The Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough may be an unlikely setting but it’s building an impressive reputation for being one step ahead of the game. So far in 2009 promotors, The Kids Are Solid Gold, have brought, amongst others,  Canadians Woodpigeon, American whispering folksters Horse Feathers and probably most impressively, The Leisure Society who packed the venue out just weeks before landing an Ivor Novello nomination. Tonight the joint headline tour of First Aid Kit and Fanfarlo are at the venue. It is what is says it is on the label – a social club function room – but once the lights go down its as intimate a venue as you would want and a place where bands seem to love to play, with many citing their shows at the Westgarth as tour highlights. It is, in its own way, similar to the Band Room in North Yorkshire, only without the breathtaking scenery outside and having the advantage of having an inside toilet and a good pint of beer on tap.

First Aid Kit specialise in folky harmonising with a distinct Swedish accent, which isn’t surprising as they are from Sweden. They are also sisters and impossibly young to be producing music as well written and performed as this. A mixture of wistfulness and dry wit, their songs are melancholic without being overbearing. Most of their excellent Drunken Trees mini album gets an airing including their cover of Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song. It’s a huge gamble and it pays off because their voices are strong enough to carry off both the harmonies and the soaring solo impeccably. They are a band that will only get better.

Fanfarlo however are already very much the finished product. Looking like the cast of a Cohen Brothers film, they are a strangely entrancing bunch. Comparisons to Arcade Fire may surprise some but their songs share a similar structure. Where Arcade Fire crank up the noise though, Fanfarlo create a wall of sound by layering strings, horns and keyboards over the guitar and mandolin. Also like Arcade Fire, their lyrics have a literary feel to them and every song becomes a novella read in a voice with more than an echo of David Byrne.

Three encores tell their own story and by the end you feel they have probably just about run out of songs, with their debut album Reservoir having formed the backbone of the set. The only mystery is how the almost overwhelmingly great Fire Escape, the highlight of the album, is almost overlooked. Called for by the audience the band concede that ‘Oh yeah, we could play that.’ What follows is about the most you can hope for from live music. The song is worthy of obsession, which is handy as that’s where I’m headed with it.

Already hailed by David Bowie, gaining increasing radio play and having just completed a sell out tour of America, there probably won’t be too many more opportunities to see Fanfarlo in a venue like this. That’s a shame, but as Fanfarlo move onwards and upwards, the Westgarth will be most probably be providing a home for next year’s next big thing.

To find out what’s up next at the Westgarth click here.

Fanfarlo live here.

First Aid Kit can be found here.

It’s in the middle of nowhere and difficult to find. It’s ridiculously small, only 100 people can squeeze inside. There are no acoustic elements to its design – it is a wooden hut. The stage is so tiny that some members of the band are unable to access it from the dressing room and have to clamber up from the audience side. There’s no bar and the toilets are outside. The seats are uncomfortable. The Band Room is easily the best venue I have ever been to.

It would appear from the way they play that it is one of better venues that Canadian folkestra Woodpigeon have played too.

It’s all too easy to dismiss Woodpigeon as wistful, romantic folkies (not that there’s anything wrong with that and singer Mark Hamilton’s opening solo set is equal parts wistful, romantic and folky) but tonight’s line up shows off their more muscular side with the songs bolstered by a full band and a sound which swells and rolls like the sea. Which is ideal as the centrepiece of the show is ‘And As The Ship Went Down You’d Never Looked Finer’, a song about drowning to death. It ends in a melee of looped vocals, distorted guitar, swirling keyboards and crashing cymbals. For five minutes or so, Woodpigeon are My Bloody Valentine. It’s their finest moment to date.

In fact, and I’m not sure if this is a reflection on me or Hamilton, but many of their best songs seem to dwell on the subject of death and loss. Either in powerfully emotive ways such as in ‘And As The Ship Went Down…’ or in the blackly comical murder ballads which they specialise in. Tonight we are treated to two songs detailing the disposal of a corpse. In such a small and intimate venue it is probably best not to catch the eye of Mark Hamilton as he sings these. It’s dark and remote outside!

Check out the Band Room HERE.

or Woodpigeon HERE.

Less than a week before tonight’s shimmering performance by Beth Jeans Haughton and her Hooves of Destiny, I watched her set fall apart in Stockton. Beset by technical problems she struggled through a faltering set while being repeatedly encouraged to ‘Fuck Off!’ by a couple of silver tongued charmers pressed up against the stage. On the plus side, the use of a battered old suitcase as a bass drum is something which obviously sits well with a website called Suitcase Orchestra. One day, all instruments will be made of discarded luggage.

Tonight’s set is a world away from all that, with Beth’s ethereal voice floating over her own sparkling brand of space-folk (imagine Joni Mitchell as a character in 2001 A Space Odyssey). Previous single ‘Golden’ gets the full band treatment and several songs from her forthcoming e.p. are previewed including ‘I Will Return, I Promise’ and there is a glorious soaring rendition of ‘Night Swimmer’, complete with looping live samples of Beth’s breathy vocals. There’s even some duet action with Mark Hamilton from Woodpigeon.

There’s a fragility and a prettiness to her music which belies the humour behind some of it. I doubt anyone has ever looked so glamorous, she’s wearing a blonde wig, a tasselled swimsuit and has huge Venus Flytrap eyelashes, while singing a song about running out of petrol and having to take a crap by the side of the motorway.

Beth Jeans Houghton is a superstar in waiting. Get on board early by getting her new single ‘I Will return, I Promise’ in early September. In the meantime, you can vote for it in Radcliffe and Maconies ‘Pick n Mix’ by clicking here but you’ll have to be quick sharp.

Otherwise, you can check out Beth’s cosmic-glam-folk at www.myspace.com/bethjeanshoughton

Woodpigeon - A Fiery Breeze

A huge thank you to Calgary’s Woodpigeon for dragging themselves out of bed and cabbing it over to our school to play for our wee four and five year olds in between scheduled performances in Stockton-on-Tees and Derby.

When Alan McGee released his Creation compilation album ‘Doing it for the Kids’ I doubt he quite had this in mind.

Armed with a guitar, a cello and a ukulele, the Canadian folkestra needed only a quick raid of the school’s music resources to enrich their sound with a xylophone, some maracas and a guiro before they were off.

This was the group’s first ever gig in a school and they played it perfectly. They taught the children about the instruments, encouraged them to take up music as a hobby and then played a thirty minute set including ‘The Book of Love’, ‘I Live a Lot of Places’ and a cover of Kris Ellestad’s ‘The Secret’. The Ellestad song is about as inappropriate as you can get for a primary school but by cunningly replacing the frequent references to body parts, fluids and functions with blanket use of the word ‘alphabet’ nobody on the staff needed to lose their job.

The end of the performance prompted one little boy to leap to his feet and shout ‘I just LOVED that’. As the band themselves would say: Awesome.

The secret it shot out in alphabet and alphabet alphabet.