GEORGE CRUMP + HEIGHTS + COWZ – KOMEDIA STUDIO, BRIGHTON 12.7.24
My debut encounter with Brighton-based young non-binary producer and bassist George Crump was at Daltons on Brighton beach last month and I was very impressed with their take on nostalgic synth pop and closed my review thus: “Well what can I say other than the trio were seriously holding it together and I truly felt that there was real potential here, says he having witnessed Dua Lipa play live at Brighton’s Hope & Ruin in Brighton to a not full capacity audience! Was tonight’s George Crump’s set going to be another one of these “I was there!” moments? Time will tell….”.
On that night George announced that they will be playing a launch concert for their brand new ‘Heaven’ single, which was happening at the Komedia Studio on Friday 12th July and so that date went straight into the diary and here we are tonight in Kensington Gardens with a room almost full of mainly young punters awaiting the performance.
George’s recent singles ‘Leave Me Alone’ and ‘Give You Anything’ explore lyrics reminiscing on heartbreaks and mental health difficulties and is a truly creative force that continues to pull female and non-binary vocalists into their project, including friend Alex (who is an artist in their own right under the banner of ALY) and the one who is once again delivering beautifully earnest and vulnerable vocals as part of the live set. Completing the trio is Dan on drums and presets, whereas George flits between bass and Nord Electro 6 keys.
Clearly, like an increasing number of younger Brighton based acts and bands at the moment, George aims to be fully inclusive of anyone that sits on the gender spectrum, but this evening has certainly thought outside of the box and this evening has hired the talents of the very pleasant Vicky Blake-Morgan who is a Registered Sign Language Interpreter. Vicky positioned herself to our left of the stage with a laptop and a bright white circular ringed light beaming on her so that those attendees that who were unable to hear the music (and those who were curious) to clearly enjoy George’s performance by watching the hand movements and signing by Vicky as she brightly smiled her way throughout the set. This was so mesmerising to myself (who was positioned on the opposing front corner) that I spent a little of the concert watching Vicky and being astounded as to how on earth she had remembered all of the lyrics of every tune, bar one line she later confessed to me. I had felt the same last year whilst reviewing the ‘Latitude’ festival in East Anglia as there were Sign Language Interpreters present at some of the larger performances. Vicky’s work was very inspiring I must say, and maybe more artists should think about doing the same!
George, ALY and Dan took to the stage to rapturous applause at 9:14pm and over the next 41 minutes thoroughly entertained those present with eight self-penned compositions, which obviously featured the ‘Heaven’ single, as well as a special cover version…more on that shortly.
It’s accurate to state that there was an air of friendliness buzzing around the compact room this evening, one in which I had hoped could have been bottled and taken to other less invigorating concerts! They kicked off with the recent ‘Leave Me Alone’ single which on recorded version has Kathy Foster on vocals, but this evening throughout the set it is the job of ALY to get the messages across. This is followed by the full on sound of ‘Give You Everything’ which does feature ALY on the recorded version. These Fleetwood Mac American sounding styled vocals are very impressive and sit atop of a tune that could arguably be found amongst a HAIM repertoire.
The following two songs are thus far unreleased, these being ‘Skydiving’ and ‘Memories’, with ‘Skydiving’ alluring to be chart friendly pop classic and ‘Memories’ being served with true feeling and depth of sound. Thus far George has been taking care of a Fender Mustang bass, but during track five ‘What We Had Before’, my fave to date, the use of both keys and bass is required and the song is epic! On my first George Crump encounter I noted a “modern take on nostalgic synth pop akin to the likes of La Roux and CHVRCHES”. Turns out that was bang on as CHVRCHES are George’s’ favourite band and so we are now given a cover of their 2018 ‘Get Out’ single which is found on their ‘Love Is Dead’ album. Tonight’s rendition is very strong and even ALY sounds like Lauren Mayberry. This is followed by ‘Better Left Unsaid’ which actually still sounds as though it’s a CHVRCHES tune, which is a compliment!
Then unexpectedly ALY hops off the stage and stands at the front facing George and Dan and then George takes the mic and introduces Saga Wahlström who wrote the lyrics of new single ‘Heaven’ and sang the vocals on the recorded tune. I’m loving the synth riff in this newbie euphoric tune. There was just one more decent pop tune for them to give us and this was the unreleased ‘Got To Know You’ which has never been played to a live audience before. After they had finished they were greeted with deafening shouts and applause. It must have been “Heaven!”. The quality of George’s material is astounding for one of so few years! They must be like a sponge in absorbing all of the musical information and converting it into an absolutely solid set! Suffice to say that I left the venue with a massive beaming smile on my face, as did many others as they made their way along the road to Deadwax for an after show party!
George Crump:
George Crump – bass, keys, laptop
ALY – vocals
Dan – drums, presets
George Crump setlist:
‘Leave Me Alone’ (a 2024 single with Kathy Foster on vocals)
‘Give You Everything’ (a 2023 single with ALY on vocals)
‘Skydiving’ (unreleased)
‘Memories’ (unreleased)
‘What We Had Before’ (a 2023 single with Millie Cook on vocals)
‘Get Out’ (CHVRCHES cover)
‘Better Left Unsaid’ (a 2024 single with Kathy Foster on vocals)
‘Heaven’ (a 2024 single with Saga Wahlström on vocals)
‘Got To Know You’ (unreleased)
Before George Crump took to the stage we were in the company of HEIGHTS which is the project of Chelsie Tyrrell, an artist who my colleagues have previously reviewed at last year’s Alternate Escape and other gigs in town. This evening however is my debut encounter and after the close of the opening number, ‘I’ve Been Dreaming Of You’, which was the first of all five tracks from this year’s ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP, I was rather annoyed with myself in not having witnessed a HEIGHTS set before! The understated quality was evident from the very off! Talk about Chelsie underplaying things, by stating on her Instagram page that she mostly just sings about her feelings. Tonight’s body of work is a terrific discovery for me and no wonder HEIGHTS have been named as one of SoundCloud’s ‘Artists To Watch’.
