The appropriately named band The First are first on the bill tonight. The enter stage to a soft piano intro which leads straight into the first song, ‘Live, Regret, Forgive, Forget’. Vocalist Benny Salter instantly connects with the crowd, singing at the front row and pulling silly faces for cameras. Despite this interaction, he struggles to get the crowd singing at times. The first attempt to get the audience to join in is halfway through the set, singing the title line of ‘Take It Back’ and while a few people near the front do participate, it’s nothing loud or overwhelming. During the last song Benny has more luck as the crowd, who have been clapping throughout the set, get on board with the ‘woah’s’ in ‘Kicks’.
Credit: Kayla ElliottThe second band, Verses don’t seem to make as much of a connection as the first, but this can simply be blamed on the fact that everyone in this band plays an instrument, while Benny was guitarless and free to roam the stage. Verses do, however, get nearly everyone clapping pretty much as soon as they reach the stage. During ‘Making Statues’ they encourage dancing, and while no-one goes particularly crazy, there’s hardly any one standing still.
The wait for LostAlone seems to drag on, but that is mainly due to anticipation. Everyone is standing around and talking among themselves, until the lights go down and everyone suddenly turns to the stage, and in a venue as small as the Barfly its more noticeable. A quiet intro of the repetitive ‘ding dong’ section from ‘The Bells! The Bells!’ plays them onto stage, as they launch into that for the first track.
It’s clear that the crowd are eager to be involved in this set, clapping in time to even the intro music before the band are even on stage. Frontman Steven Battelle does his best to make the audience part of the show. It’s only the second song when he thrusts his guitar into the hands of a front row fan so that he can climb down from stage and play his solo in the audience.
Credit: Kayla ElliottOnce Steven is back on stage for the next song, he gets everyone singing. “You guys know paradox on earth? I want you to sing it, I’m not even gonna bother.” He does bother with some of the lines still, but the crowd are louder than him for most of the song. One lucky lady in the front row is even asked to tie Steven’s shoe laces for him. “Not too tight,” he warns, “or it could cut off the flow of rock.”
‘Hostages’ is always a highlight of a LostAlone set. All through the song Steven makes sure the crowd have their arms in the air, swaying throughout the verses and punching the air during the catchy chorus. This only stops when the vocalist is distracted by his guitar solos and the audience get to rock out, all heads are at the very least bopping in time, some are full on headbanging.
Steven apologises a lot tonight for not talking much between songs and keeping up his usual banter but there are still plenty of laughs elicited from the crowd between songs. “Can you please stop bringing me chocolate?” he asks the fans. “I can hardly sing tonight.” While Steven is making this speech, however, bassist Alan Williamson is trying to hang a flag from two Polish fans on his mic stand. When Steven notices the attention isn’t on him he cuts off. “Oh, sorry, is something going on over here? Don’t mind me I’m just talking about something important!” When he realises what’s happening, though, he calls the girls up on stage to thank them.
Credit: Kayla ElliottIt’s little moments of interaction and banter like this that defines a LostAlone concert. They find a perfect balance between chat and music to entertain a crowd. “Who’s ever seen one of these before?” Steven asks as he receives his custom guitar he always uses for ‘Crusaders’. Most of the audience then cheer, to say they’ve seen it. “Well, you’ve obviously seen me play it before! That back fired dramatically,” the frontman responds earning a laugh from the crowd.
Sometimes the chat seems to go a little off topic too. What starts as an introduction to a song (‘Love Will Eat You Alive’) and how it got them noticed ended up being a conversation about milking cows, with a stop at cereal along the way! It’s around this time, Steven tells us he’s considering a career in comedy. I have a feeling if he pursued this, his sets would end up a lot longer than planned.
Credit: Kayla ElliottHalf way through ‘Love Will Eat You Alive’ some of the crowd are called up on stage to help with vocals, this includes the girls who have flown over from Poland and a male fan Steven wouldn’t let play guitar for ‘Creatures’. “You got a new note on stage then,” the vocalist jokes the fan after the song. “You added a new note, I think we got an H.”
As it’s an album release show, Steven makes sure to promote it well. “Our album’s out today and it’s really amazing. I just said our albums amazing, I didn’t mean that, well, to be fair I did.” And he has a point. Then he seems to side track again, talking about how the next album is being written backwards, starting with the mastering and then it’ll be written. “It sounds great, the reviews are already in, Kerrang have invented the 7th K.”
“If you’re reviewing, review the comedy not the music .” That’s Steven’s advice to the writers in the audience tonight, afraid his chocolate coated throat has ruined his voice and earned him, and the band, a poor review because of it. Well, if that’s his voice on an off day, he must be unbelievable when he hasn’t been eating chocolate. As for the comedy, I’m going to give him a solid 4/5 for all the laughs this evening. When the band leave the stage to ‘Breathing In The Future Exhaling The Past’, the albums closing track, everyone is left with a smile on their face, and that’s from the music too.
