Stonk and rock from Gabby Young and her band (work in progress)

This is a brief review of Gabby Young and her new band at Rich Mix, Shoreditch

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

9 May

This is a brief review of Gabby Young and her new band at Rich Mix, Shoreditch, on Tuesday 9 May 2017

The attendant costs of a weekday day-trip to London (even with a Network Card) can quickly mount, but, with the #Hockney show at Tate Britain (@Tate) ending within the month (Monday 29 May), and weekend opportunities to get there (and Tate Modern) thus diminishing, combining seeing sixty years of one British artist’s work with attending an important night in the career of another seemed like the right thing to do. So it was !

Strong and stable (here meaning something [good]), @gabbyyoung's voice and vocal-styles always impress : full, controlled, without vibrato. https://t.co/cHdew4AtkK

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 11, 2017

Gabby Young had been heard last time at Bristol Harbour Festival (with the former line-up of Gabby Young and Other Animals), and, before that, it had been free tickets at Cheltenham Jazz Festival [won in a competition, plus, agreeably, some complementary bottles of cider from a Festival sponsor (no clue in the video that is linked to)] – so it was about time to stump up and support Gabby’s London come-back by paying for entry to Rich Mix (@RichMixLondon), on Bethnal Green Road (in Shoreditch).

First, however, a few Tweets about the support band of LAUCAN (of London / Lewes)…

And a very welcome return to the stage for the fab @gabbyyoung with a new sound and look very well received by the @RichMixLondon crowd. pic.twitter.com/SVqqF2razM

— Substandard Nerd (@substandardnerd) May 9, 2017

This jazz-influenced @laucanmusic warm-up set for @gabbyyoung shows what a trio can do with voice / guitar, cello, and drums / electronica !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2017

[...]


Set-list [new songs in italic]

1. Here we go again
2. Pull the wires ~ new
3. You’re like the male version of me
4. Home
5. Mole
6. Neither the beginning, nor the end
7. As yet unidentified (‘When you hold my hand / I feel like I’m saved’) – dedicated to Milly
8. Steal or borrow
9. Time
10. Honey
11. Fear of flying
12. One foot in front of the other
13. Bookoo
14. As yet unidentified (‘The money’s driven you evil’)
15. Segment

.@samleesong At @RichMixLondon this week, @gabbyyoung told us that not only had @samleesong sung at her wedding, but she just done this nightingale duet. pic.twitter.com/vDxPPGgerh

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 13, 2017

[...]


Other than lead vocals from Gabby (as well as, occasionally, guitar – and percussion), and some backing vocals from the rest of the band, we principally heard electric bass (the player doubled on guitar), keyboards (and related electronica), drums, and rhythm and electric guitars, but also melodica and accordion. Some fairly good-natured jokes were exchanged about readiness (or otherwise) for the next number in a couple of places, but this was very good and fluent musicianship – and, where the firmer beat and louder tones kicked in, Gabby Young and her band (@gabbyyoung) tore the place up, to great excitement.



Encores :

16. All you need is love ~ Lennon and McCartney arr. Stephen Revere
17. We’re all in this together


A pair of encores began with (16) ‘All you need is love’ – sounding, as Gabby rightly said, as we had never quite heard it before – in Stephen’s calypso reworking of the melody. When, after a stretched-out intro (and even more unlike The Beatles’ original), the band let the throttle go, it was even more lusciously Caribbean, and full, indeed, of love – including, of course, ours for Gabby and her crew :

As a choice for the final closing number of the night, it was excellently twinned with one of her classics, from the days of Gabby Young and Other Animals. Since, earlier on (and without any persuasion), Gabby had got us singing refrains (or even repeated syllables, which marked out a melody-line), we were practised and ready to join her and the band with the signature song (17) 'We’re all in this together'*.

Regardless of an enforced break in her singing career, @gabbyyoung showed her vibrancy and versatility and her sassy new band this evening !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2017

So effortlessly, the gig had built to this moment of celebration, and so we felt extremely pleased that we had all made it out on a Tuesday night to be there, at Rich Mix (in conjunction with The Nest Collective), both with Laucan [link to the band's page on Arsebook], and with Gabby and a band that had shown itself more than capable of great liveliness : as she declared, We’re back !, so, even if [you think that] you know her from previous performances, do go and see this rocked-up incarnation, and share the love !


End-notes :

* A sentiment that she emphatically said that [ed. some self-important person called] Theresa May was not claiming (who is known to some, if they follow @THEAGENTAPSLEY, as #SeamyHater) !


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Gabby does it Bristol fashion !

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 July

From where I'd been dropped, I hurried down the stairs past the Cathedral School, across that strange bridge, and was soon in Queen Square, which I must have walked in before years ago, but never as a venue.

Gabby and Other Animals were already on stage for the Harbour Festival. Without too much trouble, as someone used at Cambridge Folk Festival in previous years to walking between even seated people without standing on them, I got myself to the mud just by the front railings, and then, when some people left, right there. You only had to look at people clapping time, tapping their feet, swaying with their bodies to realize that they were having a great time - and why not, with this exciting, energy-filled band on stage ?

Gabby always wows, and was wearing a pink halter-neck dress with large white polka dots over her usual colourful tresses, and a yellow flower off centre on her head. But this was just a visual expression of the colour and expressiveness in her voice, part of putting on a show for her audience - and this, as could well be perceived, was a fine one.

When I had previously seen the group, it had been a good but distant view, in The Big Top at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, so it was nice to be right up close, and not limited by the seating - that lack of limitation, I am sure, meant that the audience could throw itself into participation more easily, even having a go at some antiphonal singing (dividing the square in half), with which Gabby and her partner in crime Stephen Ellis seemed genuinely pleased, saying things such as Awesome !, and You're amazing, Bristol !. (Stephen, a bit of a style man, too, was wearing a black waistcoat and an old-fashioned shirt with his black trousers.)

Some numbers were familiar to me from the earlier gig ('Horatio', 'In Your Head', 'Lipsink' (spelt according to Wikipedia ?), and the closer, 'Whose House'), but that in no way mattered. For this was a compelling one-hour set, and Queen Square was lapping it up - and that, and the sheer vivacity and versatility of Gabby and her band, fed into the enjoyment, the enthusiasm, and the gig that was being put on : performers can feel that.

Add to all this the quality of the musicianship, from one-piece-suited Milly on violin to the wonderful, sonorous, jazzy trio of trumpet, trombone and tuba (sadly, I seem unable to find the name of the respective personnel), and a solid drummer, plus Gabby's marvellously swinging lead vocals, Stephen's sometimes frenetic guitar-playing, and a good, deep double-bass twang, and there is a force to be reckoned with.

They are just about (in the morning) to record their third album - as I urged Gabby and Stephen afterwards, when I made my agenthood known to them, what people want is to be able to soak up that live festival, carnival atmosphere in a DVD. And I think that there may be something of that, more and better than YouTube videos, on the way...


NB Lovely photograph of Ms Young courtesy of @brizzelness (via Twitter)



If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here