065 – Sacre Noir Summer Tour 2013 (gig 14)

Gig 14 – Sunday 1st September 2013 @ Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh
The end is neigh and the final show of this year’s summer tour looms large!
A last minute line-up change is called for after Lewis Gibson goes on a last minute holiday… to the rescue are a drum student, a local guitar legend and a couple of festival performers all brought together by the one and only Ewan Gibson. Naming themselves after a poetry meet The Soul Cypher featuring Mekkah & Twenty20 had a practice in the afternoon before the show and delivered a pretty convincing set (I’d love to have seen them if they were a full-time collective). Along with their sense of adventure the two American MCs also brought a touch of musical magic to the start of this event as everything was so relaxed and in the spirit of making good music and enjoying sharing the results.

The Soul Cypher live at Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh

We get ourselves set-up on the familiar stage of Henry’s and launch into our forty-minute set of dark electronica. The sound is tight and loud and we are pleased to hear that we’ve ‘awakened the goth’ in one enthusiastic fan in particular. It’s a good crowd that includes some familiar faces who are here to support our last show of the tour and check out The Penny Black Remedy. We’re really pleased with the response and happy to have played 14 great gigs stretching back to the first night of the tour back in July.

Sacre Noir live at Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh – Photo by Flare Photography

By the time The Penny Black Remedy took to the stage everyone in the venue was ready for their unique brand of musical mayhem, and once again the group didn’t disappoint. As with their show in Glasgow they mixed tracks from their debut LP with tracks from their latest release ‘Inhale… Exhale… Ok, Now You Can Panic!’ to great effect and had the crowd dancing and whooping for Keith’s guitar solos.

The Penny Black Remedy live at Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh

Looking back it’s been an amazing month and a half of gigs and travelling, playing to the new audiences and hanging out in some great cities. Big thanks are due to all the venues and promoters who have helped along the way; The Banshee Labyrinth, Box, The Vibe Bar, The Arc, Power’s Bar, The Dublin Castle, Belushi’s Gare du Nord and Canal Paris, Le Vieux Leon, Soupanova, Little Stage, Pfefferbett Hostel, Pivo Pivo, Henry’s Cellar Bar, Craig McGee, Plugged In Switched On, Bearsuit Promotions, Ben & Lio @ Belushi’s, Selina @ Soupanova, Alex @ Little Stage, Charlotte @ Pfefferbett, It’s a XXXX Blog Thing and Claire @ Henry’s. Big thanks are also due to all the fine bands we played with along the way; Llennett, Hot Jupiter, Little Love and the Friendly Vibes, Tom Coyne, Sir Spence, The Joy, George Frakes, Andy Docherty and The Caped Crusaders, Dressmaker, The Ocean’s Above, Mickey 9s, The Soul Cypher featuring Mekkah and Twenty20 and The Penny Black Remedy.
You can check out a video below which features footage from the gigs, interviews during the tour and more – a great snapshot into the touring life with Sacre Noir.

052 – Sacre Noir Summer Tour 2013 (gig 5)

Friday 26th July 2013
Gig 5 – Power’s Bar, London

Feeling a little lazy after last night’s excitement we had a bit of a slow morning, catching up with e-mails and work stuff. I hadn’t realised quite how ‘leafy’ Ealing actually is. Pitshanger Park is huge and seems to go on forever so we had a lovely walk there before heading out to lunch. We ate at ‘Fat Boys’ a nice Thai restaurant on Haven Green, where we had some of the nicest and prettiest drinks we’ve had so far.

Before I go on about what a great night we had at Power’s Bar, here’s little history about tonight’s gig venue, and the man behind it Vince Power.

“A trip to Tennessee and a desire to bring the sound of Nashville to London prompted Power to open the original Mean Fiddler, his country & western club, in 1982, in Harlesden, North West London, establishing it as a key venue for up and coming talent, Irish music, country stars and true music legends.”

Vince (known as the ‘godfather of gigs’) is credited with popularising music festivals in the UK through the rise of Reading, Leeds, The Phoenix, Hop-Farm and numerous other one offs including the first Sex Pistols re-union in Finsbury Park, and until this year was a major stakeholder in Spain’s Benicàssim Festival, which was voted Best Overseas Festival in 2012.
So needless to say we’re feeling very pleased to have secured a gig in this fine gentleman’s venue.

We arrive just before 7pm for sound check and Andy, our sound engineer (more on him shortly) lets us know that a 40 min set will be fine as he’s booked another artist to play and his band will also play a set or two. We set up and run through a couple of tracks from the set whilst Andy does his thing at the sound desk. By the time we’re finished he’s managed to find some extra bass frequencies and everything sounds amazing. We sat outside drinking with Andy chatting about music and enjoying the evening sunshine, whilst we waited for friends and family to arrive… first up was good friends Bob and Lisa who have recently moved down south for work. It was great to have a catch up with such good friends and to see them both so happy. Then Alexis’s cousin Stewart and his wife Jackie arrived – both are on excellent form and ready to see some good live music.

So here’s a short history of our new favourite sound engineer Andy Docherty. Singer/songwriter/muli-instumentalist/band leader & recording artist, Andy was the frontman of the seminal 90’s group ‘N. T’ who signed to Response records on R.C.A. Further spells with Epic resulted in collaborations with ‘The Black Eyed Peas’ & DJ Femi Femme among others. As pioneers of the trip-hop sound we felt really lucky to have someone who really understood our sound at the mixer (and he is Scottish so a nice connection there too).
The first act up was much-touted George Frakes… fresh from gigs with Frank Turner, all the cool music festivals and a show at The Albert Hall, his set was fantastic. When people say “he’s the next big thing in the new wave of British folk” they’re not exaggerating. His guitar playing skills were intricate and technically impressive and his voice was lovely too. He played a mixture of old folk songs and originals and the crowd were certainly impressed.
http://www.georgefrakes.co.uk/
We played after George and despite the dramatic change of musical stylings the punters in Power’s Bar were not at all phased. The reaction after each song we played was great; including some dancing (of the Kilburn shuffle variety) to ‘Ou Est L’arret Pour Moi?’ and a great end to our set with ‘She Can’t Take It’. Alexis went round with the mailing list after we’d paced up and again the feedback from the crowd was really positive. We seemed to have been termed ‘avant-garde’ and that’s okay with us!

We stayed for a few more drinks and a boogie before heading back for the tube just after midnight. We’d love to have stayed longer and seen more of Andy and his band The Caped Crusaders but the last tube was calling to get us back to Ealing.
All in all a great night & we’ll definitely be keeping in touch with Andy and all at Power’s Bar – can’t wait to come back and play again.

Next gig: Monday 29th July @ The Dublin Castle, Camden, London