Both Babybird and their support act, The Sammy Vincent Band* (*working title) are a drummer down tonight at Dust in Brighton. Each for different reasons, and each with a different coping strategy. Sammy Vincent take the approach of stripping back to a more acoustic version of their otherwise rock-driven, folk-tinged, post-punk-grunge selves. Babybird on the other hand go for an electronic rythmn section courtesy of Danny Lowe’s box of beats.
This is a gig rescheduled from earlier in the year, and as is evident from the sparse room (us and about three others are it, other than two bar staff and a couple of techs) as The Sammy Vincent band take to the stage. This, coupled with some disparaging commentary from Stephen Jones later in the night (‘I’ve only seen one poster, and that was in the dressing room’), indicates the promotion of this night has been questionable to say the least.
On the way to the venue while grabbing a beer and a burger in the Brighton Lanes, a fruitless internet search had failed to provide any information on set times or even whether there actually was a support set. The only hint that a second band might be playing was an old webpage about the postponed date – which did at least list Sammy Vincent as the opening act. So, on the off chance of some early-doors action we got into the otherwise deserted venue just a few minutes before they were coaxed onto the stage.
For anyone reading to the end the slight delay in starting is crucial to the bombshell ending of this particular gig anecdote…
Sammy himself is a Margate lad who has relocated to London and used his university time to gather a band around him.
As his set unfolds, we get treated to a slew of impassioned songs with impassioned poetic sensibilities at their heart.
But as he stresses, these are the toned-down drumless versions… ‘go check out the originals’ he implores the rapidly growing crowd.
For reference, by the end of the set the room was pretty full – and there was a real sense of people feeling a bit gutted they had missed the opening tracks, because glancing back at the audience during the last couple of songs everyone was transfixed.
This is a tough thing to achieve for any support band…but maybe doubly so for a Babybird crowd… who are likely to be musical and lyrical epicureans of the highest order.
Over the years we’ve seen hundreds of amazing bands raise their heads then dip back into obscurity…so the odds are stacked against anyone new to the scene who wants to cut through the noise and beat the algorithm. And for acts like Sammy Vincent who hark back to what us old people refer to as ‘better times’ there is perhaps a diminishing audience willing to give them the time to listen to their songs and appreciate their heritage.
But, as someone brought up on a musical diet of Levellers and with as propensity to newer bands like Kid Kapichi I, for one, will be listening to more of this band is they continue down their chosen path.
Now I may be about to break some unwritten rule of music journalism and write less about the headliner than the support.
However, new acts need the exposure, whilst established acts have their back-catalogue to speak for them.
Stephen Jones and Babybird have been in and out of the industry for getting on for three decades, and along with the band’s commercial releases Jones has put out a truly prolific number of songs on his Bandcamp account over the years – a fact he won’t let the crowd forget as he references it numerous time through the night.
In fact, we just dipped in, and counted 336 albums and EPs available on the site. Yes 336! According to Jones tonight, 140 of these are albums he’s recorded over the past 12 years.
Something else that comes across repeatedly through the show is an apparent Gary Barlow fixation… which is explained around half-way through when Jones begins an extended conversation that continues sporadically through the rest of the evening – with superfan, Gary Barlow.
But not that one.
This is Gary Barlow from Bristol who comes to all the gigs and has bought all the songs.
We reckon a future Babybird release might be entitled ‘Gary Barlow, You’ve Let Yourself Go…’
But back to the set… and it’s ‘gorgeous’ of course.
It even includes ‘that’ song, despite Jones’ hatred of it!
It might have been the tune that opened doors, but it was also the one that the label chose against his best intentions. Based, it would seem, entirely on it having a ‘nice title’. Other than that Jones seems to be inclined to thing it has few redeeming features apart from its unending but (to his mind) bizarre popularity.
He jokes that his missing drummer, Rob Gregory, is probably out in Rhodes playing it (highly inappropriately) at wedding gigs for £500 per night.
If somehow you have missed out on Babybird over the years think ‘dark pop with sparkly bits and heavy irony’ and you are in the vague ballpark.
And if one line gets pulled out of this review maybe that’s it.
However, I mentioned a bombshell at the end, and here it comes.
Dust, it turns out, is a stickler for live curfews – apparently, they morph into a little nightclub later on in the evenings.
But perhaps the memo hadn’t reached Stephen Jones – because, as the clock struck ten, he was still on his penultimate song. And that, it turned out, was in fact his last for the night.
As the band tried to strike up for their last number (‘Goodnight’) the mic was muted, the drum machine killed, and only the small stage guitar amp could be heard whispering over a rising tide of background musak.
A furious Jones left the stage with muffled expletives and an assertion that in almost 30 years of live shows this had never happened to him before!
It wasn’t the end to the night any of us wanted, but perhaps it did mark a unique moment in a unique career.
GOODNIGHT
PHOTOS BY SARA-LOUISE BOWREY
BABYBIRD and SAMMY VINCENT at DUST, BRIGHTON, 2024
