11 October 2019 (gig)
12 October 2019
The spirit of punk was alive and very well in NW5 last night as the Verity White Band played the Fiddlers Elbow on the last night of their ‘Reclaim; Set Fire’ tour.
Unfortunately, the combination of England football and torrential rain kept the crowd a little sparse but those who braved the elements were treated to a set full of vim, power and not a little chaos – damn good fun from start to finish.
I saw the band playing a support set for Holland’s AlasCa earlier this year and I was determined to see what they could do with a full set and they didn’t disappoint.
Verity herself was in fine voice while Alex White was laying down serious riffs from start to finish. Joe Kelly’s bass was massive and Alec McIntosh held it all together with solid drumming all through.
Their music is bass led and has a strong grunge feel to it but the real roots are in punk and Verity’s enthusiastic bopping and squeals of delight put me very much in mind of Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex) but she is capable of some very intense vocalising on a number such as ‘Wild’.
Her scattiness was well to the fore as she managed to forget the set list but never the lyrics – the band may have found it a chore but the audience were very much on her side so gentle laughs all round.
The set was largely comprised of numbers from the ‘Reclaim; Set Fire’ album but also featured a few numbers from the ‘Breaking Out’ album. Highlights for me were an intense version of ‘Wild’ with just vocal and acoustic creating an intense and dense atmosphere and a brilliant ‘Come And Get It’ which had a great punch and blast of sound.
Martyn Peters played a good set of acoustic songs to warm the crowd up, full of good humour and in great voice.
The Verity White Band are on the verge of making a very big name for themselves – a fine night in Camden.
