with Moonbase and Big Sugar’s Jam Band
Reviewed by Thomas Needham
See our interview with The People Assembly after this gig here.
Over the course of 4 hours, The Big Difference was party to a gig that can best be described as a descent into madness. Huddled shoulder to shoulder like lambs to the slaughter, I was positively clueless of the events that would follow. I feel as though I was led by breadcrumbs into a sonic-initiation, letting my guard down just to be slapped around the chops by an experience incomparable to anything else I have ever seen live…
Moonbase opened the night; best described as LoveJoy without the brass (or internet psychodrama) accompaniment, they embrace the sound of the permanent Summer. One of their quaint melancholic ballads is literally called It Takes Me Back To Summer, one that managed to entangle itself with my own memories as if it was a song I had heard a million times before. Perhaps the song is simply derivative but it certainly succeeds at what it sets out to accomplish. My favourite track That Girl is a jaunty lament sprinkled with an eighties j-city pop garnish, largely inoffensive but thoroughly enjoyable it particularly highlights the vocal talent of frontman James. I was especially fascinated by his use of a pedal that filled in the harmonies automatically. I continue to hold out hope that one day they’ll invent a guitar pedal that makes you taller.
While I believe you should never waste your time imitating yesterday’s men, whether that be The Stones Roses or The Libertines or Arctic Monkeys, the audience was nonetheless incredibly receptive to Moonbase, imploring them to play just one more song. The band was happy to bestow one more track of technically tight indie-rock. Guitarist Sam Landsdowne, bassist Harvey Gaunt and drummer Harry Foreman are not only incredibly capable musicians but bounce off one another well. They may leave the audience in the capable hands of James but they sure know how to lay down a groove.
Moonbase have the foundations to do great things, perhaps I’m just too jilted and pretentious for indie but I hope they expand their horizons as they continue to grow as artists – I just want a little more than the revolving door of upcoming indie-rock bands. Alex Turner may well have “just wanted to be one of The Strokes” but leaping forward with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino rought the Arctic Monkeys’ masterpiece (to all the ‘AM’ defenders: please stop sniffing glue). While it’s easy to naval-gaze that after two-decades a large swath of a subgenre is not only dated but littered with filler and half-hit wonders, it’s important to recognise that today, a good hook can only get you so far. You can spend your life in toil, desperately attempting to recapture the glories of yesteryear like a certain brotherly duo reuniting later this year for characteristically shallow reasons but that era is gone for good. Personal taste aside, if the audience’s reception was anything to go by, there remains a (smaller) place for solid, if not entirely original indie. Moonbase is certainly a band to keep your eye on.
An unspoken truth is that all artists, whether musicians or writers, require a certain degree of narcissism; believing that you have material worth sharing almost necessitates it. Consequently, all art must walk the fine line between intrigue and indulgence. For jam bands specifically they must remember the golden rule: Grateful Dead-esc jams shouldn’t leave the dead grateful that they missed your gig.
Enter Big Sugar’s Jam Band. Fronted by Isaac Deacon under the pseudonym ‘Big Sugar’, (seemingly a tongue-in-cheek reference to how we as a society excessively idolise musicians) he leads a seven-piece outfit that prides itself upon its improvisation. His debut album, A Good Sandwich For Big Sugar felt as if it was missing something, although I could only figure out what it was after seeing them live; presentation.
On the album you miss witnessing Deacon removing one pair of jeans to reveal another pair of jeans, to remove those jeans to reveal another pair of jeans, to remove those jeans to reveal another pair of jeans, to remove those jeans to reveal yet another pair of jorts. The absurdity of the gag was punctuated by him struggling to take the previous 4 pairs of jeans off at once. When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, hilarity ensues, only adding to the performance as the band kept the show on the road.
On an album you miss the band’s spontaneity slipping into an impromptu (although admittedly rehearsed) rendition of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You. On an album you miss an extended, dramatic, operatic outro that went up a step every bar, keeping the audience perpetually tantalised as they ache for a pay off that would seemingly never come.
Bands that attempt improvisation tread the fine line between meandering and overwhelming the audience, either lacking vision or being pulled in twenty different directions. Luckily for Big Sugar’s Jam Band, there is a common understanding; Deacon is the centre of his universe, the King of his chessboard, (if you will) and indisputably the driving force behind his band. He personally directs his fellow players, of which there is Aaron Brooks on saxophone and Tabs Walker on keyboard (both providing a welcome variety despite unfortunately getting lost in the mix at points), with Will Price on guitar, Davy Ward and Charles Looker both playing bass, and Joe Beynon rounding off the troupe on bongos.
The jam band is a capable and talented group who adapted well to sudden rhythm and tempo changes and gave one another ample space to thrive creatively. Despite the challenge, they collectively rose to the occasion and delivered an impressive setlist of improvisational jazz-fusion.
Nonetheless it wasn’t the music itself that stuck with me, ultimately it’s supplementary to the experience of bearing witness to a group of friends, challenging and uplifting one another through music – between that and the 24-minute drum solo on the album, it’s no competition. The former requires a degree of inter-personal knowledge just as much as it does musical ability to accomplish which shouldn’t go unrecognised.
