It’s a well-known fact by now that in the age of coming out the other side of a global pandemic and the soaring cost of energy bills rising, places such as Grassroots Music Venues are struggling even at the best of normal times. Whilst live music might be back now, recuperating the repercussions of the past two years for already struggling small music venues across the UK is tough, so initiatives like The Music Venue Trust Revive Live scheme, where bands would hit the road to perform shows at some of the countries smallest venues is like a life jacket being thrown to those barely swimming.
One of the latest bands to support the scheme is Aberdeen born, Brighton raised indie rock outfit The XCERTS. With the band recently having completed a ten date UK tour in conjunction with The Music Venue Trust and The National Lottery, taking to venues such as Manchester’s Night and Day, Birmingham’s Castle and Falcon and tonight’s gig down at London’s The Old Blue Last; a refurbished East London booze with a dedicated room situated upstairs for all things live music. No strangers to the long, hard but extremely rewarding grind of the tour circuit, The XCERTS brought a warm ray of joyous indie sunshine to a dull and dreary London day down at The Old Blue Last.
Look around a room like the one above The Old Blue Last and it’s the dictionary definition of an intimate space. The faces that fill the room are visible, every snipped of chatter audible and the building atmosphere buzzing. Moments later, The XCERTS stroll onto stage to the welcomed cheers, whilst the band might hail from Aberdeen originally before moving to Brighton later on, this London show feels like a homecoming of sorts for the trio if the noise levels of cheers are anything to go by.
Air kicking their way into their set, vocalist Murray Macleod’s left foot hits the air as the opening burst of Drive Me Wild kicks in. Taken from their most recent 2018 album Hold On To Your Heart, although the bands excitement to share they have been working on a new record, which will consist of new unreleased song Jealousy, getting its live outings across this tour is evident. But for tonight though, The XCERTS lean on their older stuff to fill the set list, songs such as We Are Gonna Live, Cool Ethan and Crisis In The Slow Lane providing guitar busts of life to heart-warming solo vocal moments and more.
Whilst it might be a rainy Tuesday night, well according to Murray that is “tomorrow’s problem” the energy levels matching that of a Friday night feeling going into crowd pleasers like Slackerpop, Hold On To Your Heart and closer Feels Like Falling In Love, these songs prove live every time that you will never hear a louder sing along than that of an XCERTS gig one full of indie bursts of life filled to the brim.
8/10
Written By: Katie Conway-Flood
