Thursday 23rd July 2009 @ Thekla, Bristol

I don’t like music, and more, I don’t like writing about it, but The Leisure Society are a great mob of extraordinariness. I want to be in The Leisure Society, I want to be a citizen. Tonight I’ve brought along my imaginary tambourines, mouth-organ and ukulele. I have in my heart bassoons on balloon strings and a tuba tucked in my socks. I am ready to twang and bang and bash along to this wonderfully folksy jamboree. Tonight I will raise my spirits high, high enough to hold back; outshine even, the trundling clouds behind them, because in every lyric there is always the possibility of rain, or thunder. This is what makes The Leisure Society sound and shine so immediately and brightly now. They’re like a picnic with lightning and wasps.

Sunk in the great beige dunking bows of Thekla, The Leisure Society make me feel alone. When they perform Last Of The Melting Snow I feel like I’m being softly spoken to by a lover and by the time A Short Weekend comes on, I am swan-necked, swooning like a girl by the speakers. Then they play Gangsta Rap and I am truly happy. Aaahhh!!!

This pleasant assembly, this most friendly of ensembles. Is that the worst line ever written in pop? I hope so, it’s the only way I can express my vomity disgust at the Bristol audience. Thanks for coming but if you will come, if you like the band, fucking show it.

Next: We Were Wasted they croon but nobody here is, nobody here is at all (Bristol, shame on you!). Wasted… is not a salute to high and volatile nights but rather to the dissipation that occurs from the night club. As it drums and hums along, everybody’s bodies in the crowd clock up extra brownie points for bed tonight. This is a ballad. This is a band that will send you to sleep, in the very best way – full of dreams and imagination.

www.theleisuresociety.co.uk

Jason Beech