Recreations. - The Vic Swindon, 13/05/16

It's been a little under sixth months since Sam Duckworth last came to Swindon, so when it was announced that he was already returning for a headline show as Recreations., I jumped at the chance to get tickets.

Opening the show was Rob Lynch, who I'd seen once before (supporting All Time Low in Kingston). I was a couple of minutes late, so I'm not sure how many songs he played before 'Selfish Bones', but I arrived to the news that his second record is coming out in late July - certainly an exciting revelation!
I heard two brand new songs in the evening: the aforementioned 'Selfish Bones' ("a song about how I'm a selfish piece of shit and how I'm trying to get more interested in other people") and an untitled new song (which I'm referring to as 'Not Worlds Apart' based on the chorus) which Rob called a love song to the one mate he's stayed in touch with from school; the friend who got expelled after finding a prefect's nude photos online, printing them out and distributing them around the student body. Out of the two, I definitely preferred the latter: it's still stuck in my head today, and I can't wait for it to be released so that I can listen to it on repeat until I explode.
I'd actually forgotten how brilliant Rob was until I saw him again. I listened to his debut, 'All These Nights In Bars Will Somehow Save My Soul', so much just after I purchased it, but I haven't listened to it for a while - I have no idea why, because the songs are all ace. I particularly still enjoy 'Hawking', with its catchy "oh, no, it's not the end of the world" singalong. In the attempt to get the crowd involved Rob said he was bringing the "super Friday vibes", before joking about the fact that he really liked spending time in Swindon because he was catcalled for the first ever time earlier in the evening - "turned 30 last week - still got it!".
If you haven't given Rob a listen yet, I'm definitely suggest starting with that debut, and starting fairly soon. I was talking to him after his set and he said that his new single should be released within the next two weeks, so that's something to look out for. He's also performing on the acoustic stage at Slam Dunk Festival: it looks like I'll be able to make that set, and I'm already looking forward to seeing Rob again. This was his first time ever playing Swindon, and he said he was hopeful to return when the new album's been released: fingers crossed!

Setlist:
-
Selfish Bones
Whiskey
Hawking
Not Worlds Apart
My Friends and I

I'd been expecting Rob to steal the show for me, but there was no question that Sean McGowan was my highlight of the evening. When 'Place Your Bets' started I was a little undecided: his thick Cockney accent and his blunt lyrics ("wind your neck in, your doin' my head in") just didn't appeal to me in the slightest.
However, then 'Patchwork' started. Calling it a song about his "patchy beard", I hadn't been expecting too much, and I could feel myself getting a little bit restless. However, it ended up being so much more than that: a bittersweet love story, telling the tale of a boy and a girl going back to his place after a night out, and him desperately hoping she wouldn't think less of him in the morning when she noticed his patchy beard. It wasn't the most complex song lyrically or musically, but the way that Sean chose to phrase the lines - splitting them in unique and interesting places that really captured the attention of everyone in the room - and his look of utter vulnerability up on the stage: it was goosebump-inducing. The room was deathly silent, but in a respectful and interested way; even the people at the bar who had been drinking throughout Rob's entire set were rapt, and you genuinely could have heard a pin drop in the room. I've never experienced anything like it.
The rest of the set didn't surpass that moment, but it was almost like I was under a trance: I couldn't take my eyes off Sean even for a second. New song 'Come Unstuck' (which usually features Sam Duckworth, but they hadn't rehearsed enough) was very catchy, and that - combined with his cover of 'Wild Mountain Thyme' - proved that he could sing beautifully (the rest of his set was more spoken than sung, but he really hit the high notes and held the notes out during those two songs).
I couldn't find the names of the last two songs that he performed, but I really enjoyed them both. The penultimate song was about Sean returning to the pub that he got barred from to clean their toilets ("I showed them, didn't I? You're laughing, but this is my fucking life!") and it was tongue-in-cheek, the perfect lad anthem for a night out, particularly when Sean used the word 'swell' in the song and took a moment to pause, laughing about the fact that he used it in a lyric.
The last song in his set was by far the most intriguing: it was a spoken word piece, completely acapella, as a way for Sean to reintroduce himself ("I'm 23 years old and I'm normally pissed up") to wrap up his set and bid the crowd farewell. I've never seen a closer like it: it was entirely stripped back and unaccompanied, which made it one of the ballsiest moves I've seen in a very long time.
Sean McGowan is one of the most exciting acoustic acts I've heard in a very long time. The last time I found myself this pumped about an artist was when I discovered Heartwork (and we all know that my love affair with Dan O'Dell will continue eternally). I bought Sean's CD at the show, and I can't wait to listen to it on repeat over the coming weeks.