Tonight’s 25 minute set ran from 8:30pm to 8:55pm and consisted of seven tunes, the aforementioned handful on the EP plus this year’s joint ‘Astronaut’ single with Lo and closing number ‘Breathe’, which I learned dropped back in 2020. Chelsie was on vocals for all the numbers and had a brief tinkle on George’s Nord Electro 6 keys for ‘Breathe’ only. She was joined by Adham Armenti on bass and Joe Hall on drums, drumpads and laptop duties. The music is emotive alt-pop which delves into 1980s new wave, 1990s dream pop, and a sprinkling of 2000s alternative indie. Heartworms springs to mind, although they are both very different entities! No wonder my colleague had announced in a previous review that “HEIGHTS delivered one of the most beautiful vocal performances I’ve heard in a long time. From dreamy ethereal to upbeat alt-pop, her celestial voice was pure class from start to finish. She’s most definitely one to watch”. I absolutely totally agree with this!
My mind and body were hooked right from the opening bars of the toe-tapping ‘I’ve Been Dreaming Of You’ with its beautifully sweet vocals all the way through to closing number ‘Breathe’ which was notable as George was standing at the front of the crowd and heartfully singing all the words. Selection two, ‘Astronaut’, had the same pace as the opener but Chersie’s stunningly beautiful soul style vocals shone through even more. Confidence grew and grew throughout the set. We had the pure radio friendly pop of ‘Come See Me’ which certainly had a CHVRCHES vibe going on and was the best tune of the set at that point. After which Chelsie dedicated ‘Honey Will You Come Back’
to George, and I was a tad surprised with the backing beat which threw up names such as The Cure, Thompson Twins and Sisters Of Mercy. After this they played ‘With You All The Way’ and Chelsie’s vocals were very much like Jessie Ware’s and reminded me of a slower version of her ‘110%’. Penultimate number ‘Swinging As I Go’, with its repeated “Hey!” vocal, was as we were informed “an empowering number”. It was a lively song with powerful vocals that emphasised pop music at its very best and George certainly knew all these lyrics! I’m very much looking forward to catching HEIGHTS playing live in the not too distant future!
HEIGHTS:
Chelsie Tyrrell – vocals, keys
Adham Armenti – bass
Joe Hall – drums, drumpads, laptop
HEIGHTS setlist:
‘I’ve Been Dreaming Of You’ (from 2024 ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP)
‘Astronaut’ (a 2024 Lo/Heights single)
‘Come See Me’ (from 2024 ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP)
‘Honey Will You Come Back’ (from 2024 ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP)
‘With You All The Way’ (from 2024 ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP)
‘Swinging As I Go’ (from 2024 ‘Dreaming Of You’ EP)
‘Breathe’ (a 2020 single)
Kicking off tonight’s event at 7:45pm we are in the capable hands of Brighton’s alt-pop next-big-thing who really should be playing at Pride bestie duo COWZ. This comprises Natasha ‘Tasha’ Nicholl aka Tasha Bloom on vocals, who in 2021 moved in with with Swedish born Saga Wahlström, who equally shares vocal duties, but is also in control of the laptop on account of Saga producing the recorded music. It’s an easy setup for sound guy Adrian, with only two mics and a laptop to worry about.
Their bubble-gum pop sounds seem to be omnipresent at Brighton’s grassroots venues at the moment with them having recently thrilled punters up at The Prince Albert, a venue to which they will be returning next month as support to Cornwall’s The Velvet Hands – Details HERE. Before that they will be playing their first ever headline show and this will be taking place at the Green Door Store on Wednesday 24th July, where they are keeping things nice and simple for folk as you simply turn up on the door and pay a mere £3 to get in to watch their show! Support will come from HEIGHTS and Friend Of Franky.
The duo first laid out their mission by dropping their ‘Most Fun I’ve Had in Ages’ single last year, which has swiftly been followed by a trio of 2024 singles (‘Domination’, ‘Bad News’ and ‘Rosalie’) which then culminated in their ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP which dropped back in May. Suffice to say all of these bouncy pop tunes were given an outing this evening as part of their 7 track 23 minute set, which sadly drew to a close at 8:08pm with ‘Psychos’ which is the fifth and final track found on their EP. The other four tunes on the EP were selected as the opening material. The choice cut of these for me was opener ‘Domination’ with the classic line: “Tickets to Venus are now on sale for 45 million dollars” which reminds me of Dee D Jackson’s ‘Automatic Lover’ epic. The remainder of the set being a couple of thus far unreleased numbers in the form of ‘Elephant’ which is about gossiping and not elephants, and my fave number the ‘La La Like You’ earworm. Once again I had a smile on my face throughout the whole set. A feel-good-factor outfit that’ll brighten up anyone’s day, especially so if you’re a fan of the likes of Lynks, Piri & Tommy, Girli or Caity Baser.
COWZ:
Saga Wahlström – vocals, laptop
Natasha ‘Tasha’ Nicholl aka Tasha Bloom – vocals
COWZ setlist:
‘Domination’ (from 2024 ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP)
‘Most Fun In Ages’ (from 2024 ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP)
‘Rosalie’ (from 2024 ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP)
‘Bad News’ (from 2024 ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP)
‘Elephant’ (unreleased)
‘La La Like You’ (unreleased)
‘Psychos’ (from 2024 ‘That’s Cute! Baby’ EP)
