Aldous Harding

He first of two evenings with Aldous. She’s such a special artist that I have to take every opportunity to catch her mesmerising performances. Tonight, singing a lot of new material,  it’s clear that she’s going to continue to expand her audiences, with the new material sounding fantastic.

The venue was the Old Queens Head. It’s a while since I’d been here. Previous gigs, there had always been seating which I found encouraged talking and unless you got there early, meant standing at the back otherwise you’d be blocking the view. I have to admit, it wasn’t a favourite venue. But with the tables removed, it was a reasonable space and but for a small number of idiots, the crowd, respectful. Support on both evenings was from the excellent H.Hawkline.

The second evening, Aldous was playing Paper Dress Vintage. A second hand store in Hackney. It’s one of those hipster ‘vintage’ stores. Selling second hand crap for ‘vintage’ prices. It’s the first time I’d been here. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Luckily, they had a dedicated cafe/venue space upstairs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the quietest place. Although the crowd was less respectful than the first evening with a really noisy air conditioning unit, the gig was as wonderful as the previous evening.

As the gig finished early, there was time to catch Quilt at the Moth Club. A reasonable psych band from the US.