Setlist:
Place Your Bets
Patchwork
Come Unstuck
Wild Mountain Thyme cover
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I had to miss the end of Recreations. set, because I live a little way outside of Swindon and our bus timetables are not the best. I left at 11pm, 45 minutes after Sam started his set, and he'd already managed to squeeze in nine songs: he doesn't mess around, and you can tell he's been touring extensively for a large period of his life because of how smoothly everything runs.
This tour is to support 'Baby Boomers 2', the first full-length Recreations. release that came out at the end of last month. I didn't realise it had already been released, so when I arrived at the venue and saw it for sale I had to buy it. Luckily the majority of the set was songs I was already familiar with - whether because he performed them when I saw him in December, or because they were reworked versions of Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly songs.
The thing about Recreations. is that it's very solidly grounded in dance music. Compared to the toned down, relaxing guitar sets of both Rob and Sean, Sam's funky beats got the crowd moving a bit more, and I loved the way he'd updated some of his older songs to fit into the new style.
Similarly to last time, the singalong to 'Red Spex' was the most crowd involved of the evening, with the chant of "with your red spex on, all the red flags just look like flags" being easily carried by a large portion of the crowd.
Because I didn't get to see the full set, I can't comment on what happened in the rest of the evening, but I really enjoyed the songs that I managed to see. I will admit that some of the dance sections were a bit too long (particularly the intro to 'Pipe Down', which seemed endless) but that's just down to personal preference - I much prefer singalongs to dance-centric tracks. However, I thought the breaks between the songs were very cleverly done: Sam had recorded sections from news broadcasts to fill the breaks, something that worked particularly well in the build up to 'Built To Last', a song in support of the junior doctor's strike.
Compared to last time I saw him, Sam was much less interactive with the crowd, but he was fitting so much into his set that he didn't really have enough time to stop and talk. He did speak for a little bit before he jumped into 'Out To Lunch' - it might be something that happened towards the end of his set. Hopefully I'll be able to see Sam performing as Recreations. again in the future.

Setlist:
Pipe Down
War of the Worlds
Lifestyle Concept Store
Zones Nine and Ten
Red Spex
In Two Minds
Built To Last
Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager (Part One)
Out To Lunch
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Just before I go, I need to give a huge shout out to Kieran from Sheer Music: he had to sell and check tickets AND man the sound desk all evening, which is a huge accomplishment. If I had that many responsibilities...

Sam Duckworth - The Vic Swindon, 07/12/15

Swindon have had a lot of good concerts this year (Decade, Moose Blood, The 1975 - to name but a few) so I'm happy that out of the last three concerts I'm attending this year, two out of three are in my hometown. With Kristopher Roe from The Ataris playing in a couple of weeks time I'm expecting great things from him, but I'd also been extremely excited about Sam Duckworth's show. I never got to see Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, so it was nice to finally experience the songs in a live environment.

Sam opened for himself under the name Recreations., his newest project (seriously, this guy just does not stop!), and it was vastly different from the set he played later in the evening. With his Macbook set up on a table, playing the backing tracks to accompany his guitar, it was impressive to hear something performed in such a DIY manner but sounding so polished and professional.
Because of the many years of experience under his belt, Sam is a brilliantly talented songwriter. It's exemplified beautifully in the new material: 'Out To Lunch' is quick, with a dance backing and a raucous singalong chorus; 'What's Left?' is melancholy and slow for the first half of the song, then kicks in; 'Lifestyle Concept Store' is a brilliant piece of social commentary about the closure of legendary venues ("Whatever happened to the places where we had our first embraces, where did all the decent venues go?"). As this was his first time playing Swindon he dedicated the song to The Vic, saying "I haven't been here before, which is odd for someone who's played over 1,500 shows" - it really drove home how special it was for us to have a musician of his calibre playing for us.
Splicing the set with some Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly songs, I actually ended up enjoying the Recreations. material much more. 'Zones 9 & 10' discussed the housing market, "all your hopes and dreams sold for a postcode", while 'Red Specs' had a lovely round with the crowd at the end and a great amount of participation. It almost felt like sitting around a campfire singing, which made for a beautiful atmosphere and an extremely memorable set.
Sam was selling bootlegs of the Recreations. recordings at the show, because he "started writing and pretty much finished an album in the space of a couple of weeks" so he certainly has the material for it. I'm looking forward to hearing more from this project, because what I've heard so far is extremely promising.

