UkeJam / The Nefarious Picaroons / The New Hawleans Jug Band [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 1/7/14]

guildford fringe 2014If one asks the average person on the street to picture an alternative music venue, each individual visualisation will be found to share certain commonalities with all of the others. The venue will definitely be hosting a band playing ear-splitting rock music; the audience will all be about 18 years old; and the general atmosphere will be hostile, obnoxious, and proudly antisocial. If one compares this imaginary alternative music venue to those that exist in real life, one will find that in many cases imagination and reality overlap with almost pinpoint accuracy.

If one compares the standard stereotype to The Boileroom, however, there will never be a 100% match. And on The Guildford Fringe Festival’s opening night, that percentage would be no greater than zero. Musically, skiffle and folk were as extreme as it got – and let’s be honest, you could only find skiffle scary if you’d just woken up from a century-long coma. The crowd was definitely old enough to be served alcohol without needing ID, and the atmosphere was one of merriment, a celebration of the charmingly eccentric; hence the unusually flamboyant verbiage that peppers this review. Read more…

Posted on 03 July 2014

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