[GIG REVIEW] Bel Esprit/The Wholls/Submariner @ The Joiners, Southampton, 1st April 2016

The Joiners in Southampton is a legendary venue championing new music and the gig on 1 April run by This Feeling featured 3 live bands followed by DJ sets until the early hours.

Quick recap on The Joiners. Many great bands have played here including Coldplay, Radiohead, The Vaccines, Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, The Maccabees and less than 2 years ago, Catfish and the Bottlemen. This place is steeped in history, great bands start out here. It may only hold 200 people but it has had a massive influence on today’s music.

Bel Esprit

The Joiners recently featured on Radio 1 as part on the Independent Music Venue week which saw Steve Lamacq visiting The Joiners for an evening of live music. More recently Rob Da Bank has been there to judge the Common People Festival heats which has given bands the chance to compete for a slot on The Joiners sponsored Uncommon People Stage. Passion for new music oozes from the building. It might be tiny but the great acoustics and history attracts great bands. Recently Pretty Vicious, The Sherlocks and Eliza and the Bear have contributed to this venue’s continuing success in supporting new music.

It also seems to provide many a band member with a bar job when required, sort of like a band youth club for the seriously talented!

First up Submariner who are becoming well known on the local circuit recently supporting Fatherson at The Talking Heads in Southampton. Good songs and crowd engagement meant Submariner set the night up perfectly for The Wholls and Bel Esprit. Definitely one to catch again and apart from their guitar malfunction (see below) they were great openers for the evening.

I love how these bands pitch in for each other. The Wholls didn’t hesitate in lending Submariner a guitar when a broken string threatened to end their set prematurely!

Next band to appear, and reclaim their guitar, was The Wholls. Billed as a cross between The Foals and The Clash this Bedford band has been in the studio with LA producer Steve Baughman who has worked with Michael Jackson, Usher, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg. Potentially a bit good then! Bizarrely The Wholls played to a 2 billion world-wide audience when they performed X21 at Miss World in December 2015.

The Wholls

These guys know how to work a crowd, from the moment they hit the stage they controlled the place. They were engaging, charismatic and seriously good! 9 songs including their best known tracks Angry Faces and X21. Big vocals, big drums, big guitars these guys are heading for major success. Their cover of Nirvana’s Lithium was inspired. The Wholls didn’t disappoint they were every bit as good as their hype. I’m still not clear on why they performed at Miss World though!!

Onto the headline act Bel Esprit who are currently on a mini tour to promote their new single ‘Leave Me Here’ (out on 8 April). Bel Esprit are riding high after great reviews and first play of their new single on It’s All Indie. Whatever ‘It’ is Bel Esprit have got it! Gearing up for festival season and playing on the Uncommon Stage at The Common Festival in May alongside Lonely The Brave this band is on the brink of massively deserved recognition.

Bel Esprit

Inspired song writing underpins Bel Esprit’s music with lyricist Billy Herklots starting the writing before the whole band works on the music together. Bel Esprit owned that stage at The Joiners and 10 thumping good songs had the crowd dancing, jumping, moshing and singing the words back to the band. Awesome! Rock star drumming from Sachin Croker, thumping bass from George Wardley and massively energetic lead guitar from Fahad Siddiqui who is one of best guitarists I’ve heard for a long time. Billy fronts the band with guitar and controlled vocals that draw you into the music. Bel Esprit has an impressive range of their own music to choose from and also include a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ in their setlist. ‘Lose My Mind’ has been the band’s biggest success so far with a recent play on Steve Lamacq’s show on BBC 6 and is the song that whips the crowd up into crowd surfing/stage invasion mentality.

The only criticism I have of Bel Esprit is that they’re not on the stage for long enough. The audience didn’t want Bel Esprit to stop playing and I’m looking forwards to more song writing and longer gigs.

All 3 bands complemented each other so big respect to whoever combined these acts.  DJ sets completed the night’s entertainment. The Joiners knows how to have a party!

Words and Photos by - Rhona Murphy

[LISTEN] Bel Esprit - Leave Me Here [IAI PREMIÈRE]

Ok so we're going to be kicking the week off with an exclusive, Bel Esprit's brand new single "Leave Me Here". The Southampton based quartet have been on a real high since their last single "Lose My Mind" racked up 150k plays as well as multiple plays from BBC 6 Music and Steve Lamacq.

After a heapful of shows with established acts it now sounds like Bel Esprit are wanting to be the next big thing, and with "Leave Me Here" they've now got a great platform to push that burning desire. You can take a listen to their broodingly smooth track below, get your groove on and turn the volume up!

Bel Esprit Live UK Shows
March
23rd - Purple Turtle, Reading
April
1st - The Joiners, Southampton
2nd - The Good Ship, London
7th - 60 Million Postcards, Bournemouth

[WATCH] Bel Espirit - Lose My Mind [IAI PREMIÈRE]

We premièred Bel Esprit's "Lose My Mind" last year and we loved it - you can read the review here - and now the band are back with a video for it! When the track explodes at the three minute mark you can easily hear their influences coming through here, a band having fun and making music the way they want, just a perfect end to the single!

