruised bodies and hardy souls from Fat White Family and Meat Raffle and various brothers beyond convening under the auspices of spiced experimental carnage involving guitars, sax and low-slung man / woman / churning vocals. For oldsters it’s akin to the reckless sounds of The Lyceum circa 1981, when anything post-proto-punk went and frequently did. For youngsters – and there are a fuming fair few squeezed into the Lexington tonight – it’s merely the sound of a relentlessly restless London underground anti-scene in full force.
Opus Kink we have covered in garlands before, their place in that anti-scene pantheon assured after a string of riotous live shows. But even by their chaotic standards, this secret affair is a fantastical hoedown, the venue awash with the great unwashed surging across the frenetic dance floor. Did we see a Hopeless C**ts saxophonist crowdsurfing on his back – and still playing along? We could swear we did.
These are just a choice selection of the 24 live turns we checked out in October, dear reader, as we walked the gigging earth from the Shacklewell Arms to, uh, EartH in Dalston (no night bus required) via The Victoria, The Garage, Paper Dress Vintage and Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes. This means we have now seen a grand total of 364 live sets in 2025. Our challenge is to go see 365 in this one year.
We stand on the cusp of the precipice of the edge of achieving our mighty target with just two months to go. Can we make it? Tune in next month…