Saturday 27 June 2015

Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick Brighton Saturday June 13th

Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick - Photo by Retro Man Blog
I found out about Stay Sick when I saw the Club’s genial hosts Chris and Neil DJing at the very first Hipsville Weekender back in May 2013. I really enjoyed their choice of music and it turned out that they often linked up with Mr A from Hipsville and Weirdsville to offer gigs in both Brighton and London to those bands coming from overseas. It's similar to what we did last year with Les Kitschenette's playing the Retro Man Blog night on the Friday and then Weirdsville on the Saturday. It’s certainly a mutually beneficial set-up that helps to secure shows for a lot of the best foreign Garage Rock bands such as Kinoco Hotel from Japan as a recent example.

Neil Sick at the controls - Photo by Retro Man Blog
Chris Sick and his Happy Birthday tribute - Photo by Retro Man Blog
As I have only just reviewed Oh! Gunquit recently you probably don’t need me to tell you again how great they are do you? You do..? Well if you insist…Tonight’s show just reinforced why Oh! Gunquit are one of the best live acts around. The new unrecorded songs, particularly "Fireballs" and "Nomads Of The Lost", are already as familiar as the songs from the “Eat Yuppies and Dance” album, released on the excellent Dirty Water Records, and that’s testament to the band’s song-writing skills. 

Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick - Photo by Retro Man Blog
Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick - Photo by Retro Man Blog
It looks like I will get my wish too, in my last Blog feature about the band I commented that considering “Eat Yuppies…” has only just been released it might be some time to get to hear these new tracks recorded, which would be a shame. But the good news is that Oh! Gunquit have plans to head to the studio very soon so we will keep you updated on the outcome as soon as we have some information. Tonight’s show is superb, the band compensate for the lack of Kieran and his saxophone by ramping up their already considerable energy levels even higher. At one point Simon Wild ends up playing guitar sprawled on the floor while Tina hula hoops above him and as usual the rhythm section of Veronica on bass and drummer Alex keep the manic sizzling energy just about in check. It’s Chris’s birthday so Tina gets him up on stage and plays Happy Birthday on her trumpet and we all join in singing along as she gives him a present which appears to be a demonic looking red blow-up sheep! When the band finishes there’s still plenty of dancing going on to the cool Stay Sick sounds of classic Rockabilly, Garage Rock and Psych but we beat a retreat, exhausted but satisfied by the day’s activities. For news on future Stay Sick events please “like” them on Facebook, you can sign up here. They are doing great stuff that really deserves supporting.

Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick - Photo by Retro Man Blog
Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick - Photo by Retro Man Blog
For more photographs of our day in Brighton, the ABC exhibition, Vic Godard & Subway Sect at the Green Door and Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick then please head on over to the Retro Man Blog Facebook page and, if you are not already following, hit “Like” for access to the photo album. There are also videos of Oh! Gunquit filmed at the show up on the Retro Man Blog YouTube channel now.

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