The video was shot over various shows the band performed at and just shows us that the band are so energetic when performing live!

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Bel Esprit share lyric video for "Island" [IAI PREMIÈRE]

 We've featured South coast Indie-rockers Bel Esprit before, and today they've unveiled their brand new track "Island" via a lyric video on YouTube. Supporting bands such as To Kill a King, Crowns, Racing Glaciers, Sharks, Wild Smiles, Childhood, The Struts and Nothing But Thieves, Bel Esprit have already built a notable fan base in the South of England.

Their debut EP entitled "Lose My Mind" will be released on 25Hour Convenience Store Records on 4th of May 2015.

Watch / [YOUTUBE]

Track of the week... Bel Esprit - Lose My Mind

Last week Southampton based Bel Esprit gave us the privilege to unveil their brand new single "Lose My Mind" with the B-Side too called "The Mad Ones". The band are one of the south-coasts top up and coming bands and with this latest single that's pretty much a dead cert now! They're one of the best bands in and around the Southampton area, being called-upon whenever a gig needs a support act!

"Lose My Mind" opens with a drum-beat similar to that of Bloc Party's "Luno", but ones the vocals and guitars kick in it sounds a lot more radio friendly, with crisp vocals, great guitar hooks in the chorus and anthematic edges to it this is a great A-side to the single. Scroll on down to check both of the stunning new songs now! The anthematic edge to the song sets them aside from most new bands at the moment where they all like to play it safe. Bel Espirt's new sound is a great step forwards!

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The Weekly Catch-Up (w/e 9th August)

Happy Saturday to one and all, it's that time of week again where we delve into the past 7 days to re-live the best new music from all over the world. New videos, covers, new tracks and even some new music from IAI faves MOATS!

Bel Esprit

 
Bel Esprit - Lose My Mind

Southampton based Bel Esprit have today given us the privilege to unveil their brand new single "Lose My Mind" with the B-Side too called "The Mad Ones". The band are one of the south-coasts top up and coming bands and with this latest single that's pretty much a dead cert now!




Moats - Jeff Buckley 

The track makes use of the bands strong-points, Matt's lovely gruff vocals, Nathan's relentless drumming, James and Will's tight guitar skills. This track is a long way off from their early stuff, but all bands evolve, I'm liking their new sound!


 


Ben Howard - End of the Affair

Ben Howard has unveiled a dramatic first track as a taster to his forthcoming second album this evening (5th August). "End Of The Affair" is now streaming just below if you hadn't noticed! Also details of the second album will be announced imminently.





Rae Morris - Cold (PANES Remix)

Rae Morris has unveiled PANES' huge remix of her track Cold ft Fryars, out now. Rae will be playing festivals throughout the summer, including headlining the BBC Introducing Stage at Reading & Leeds Festival in 3 weeks time.




Happyness - You Come To Kill Me?!

New music is revealed by Happyness today, in the shape of "You Come To Kill Me?!", a brand new track taken from the forthcoming "Anything I Do Is All Right" EP. The EP, released digitally on September 1st will cap a string of sold out live dates that has seen them support Jamie T!





Passport to Stockholm - Imperfections

One of the surprises last year at Gloucester's Underground Festival was Passport To Stockholm, and it's pretty much safe to say we've been following them since. And today the band has uploaded a brand new track called "Imperfections", which is odd because I can't find anything wrong with it!




Pixel Fix - Still

The Oxford band's latest EP "Running Thin" is out now (4th August), and you can stream the final song off the EP here, which is the rather delightful ambient track "Still". Mainly an instrumental apart from some airy whispers and yelps the guitars too help you properly relax.





Swoons - Nothing to Explain

The Buckinghamshire based band have released a brand new demo called "Nothing To Explain". The Bluesy band have had a good year with some great support slots and are basically celebrating by giving away this new demo.

Bel Esprit stream new single "Lose My Mind" [IAI PREMIÈRE]

Southampton based Bel Esprit have today given us the privilege to unveil their brand new single "Lose My Mind" with the B-Side too called "The Mad Ones". The band are one of the south-coasts top up and coming bands and with this latest single that's pretty much a dead cert now!

"Lose My Mind" opens with a drum-beat similar to that of Bloc Party's "Luno", but ones the vocals and guitars kick in it sounds a lot more radio friendly, with crisp vocals, great guitar hooks in the chorus and anthematic edges to it this is a great A-side to the single. The flip-side is another newbie, "The Mad Ones", a bit more on the darker side but a lot more groovy, could easily be a Jungle song if they upped their tempo a little bit. But when the track explodes at the three minute mark you can easily hear their influences coming through here, a band having fun and making music the way they want, just a perfect end to the single!

Scroll on down to check both of the stunning new songs now!

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