Deacon is a frontman who demands your attention through his eccentric stage presence and ability to play an audience just as well as he can play drums. I firmly believe they should record their performances rather than just release their audio to showcase the creative spontaneity and capable showmanship on display.
There’s no clever transition to be had here so let me lay my cards on the table: The People Assembly are simultaneously the best and worst act I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. I can’t wait to see them again. They are the bastard child of the post-punk revival of the early noughties (later landfill indie), soundscapes that harken back to ‘Boards of Canada’ and ‘God Speed! You Black Emperor’, noise rock that would make Steve Albani seek a conciliatory Big Mac and the explicit left-nihilism of ‘This Heat’ and ‘Throbbing Gristle’. Or to put it briefly; “Slint with synths.”
Pictured: President Donald J. Trump before and after seeing ‘The People Assembly’ live:
A deconstruction of a deconstruction of another deconstruction, ‘Post-space’ is definitionless gobbledygook but there’s a reason why the term has stuck. You may chortle and snidely quip “Reddit is down the hall” but I find the aesthetic fascinatingly unique. One thing I hold to be objectively true is pursuing life to its fullest through exposure to all the joys and horrors that come with existence so humour me as I adorn my fedora for a moment.
Philosophically it is built upon the foundational belief that the world we live in is rotten to the core. Transcending the metaphysical, post-space (perhaps better expounded upon as ‘post-ironic-neo-Posadism’) reconstructs the audience into a unified commonality. This may well be the same transgressive basis for genres like punk but post-space has a single marked difference: resignation. The fight is gone.
Against immutable odds the best you can do is care for those around you, scream into the void and relish the brief reprieve of escape while reality stares you down. The imagery, symbolism and writings of albums like 2018’s How To Bombproof Your Horse is akin to a utopian, benevolent, extra-terrestrial species bestowing upon Earth the simple mantra: “ONWARDS”. However just as you (and humanity generally) venture to the edge of the rubicon, you are dropped back down to Earth. There is no fanfare. Just primal, insatiable rage – how good things can be only exemplifies how bad things are. Civilisational decay is a bitch.
Musically it means pedals – an absolute shitload of pedals. The band carves a third-way between verbal assaults on the ears and music that goes through one ear and out the other, creating songs that are challenging but not malevolent and far more memorable than forgettable. Bawling guitars soar to incomparable heights only to be complimented by crushing lows of electronic feedback. You may say hitting your guitar or fiddling with pedals does not translate to musical ability – I’d call you an idiot.
With dancing(?) that would make The Blues Brothers blush, enough palpable, overwhelming angst to send refillable vapes flying across the stage and an all-enveloping sound that scratched a primal itch in my brain, The Big Difference soon became the centre of numerous mosh pits. When Kevin (the photographer) wasn’t hurtling me into them I was being dragged in by Big Sugar himself, unable to flee, I embraced the insanity, unleashing the pent up tension derived from the music.
Joel Page is a charismatic frontman despite his vocals being drowned out in a cacophony of sound. Even after getting judo-kicked to the floor, I heard at least three separate members of the audience ask to bare his children so that must count for something. Whether it be the belting, neurotic Trojan Staffy, the billowing emotional climax of R Skeletons Balloons or the considered, simmering discontent of Leicester City Council – there was not a dud to be found at any point throughout their dynamic setlist. My personal favourite cut that I can’t seem to find a recording over is the sublime Swinewhale. With its perfect ambient lead in by Rowan Taylor (in charge of ‘miscellaneous carnage’) the building intensity of the track is palpable. Think Franz Ferdinand if they had something more interesting to say. Jake Skemp and Kai Roberts bring their a-game with a hypnotic back and forth on guitar before drummer Andrew Bassett and bassist Lewis Bates lay down a jumpy, neurotic and anxious breakdown that sweeps you off your feet (in this case literally as it precipitated yet another impromptu mosh pit).
The People Assembly is a musical experience unlike anything I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live, at any chance you get, lend them your support.
If the show felt like a bad trip, then the aftermath felt like a bad comedown. All I felt was an overwhelming sense of dread by its conclusion unlike anything I have experienced live before. The performance so electric, the sound so heavy, the audience so enthralled that it made writing my thoughts initially impossible. The People Assembly had delivered on their promise, I had truly been cast out of the airlock and into the great unknown. I got the impression that nobody else felt quite so anxious after the gig had ended; I suppose, as an empath, it just really affected my mood 🙁
Thankfully, following the gig, I had the pleasure of corresponding with The People Assembly for an interview. Without it I’m not sure I would have been able to rack my brain. If you’re interested in finding out more about their creative process, upcoming gigs/projects and uncovering the mystery audience member who judo kicked frontman Joel Page then I suggest you read all about it in our exclusive interview. Their measured and lengthy consideration of our questions makes for fascinating reading, do indulge, it’s well worth your time.
To summarise my experience: “oh my god… I get it.”
See our interview with The People Assembly after this gig here.
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