Setlist: 
Out To Lunch
What's Left?
An Oak Tree
I Spy
Lifestyle Concept Store
Zones 9 and 10
Red Specs

I didn't know what to expect from She Makes War. When Laura stepped out on stage with crazy eye make-up and a little ukelele, I thought it was going to be as simple as that - a bit quirky, a tad kooky, but very bright and happy songs.
Of course, I was completely wrong. 'Scared To Capsize' starts off on the ukelele, giving Laura a chance to show off her loop pedal skills (I've never before seen a loop pedal used with a ukelele, but it makes the instrument even more beautiful), before it builds to a crescendo: multiple vocals layered in the background; multiple ukelele lines complementing each other. This allowed Laura to swap her ukelele out for an electric guitar in the middle of the song, and from that moment, I was impressed. The end of the song is, to put it simply, grunge. The guitar was slightly discordant, with a flat and guttural sound, and the juxtaposition of the grit at the  end of the song to the floating beauty of the beginning was something I hadn't experienced before.
This schizophrenic fluctuation continued throughout the set. 'In Cold Blood' was one of the heavier songs, but if you played that next to 'The Best' - a ukelele-driven rock song about Laura's pyromaniac ex-boyfriend ("I wrote this song and I performed it when we were still together, but I pretended it was about someone else") - you'd never guess that they were by the same artist. Laura's voice worked perfectly with both styles of music, and where most musicians box themselves in you can tell that she's not afraid to explore multiple creative avenues. She joked "for the most part my songs are about massive wankers I've met - I'm doing the research so you don't have to" before the vastly different 'Please Don't', written about her father - another example of how she continually changes it up and tries out different things. A few of her songs were rather bleak and heart-rending, and when telling the crowd that she had CDs for sale she quipped "if you'd like to continue your misery at home at your own leisure": she might write serious songs, but she has a lovely personality, being self-deprecating and extremely funny.
The song that stood out the most was definitely 'Delete'. Laura joked beforehand that she had to try to convince her parents that the song wasn't about suicide, and with the repetitive "I want to delete myself" layered throughout you can see why they might have jumped to that conclusion. The monotonous repetition was looped in the background, almost hypnotic in its consistency, and when Laura walked out into the crowd and started singing through a megaphone it certainly hooked everyone's attention. Weaving her way through the audience, the megaphone siren echoing shrilly in the darkened room, I felt both confused and completely in awe - it wasn't something I'd expected to see in a little pub in Swindon, but it was electrically intense. Climbing back up on to the stage, still singing into the megaphone with the intricate looping vocals soaring in the background, it was a brilliant moment when Laura cut all of the recordings out and sang the very last word solely through the megaphone - it really pared it back, making it feel intimate, special... Spectacular. I love it when artists take risks and do something very simple but make it seem mind-blowing, and that was one of those moments for me.
At the end of the set I still felt confused, because it was not what I'd been expecting in the slightest. But I'm pretty sure I loved it, because there was no doubt in my mind when I went and bought the albums and had a lovely little chat with Laura at the end of the show. I just might be able to write an early review of her upcoming album, 'Direction of Travel', which releases in March (Laura was selling a few after the show, stating "I'm DIY so I can do what the fuck I like!" which is a very rock-n-roll attitude) - keep an eye out for that post coming in mid-February.

Setlist: 
Scared To Capsize
In Cold Blood
Please Don't
Delete
The Best
ghostsandshadows
Slow Puncture
Paper Thin

