Desperate Journalist - Finsbury, London, 17/10/2013

  by Dastardly

published: 6 / 11 / 2013

intro

Dastardly enjoys local act Desperate Journalist's energetic indie guitar rock at a show at the Finsbury in London

I like gigs where there’s just one solitary punter dancing down the front. These lone frontier pioneers effectively sign the gig to the rest of us, doing our shuffly nodding thing a few feet further back. Tonight’s one seems to be doing a cross between a repetitive fitness work out and a Scottish sword dance. On stage Desperate Journalist singer Jo Bevan is having mic lead issues. “Mi..akes” “Mist...s” she sings in the opening song fittingly titled, er 'Mistakes' before the offending cable is replaced. No problems with guitarist Rob Hardy’s circuitry thankfully as shards of icy twelve stringed arpeggios fill the room while he clambers on and off various pedals, wearing the Rickenbacker more like a harness than a guitar and eeking out sounds that bring to mind Johnny Marr if he was imprisoned inside Billy Duffy’s intro to ‘Sanctuary’. Across the stage bass player Simon Drowner has nailed the Nicky Wire gap between feet paradigm, and Jo has put her technical problems behind her. She announces forthcoming single ‘Organ’, and it becomes clear that Desperate Journalist not only have an ace name but they can also conjure up a memorable tune. "Mmm", you start to think, "I can imagine this sound drifting round a festival PA of an afternoon quite happily..." Other people appear to be having the same thought. Steve Lamacq recently played their self-released debut ‘Cristina’, and the new one will be out on legendary label Fierce Panda this November. Fittingly the biggest applause of the night comes for ‘Never Apologise, Never Explain’. A fine T-shirt, and not a bad song either as Jo with the help of drummer Caz Hellbent on backing vocals inhabits the lyrics and crosses over into performance. Despite a lack of focus in today’s internet (mis)led music world there are still any number of micro scenes spitting out contenders. Desperate Journalist have been passed to the stage like a hapless crowd surfer, and that guy dancing down the front might not be on his own for much longer.

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