Slow Club @ Lee Rosy's Tea Room

For a headline tour, a small cafe in the back streets of Nottingham wouldn't be the normal venue but Slow Club aren't your everyday band. Unsigned but gained increasing amounts of buzz continually, their first roam around the country as headliners, in support of their debut single Because We're Dead must have been a scary prospect for the pair, especially when the support act was so good.

His name was Michael Rossiter and he played quite traditional folk and bluesy numbers but his guitar playing was exceptional, especially when he sung so well over the top of the complex and melodic plucked notes. He looked intimidate by the intimacy of the venue to begin with but once he got going, he was brimmed with confidence. He ended his set in the middle of the room, banjo in hand, foot a-stomping, singing an old sea shanty and attempting to get us all to sing along...and we did.

Now normally i'm a little bit tipsy by the time the main act comes on stage but as no alcohol was being served (a strawberry milkshake its substitute) its was odd not to be holding a pint as Rebecca and Charles took to the stage...well more like the front of the room. As soon as they started playing it all fell into place, the venue, the tea, the cake, the milkshake all seemed to be encompassed in their sweet harmonies and cute and kooky lyrics. Aside from their quirkiness, what sets them apart from other folk pop acts is Rebecca's intriguing percussion set up. Consisting of bass drum, snare, tambourine, she also incorporates odd objects into songs, tuneful bottles (Message In A Bottle), spoons (I'm Alive) and a wooden chair (Me & You) which in all creates an unique sound, which is both catchy and completely uplifting.
The set was a blast. They rattled through over ten songs in just over half an hour with Charles breaking a string and Rebecca hitting her drums so hard that the fairy lights wrapped around them kept flickering off. Their excitement and playfulness was infectious, which only lulled when they slowed the tempo for an old track Biology Hearts which was perfectly placed in the set as a somber contrast to the rest of the tunes.
The gig may have been a slightly different experience for the duo than the night before, where they played to a sold out room in Sheffield, all singing along to their songs, but the twenty or so folks who made the effort to make it to Lee Rosy's were given an intimate treat and Slow Club seem to appreciate and acknowledge it with huge smiles and the catchiest of catchy tunes.

Michael Rossiter - Jack Went A-Sailing
Slow Club - Slow Club Summer Shakedown
Slow Club - Biology Hearts

See more photos from the gig at my flickr (cheers Mark) and if you haven't voted in the Friday Face-Off, check out the post below and let us know which is the better summer song.