Sunday 21st June 2009 @ Thekla, Bristol
Without Support From: No Show Club

In all honesty, I got my ticket tonight more excited at the prospect of seeing folk-pop lovelies Slow Club than headliner Jamie T but as Mr. T announces early on, they’ve have had to cancel their support performance. Balls – I guess today was my unlucky day. Instead we were “treated” to an impromptu solo show from Jamie T’s guitarist, tentatively introduced as Loui Loui.

I get that drinking, thinking, sinking, feeling as soon as he starts his first messy, grungy cover and although Jamie T and his on-looking, drunken entourage find it hilarious, the rest of us are just bored and offended. Loui Loui looks like a rockstar from a comic book – skinny with long black hair, a sideways baseball cap, sunglasses, a baggy Hawaiian shirt and a dangly necklace over an ironic religious t-shirt – but after 2 or 3 shambolic covers, the other band members get the bug and join him onstage. There’s a notable contribution from Jamie T on drums for a rough rendition of Purple Rain but this drunken jam is all awfully hashed together. Maybe I’m just bitter about missing out on Slow Club though and I suppose there are a lot worse ways to fill in for a cancelation. At least we were left feeling like we saw something a bit different.

Jamie T proper is loudly welcomed onstage with football chanting from “the lads” that have become his staple audience; it’s irritating and intimidating but we’ll happily put up with it because T is fucking A. At least the burly crowd create an instant atmosphere and from the off they’re all moshing and loudly singing along to every, EVERY word. Jamie T is their idol; in between his rap/punk/reggae songs about night’s on the town getting into fights, he’s swearing and downing drinks and when he comes to the front of the stage, they literally can’t keep their hands off him! He plays along though and is full of relentless energy and enthusiasm like any great frontman.

Excitement levels reach untold heights as the first bars of Calm Down Dearest chime in and Thekla is fit to explode as Jamie T goes crowd surfing mid-song and then has a wander through the mosh-pit, still singing. It’s set to get even more frantic though: Sticks And Stones, the final song of the epic encore, prompts a stage invasion and in the middle of the mayhem, a girl gets her long, red hair stuck in the tuning pegs of Jamie T’s guitar! The song carries on full throttle and after the final crescendo the bouncers violently push everyone offstage and back onto the dancefloor, enjoying it a bit too much. Jamie T gets caught up and thrown down too and only after the crowd have cheered and applauded their last does he emerge back onstage a sweaty, exhausted mess. Blimey – that was eventful!

www.jamie-t.com

Matt Whittle