With a vague plan to watch Guilty Pleasures live at the Jazz World scuppered by a heavy band of rain confining us to our tent for an hour (I know, we’re lightweights) our first Friday venture to a stage was for current chart stars Reverend and the Makers.
‘Heavyweight Champion of the World’ rides high in the top 10, but it hasn’t really grabbed me in the way it seems to have the nation, and I’d written off Jon McClure’s band as another from a bulbous Sheffield scene riding on the coat-tails of the Arctic Monkeys. OK, I figures they were another Little Man Tate, which is probably about as big an insult as I can give them. How wrong I was.
I’d be a very rich man if I had a pound for every band I’d seen in the last 12 months who sing about the everyday drudgery of modern life and growing up in Thatcher’s Britain, but McClure does it with an assured confidence and wit that stands him out from the crowd. At the end of a political rant he berates his fellow bands for not saying what he believes should be said for fear of damaging sales, reminding his peers “you’re an artist, not a businessman...think on”.
His persona would be pretty pointless of course if they didn’t have the songs to match, but thankfully the top 10 hit turns out to be among the weakest tracks. Their electronic driven tunes are engaging and fun, particularly ‘Fruit Machine’, a tale of a man losing his wages in the one armed bandit whilst his wife waits at home with her fingers crossed. A terrific start to my Friday, and well worth missing Guilty Pleasures for.
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