This was definitely the classiest show I'd attended in Swindon: the standing area had been converted, with tables and chairs set up complete with candlelight. It might sound stupid, with this venue being the back of a pub, but it did look beautiful, and I thought it was a really nice touch.
For a Monday night, the amount of people that turned out was rather impressive. There were people wearing Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly shirts, showing that they were obviously fans of his previous venture - it was heartwarming to see people supporting Sam Duckworth so strongly when he hasn't been performing and releasing songs under his own name for the longest amount of time.
In all honesty, it's been a long time since I've listened to Get Cape. avidly - I don't know why, but at some point in the last couple of years I've just stopped. This meant that I recognised a few of the songs, but I didn't completely remember them: it was a chance for me to rediscover exactly what I'd loved about Get Cape., and to kick myself for not listening to him more.
The thing is... I don't really have a lot of things to say about the music. I've been attempting to think of the aspects that sold one song for me over another, but the truth of the matter is that I enjoyed every single song that he played - with it being an eighteen song set, that's pretty damn impressive. It felt as though the show was bigger than it was: Sam's stage presence is absorbing, and the hour and a half set flew past. Sometimes when the artist is acoustic and has no-one else on stage with them, I can find myself getting restless and a little bit distracted (I mean, come on, it happened when I saw Ed Sheeran at Wembley Stadium, it's more likely to happen at a small venue in Swindon) but I genuinely paid attention to every word that Sam was singing. With his politically minded lyrics and his desire to live in an equal, welcoming world, it felt like he was preaching (which was appropriate, when he joked that "On the internet it kept popping up that I had a message from 'Songs of Praise', and I thought 'Yes, finally!', but no, that's the name of the promoters"). His set made me think, and it really inspired me.
Really, that's the one word that I can use to sum up this evening: inspiring. Both through Sam's career (becoming an established solo artist under a stage name, then retiring that stage name and striking out on his own, following the path that he wanted to take) and through Sam's belief that the world can become a better place, if we all just open our eyes.
Discussing his song 'Angels In The Snow', Sam shared the fact that he visited Pripyat, the setting of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He focused upon the monument of two cranes that resides in the centre of the town, one crane pointing towards Hiroshima, the other towards Nagasaki. Talking about the statues, he made a beautiful speech about the destructiveness of nuclear weaponry and how completely unnecessary it is - the fact that the people who suffered in Pripyat still showed support for their brothers and sisters who had suffered the same thing as them just proves that we need to listen to the people who have experienced these things, rather than trying to disregard their opinions.
He also took time to talk about racism in the UK and, while he must have been talking for around about ten minutes, the entire audience was riveted. He could easily make a career for himself in political speaking, if he wasn't such a damn fine musician. He speaks honestly and openly and, most importantly of all, his views make sense. He doesn't use rhetoric and rhyme to avoid questions, he faces things head on and he knows exactly what he thinks - he's not letting anyone change his opinions just to fit in, he's strong-minded. He's impressive:

"I don't really understand what the fuck's going on, to be honest with you [...] The first issue is a fundamental lack of understanding of what's going on in the Syria conflict. The Syrian people that are trying to fight for democracy have said that [air strikes are] the wrong thing to do. [...] The whole thing this terrorist organisation is trying to start is a race war and a religious war, and they're trying to do it from outside their own country - it's playing straight into their hands. 

"It's getting harder to have an opinion that says these people are in our community. [...] Within the environments that you're in, if you start to hear this stuff it's simple: Muslims want peace. These people are hi-jacking something for their own gain." 

There wasn't a mutter or murmur from anyone in the crowd, apart from the addition of information regarding the fact that "Donald Trump called for all Muslims to be banned", which occurred during Sam's stage time, to which Sam stated: "Nobody wants to piss off the rich man".
Touching upon David Cameron's "terrorist sympathizer" comments, and the fact that the debate in the House of Commons did not give enough time for everyone who wanted to speak to get a chance, Sam definitely opened my eyes to a few things that I hadn't heard about. When so much of the media is skewed through one political lens or another, it's hard to know what to believe and what is completely fabricated - looking it up since the show, I've got much more of an understanding of what went on, and I'm feeling more interesting and incensed than ever.
Wrapping up his spiel to play 'Once More With Feeling', Sam closed with the statement:

"No matter what happens, truth will always win. [...] If you want peace, peace comes with truth." 

When introducing closing song 'Glass Houses', you could tell that the earlier conversation was still playing on his mind, as he shared the fact "I like playing the songs because they're fun to play, but I'd rather they be relics than relevant, especially when it comes to songs about racism". When you look at the construction of the setlist and note just how many songs he played from his debut album, all songs that still felt relevant and appropriately hard-hitting today, it does make you wonder about the state of the world - nothing has really changed within the past ten years, and that's terrifying.
Finishing the set, Sam announced "it's going to be a tough time if you actively want to be part of an equal society. [...] Hope begins at home", and it was the perfect way to close the show - despite the fact that things are dire, despite the fact that Sam had been talking about all of these harrowing and dreadful events, it's still worth having hope.

Setlist: 
Find The Time
The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager pt. 2
Gluten Free
War of the Worlds
Collapsing Cities
The Plot
1986
Lighthouse Keeper
Call Me Ishmael
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
3rd Generation
Geldermalsen Cargo
Angels in the Snow
18 to 1
Whitewash is Brainwash
Once More With Feeling
Hiding Place
Glass Houses

Finally, I'd like to give a big shout out to Sheer Music for organising this show! He's doing a great job of keeping the music scene in Swindon alive, as are Songs of Praise, and I'm very grateful for what they're doing.