Escape to the City
It feels like there are new one-dayers appearing every day. There seems to be one in London every weekend. One-dayers are basically a packed lineup concentrated in one venue. Half a dozen bands, if the venue has one stage, around a dozen, if the venue has a second space. They are a good way to see a decent amount of bands, without the walking involved with multi-day, multi-venue festival.
With its ‘Ceremony’ one-dayers, Bedford Esquires has proved it is possible for a venue relatively close to London to curate and sell out, cracking lineups of new up and coming artists. ‘Escape to the City’ is St Albans’s attempt at hosting one. Organised by gig goer turned promoter, James Berrecloth, he has curated a good lineup for this inaugural event at the Pioneer Club. Organising a one-dayer as your first event, is a big challenge and a very brave thing to take on.
Briefly chatting to James, he said the event needed to sell about 300 to break even. Which was a big ask, given that’s pretty much the capacity of the Pioneer Club. In the end about 100 tickets were sold. Personally, I think that’s a decent amount for a completely new festival. But I would suspect this was a disappointing number for James.
Unsurprisingly, the food truck they had organised pulled out, which left everyone in a bit of a bind, as the Club doesn’t have any amenities nearby. It’s a 15 minute walk to St Albans high street and given the Pioneer Club is a charity, they can’t afford to support James by putting on food themselves, as it could lead to them losing money too. But these are the challenges you experience when you are a new promoter.
In the run up to the event, James had said some things in the local paper that I thought were a bit unfair to the local scene. While these might have been taken out of context, tonight he repeated them on stage. It was along the lines of, ‘it was his mission to save the local scene’. While the event was helping the Pioneer Club, which as a charity, couldn’t risk putting on such an event themselves. So clearly a good thing. It was still a bit disrespectful to places like the Horn and Club 85, who have for decades offered local bands a place to play. While inspiring the local music scene by regularly enticing touring bands to their venues. Scenes happen organically. They are something you support, rather force and James idea of a scene, may not be the scene St Albans needs. He has good intentions. Hopefully he finds his place with the scene.
To throw James some shade, the two opening artists were local, with singer Leona Rue playing a solo set in the bar area and three piece indie band Kodi, kicking off the main stage.
Sadly, there were some sound issues on the main stage. Down at the front, the vocals were often missing in the mix for the first few songs. Somebody suggested it might have been due to the fact that the speakers are high up and the sound desk was on a mezzanine at the same level. I guess the sound engineer wasn’t hearing what we were hearing. Something to tweak for future festivals. Maybe it’s simply a case of adding a pit, so that the audience is a little behind the hanging speakers?
In the bar, Kitty Fitz, who played three sets today played a nice set of songs. Back on the main stage, Dear Tash, with her alt-rock sound, felt a bit incongruous to the lineup. But her high energy performance kept me entertained.
On the bar stage, Lilith Ai was a revelation. She twice played Daylight Music at the Union Chapel, once rocking up at the last minute with an acoustic guitar, wearing a parker and simply plugged in and played some fantastic songs. But this was a very different Lilith. Rocking a fantastic shock of blond hair, along with an electric guitar, she’s gone all rock, climbing on tables, bringing an infectious energy to the day. It felt like the party had started.
Over on the main stage were Y, the band with the ungoogleable name, featuring the mandatory member of the Fat White family required of all south London bands. They are part of the movement to break out of the darkness of post-punk, throwing in danceable beats and blazing saxophones.
On the bar stage, another missed beat for me. Alt-rock act Bridget, managing to get a small mosh going, after asking old people to crouch down. I wish bands would stop trying to force us to be boisterous. Let us decide if your music is worthy of a mosh. It’s one of the few benefits of getting old. You have less energy to mosh to everything, so we become more discerning. Bridget was enjoyable enough. But again, felt like she was on the wrong bill.
Irish singer Kynsy, keeps impressing me. This is the third time I’ve seen her and the various incarnations of her band. I really rate her. Emotional, but at times breezy indie. It seems effortless. I’m sure it’s not that easy to make it look that effortless.
Back in the bar, Retropxssy, who I saw at the Great Escape, continued to bamboozle me. Rapping into a wireless mic and playing amongst the audience is entertaining from a photography point of view. But I don’t connect to her music.
The Itch are interesting. I loved Regressive Left. They seemed to find the post-punk structure too restrictive and with The Itch broke out the mould with a more keyboard driven and at time danceable sound. They are worth catching.
Sadly, the band suffered from sound issues. On the main stage, this was a common occurrence throughout the day. During setup, some tosser rudely told them to hurry up, when it was obviously beyond their control. Simon suggested that if the guy could do better, maybe he could show them. Georgia, then gutsily headed out into the crowd to have a quiet word with him. We didn’t see him again. All regular gig goers rue the missed months of our lives we’ve wasted standing around waiting for acts. But we also recognise genuine technical issues.
Closing the bar stage was Lilo. I have seen them before, playing as a duo. This was the first I had seen them play as a band. Their breezy alt-folk was a good way to close the stage.
Closing the main stage and the day were Picture Parlour. As James said when he introduced them, there is such a buzz around them and with their debut album coming in November, they are destined for bigger stages. In singer, Katherine Parlour, they have a magnetic front woman. Her impressive rock vocals taking centre stage. An impressive first headline booking for the event.
For a first attempt at a one-dayer, they did a good job. While there were sound issues that need to be sorted out if this takes place again, the day broadly ran on time. Using the bar as a second stage worked and the sound was good. Maybe it was a bit chatty at times. But the two stages and the venue worked. The challenge will be to cover future costs.
Personally, I think 300 is unrealistic for a relatively expensive one day event. While you can argue £25 for a one-dayer isn’t that expensive. There were numerous cheaper or even free all-dayers in London. For example, next week is a free two-day event at the Green Door Store in Brighton, a place that’s easier to drag people from London to. Add in the difficulty of encouraging Londoners to travel out to the sticks, along with the Pioneer Club not being in the most convenient location. Without an existing local audience, it’s a difficult ask to attract 300 people. Given this year had a strong lineup. I feel this leaves future events in bit of a pickle. Ideally, they need to reduce the ticket price. But if they did that, it wouldn’t leave much budget to entice bands and to hire in the sound for the bar stage. Without a cracking lineup, who’s going to travel to St Albans?
It will be interesting to see where this goes. If they want my advice, they need to become more involved with the local scene. Pick young talented local bands who will bring their friends. Given that the Pioneer Club is primarily known as a skate park. Maybe offer discount tickets for under 18s, to attract some of the skating crowd. Maybe focus on skating culture and attract sponsorship from extreme sports related brands. Make it more of an event and a natural extension of the club. This would mean switching the focus from the ‘6 Music’ audience to a younger audience. The Pioneer Club is a cool venue for such an event. I suspect the festival needs to find a sound that suits the club and music that better fits local tastes. Which probably won’t be to mine, or James taste.
As a first stab at a one-dayer, they did a great job. Those who attended, enjoyed themselves and there were no major issues. Hopefully, they will find a way to make the event sustainable and it will come back bigger and better next year and prove that St Albans is a place to hear new indie music.
