Live Review: Slow Club @ Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, August 28th 2008

Slow Club are an habitually cheerful pair, and at their headline gig in Hoxton they were positively fit to burst from all the excitement.  As a result, their performance was stonking – featuring foot stamping, exuberant vocals and a delightful interlude for a joke about a very thorough vet.  Slow Club are vivacious, wholesome, and jolly good fun.  There is so much to commend about this duo that the reviewer risks coming across as slightly crazed, but here goes nothing:

Everything about Slow Club’s dynamic is beautifully balanced, from the exemplary harmonising on each song to Charles’s smiling assent as Rebecca occasionally bursts out laughing mid-song, uncontrollably delighted by the situation in which she finds herself.  On top of this, they both play their instruments brilliantly.  Charles is a highly accomplished acoustic guitar player and Rebecca always stands up to get full purchase on her drums and the wooden chair that is an integral part of her eccentric percussion arrangements (in fact, for this gig Rebecca was showing off a brand new multicoloured chair which was having its first outing in sunny Shoreditch).

They set about playing every song with gleeful excitement – at one point Rebecca was banging her drums so hard that bits of her sticks were flying off in all directions – and they kept the crowd wrapt throughout.  ‘Me and You’, ‘It Doesn’t Always Have to be Beautiful’ and ‘Because We’re Dead’ are all brilliantly catchy, upbeat songs that would make any crowd dance for joy.

Words: Helen True