The Head and The Heart, Bush Hall, London, 18 July 2011

Setlist: Cats and Dogs / Coeur d'Alene / Ghosts / Honey Come Home / Josh McBride / Heaven Go Easy on Me / Lost in My Mind / Winter Song / Sounds Like Hallejah / New Song / Rivers and Roads / ? / Down in the Valley
The venue was busy before the band came and the band arrived to great audience excitement. hen they started playing, the atmosphere was euphoric and the band played with joyful abandon.

The crowd were really enthusiastic, seemingly determined to dispel rumours of London audiences being tricky, cold and apathetic. For a band that are still new to the UK, they had people singing along from the very start.

The show included a quality new song and the encore opened with a solo acoustic number. The set maintained a consistently high standard. It certainly never seemed like a band with one album and an audience waiting for the 'hit' or the couple of songs they new. Everything was wolfed down with gusto, including the new songs.

All through the set there was a fair bit of audience participation on the choruses, with people still singing along on the Tube ride home. It was a really enjoyable, and a times moving, show. Really looking forward to seeing them in the UK again, and will hopefully be able to persuade some more people along for the ride next time.

Paul Thomas Saunders, Bush Hall, London, 18 July 2011

Paul played with another guitarist, a keyboard player and a drummer. Paul has a lovely voice which melded well with the female keyboard player's singing.


The band were pretty accomplished and made a decent amount of noise for the four of them (including great crunching guitar work on one of the songs). The general style, and the guitar playing in particular, brought to mind I Am Kloot. There were even moments with nods towards stadium rock.

The songs were all pretty long and there were only a handful in the half-hour set, but none of them dragged or seemed to have been stretched out beyond their natural limits. A really good opener - look forward to seeing him again.

The Head and the Heart, In-store show at Rough Trade West, London, 18 July 2011.

Setlist
Sounds Like Hallelujah / Honey Come Home / Winter Song / Lost in My Mind / Down in the Valley / Rivers and Roads


An excellent set.

The harmonies seemed slightly changed on a couple of the songs, presumably to suit the stripped-down arrangments.

Winter Song, for instance, was strummed, rather than plucked, which worked well, though a courier did arrive in the middle to collect a package from the shop staff. That didn't put the band off, though they did seem a bit perplexed - wondering if he'd come to sell candy (apparently a US store has similar livery).