Angie Hart and David McCormack @ The Troubadour 25th July

Another night back at The Troubadour. By all the Custard t-shirt sightings, it looked like there was one guy that most of the crowd were here to see tonight. But first up was local singer/guitarist Kristy London, playing one of her last gigs before heading off to London. Backed by another acoustic guitarist, Kristy played a great warm up set of folk/pop songs. My memory of her set is fading a week on, but I remember thinking at the time that it was well suited to the venue and the evening.

Playing in the surprising position of second tonight was home-town favourite, David 'Davo' McCormack on the acoustic guitar. Accompanied by a foot-controlled electronic hand clapper, he opened the set with a cover of Since She Started To Ride, a song I fondly remember hearing Custard cover on Super Request many years ago. David used the clapper at the end of most of his songs to help the crowd with their round of applause, to great comedic effect :-)

After a couple of early Custard favourites in the form of If Yr Famous And You Know It Sack Yr Band (based on a true story he leads us to believe!) and Alone, he treated us with three new songs including, Text Book and AVO off his new Cassingle EP. The songs were a great taste of what some of us have been waiting to hear in the four years since his last release.

After the 'new' section of the set, it was back to The New Matthew and Girls Like That Don't Go For Guys Like Us. David put Geoff, the sound guy, on the spot a bit with the request for a bit of flange and reverb heading into the guitar solo in Girls Like That, which he didn't quite get to in time. After that, David failed to disappoint one audience member, taking up the request to play I Could Never Be Your Woman, despite needing some time to remember the chords again (which comes as a great surprise to anyone who followed him between about 1998 & 2003, where this song would almost always make an appearance!). With a bit more warning this time, Geoff chimed in perfectly with the flange and reverb during the 'guitar solo part of the song'. David then finished the relatively short set with I'm Going To Execute Your Ex Boyfriend, unfortunately leaving many of tonight's crowd wanting more.

Angie Hart was last up tonight, once again in vocal mode accompanied by acoustic guitar. She started off the set with a number of slower and quieter songs, which put her in a bit of a difficult position. Still, she soldiered on through it, and everyone close enough to listen above the crowd were well rewarded. Her set consisted of songs from her last album interspersed with some of Frente's back catalogue. David was invited back on stage at the close of the set for a cover (whose name escapes me now). Unfortunately for some of the crowd tonight, it was only Angie who came back for the brief encore.

Whilst I enjoyed the night, I couldn't help but feel that it would have been better if David and Angie's sets were swapped around and if they played a couple more songs together during the encore. Here's hoping there'll be a few more headlining gigs in store for David on the release of his album later on in the year.

Tylea And The Imaginary Music Score @ The Troubadour

On Saturday night we went in to The Troubadour to catch Tylea supporting Paddy Dempsey, although, in the end, due to a big week and bigger afternoon, we ended up missing the latter. That was okay though, because we were mainly there for the former.

Opening the show tonight was local four-piece, The Kindness Of Strangers. They played a very layed back set of harmonic folk-pop tunes with a range of instruments that included flute, mandolin, and ukulele. Whilst I enjoyed the music and the some of the clever lyrics, I personally found the tone of the female vocalist a bit difficult to listen to at times. It would be interesting to hear one of their recordings to see if it was just an artifact of the mix that night.

Tylea and the full, 7-piece, Imaginary Music Score managed to arrange themselves on the small stage, with just enough elbow room for them to manage their instruments! Actually, they seemed surprisingly comfortable in the space where I've previously only seen about up to 5 musicians fit.

Tonight's set-list was quite familiar to anyone who has seen the band play in recent times, with a couple of newer songs, but mostly songs drawn from Tylea's independently released double album, Colour Your Insecurities. It started off with Tylea by herself, playing the instrumental soundscape, Red Plastic Panpipes, after which she was joined by fellow guitarist, Mark Angel, and backing vocalist Rozi Pizzey for Lean. Keyboardist Sally Campbell, guitarist Chris Pickering, bassist Terry Dixon, and percussionist James Lees completed the ensemble for Making The Clouds and the remainder of the set. One of the highlights for me was hearing Tunnel Day, which brings back fond memories of Tylea rocking out in Gota Cola back in the day.

Tylea usually enjoys a chat with the crowd in between songs, and tonight was no different. So much so, that I think they ended up being a bit rushed for time towards the end of the set. Life To Grow finished another great gig that makes me look more forward to hearing some new music from Tylea, hopefully in the near future!