THE LOTTERY WINNERS + CRYSTAL TIDES + BARBARA – CHALK, BRIGHTON 22.3.24
A fine night was had at the legendary Chalk in Brighton for three top bands as The Lottery Winners ‘This Is How It Feels’ tour hit town. Each bringing a uniqueness to proceedings, but all three bringing plenty of fun and many many catchy songs.
Barbara
Barbara are a band that are regulars on the Brighton music scene, most recently having played in January at the Latest Music Bar. I was not too sure what to expect from Barbara, I’ve seen them on many a line up poster playing in Brighton, but somehow had never actually seen them.
Looking online I found this description of them “What do you get when you mix a generous helping of 70s progressive pop, a dash of English music hall, the effortless catchiness of a Broadway musical, a sprinkling of sequined power pop, basted lightly with luscious Disney strings and topped off with syrupy rich and delicious glorious golden harmonies? Well… you get BARBARA, a musical concoction from brothers Henry & John Tydeman”. They sound interesting indeed.
At 7:15pm, just 15 minutes after the doors opened, a decent size crowd had already formed up in front of the stage, almost making it hard for me to get a spot. It goes to show that no-one wanted to miss out on the support action this evening. Some fun quirky intro music fired up as the band arrived on stage, frontman John Tydeman proclaimed “Brighton we are alive, we are Barbara, let us enjoy your starter for this evening” and we were straight into the first song ‘Waiting Outside’ with Henry Tydeman on his Korg synthesizer keyboard positioned centre stage, often harmonising and on echoing backing vocals to his brother John. It reminded me a little of the way Sparks play on stage.
John welcomed the audience joking that it was their first time in this beautiful city, “well we are from Portslade and Hove” he added full well knowing we all know they are Brighton regulars. We were then treated to a song from 2022’s ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP ‘These New Communications’ , followed straight away by ‘Pretty Straight Guy’, with John encouraged clapping during this one, it was a catchy fun number.
John utterly oozes confidence on stage, with endless theatrics and movement and lots of high kicks were had, you really have to see it to believe it. The whole musical style and look of the band does have as they describe themselves as having a dash of music hall in there, they are smartly dressed, clean and polite, incredibly engaging, drawing you further and further into their wonderful performance.
“The next one is an ode to all the introverts out there” says John as they break into another from their ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP, ‘Rainy Days In June’. Again lots of audience participation was encouraged, especially with the “Bah did da di dums” and hand waving. We moved straight into ‘Spider In My Bed’ which ended in the most splendid theatrical way, it really felt like something you would hear on a big London west end stage.
The penultimate song was another from the EP, ‘Don’t Send Me Messages’, although John did plead to the audience when introducing the song “but please do send them, as we are very active on the socials”
The final song was ‘BRB’ also from the EP, this had the band harmonising once again with a slow calm start. I am sure there was a little bit of Abba in there on the keys at one point, but the song built to a great energetic climax followed by some theatrical group bow’s, then a comedic jog off stage.
I very much enjoyed the set, it was a perfect opener to the evening, their songs were very catchy, something that was most definitely going to be a theme of the evening. They were a refreshingly different band, eccentric perhaps, but very enjoyable. Now that I’ve caught them at last I hope it won’t be so long until I catch them again.
They have a new single now out called ‘Mein Fräulein’, and they will be supporting the Mod-father himself Paul Weller on his upcoming April Tour.
Barbara:
Henry Tydeman – keys
John Tydeman – vocals
Jack Hosgood – bass
Lawrie Miller – drums
Dean Llewellyn – guitar
Barbara setlist:
‘Waiting Outside Alone’
‘These New Communications’ (from 2022 ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP)
‘Pretty Straight Guy’
‘Rainy Days In June’ (from 2022 ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP)
‘Spider In My Bed’/’A Perishing Of Cherished Things’
‘Don’t Send Me Messages’ (from 2022 ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP)
‘BRB’ (from 2022 ‘Mildly Entertaining’ EP)
Crystal Tides
Crystal Tides were a new band for me, but they are no stranger to Brighton, having played Chalk only last December when supporting Sundara Karma. Searching them out online beforehand, I found them described as “An indie alternative pop band based on the South Coast of England (Portsmouth), who take influence from classic noughties guitar riffs and modern feel-good pop melodies”. What with such enticing words, I was looking forward to hearing them play live.
After a quick stage turn round, at 8pm on the nose, the lights dimmed and the Twentieth Century Fox theme tune, much like you would hear at the start of a movie played, followed by a computerised ladies voice. It instructed “Level one initiated, Mission; Escape to Paris, make some noise to start the game”. This prompted the crowd to cheer, the voice replied “no noise detected, I said make some noise to start the game”, this time bigger cheers came, “Initiated” replied the voice, then some more intro music and an atmospheric backing track started up. The band came on tooling up with their guitars and we were away into ‘Courtney Love’ a track from the 2021 EP, ‘Eat Your Words’. Joe Knight was pounding those drums and George Regan was pumping the bass guitar, the sparks were starting to fly. I felt the fire was just starting.
“We are Crystal Tides, it’s Friday Night, so let’s get on with it” called Billy Gregory the charismatic lead vocalist of the band, he continued introducing the next song, “This is the first song we wrote it’s called Backbiting”, this was a good solid fast paced number.
Billy laughing introduced the next song “The next one is the latest single; Harry wrote this many years ago about breaking his penis in Paris”. During this one Billy got the crowd clapping going, and had us all chanting back “one night in Paris is more than enough” I really liked this one, the crowd were promised if they wanted to hear the story behind the song they will need to come over to the merch stall and have a chat afterwards.
One major thing I found with Crystal Tides was just how catchy the songs were and by the time a second chorus came along, you were already singing along, and I imagine from a band’s perspective, that’s what you want. It shows great skill in melody and song writing, the crowd are dialling in nice and quick, putting everyone at ease and ready to enjoy what’s coming.
Before the next song, the 2023 single ‘Just Friends’, Billy let the crowd know “We’ve been living out of a van for the past four days, we’ve not slept enough, but are excited as tonight we get to drive back to Portsmouth and get to sleep in our own beds…rock n roll baby”. I’ll bet they were looking forward to a good sleep, they are an energetic band, always moving about the stage, there was no standing and strumming going on here, Crystal Tides were out to put on a good lively show and that is exactly what they were delivering.
Next we were treated to a new unreleased song called ‘Give It All’. This was a great banger of a track, it comes out on the 5th April, check out their QR code, every pre-save really does go a long way into getting upcoming bands up the rankings. During this song track, Billy was doing the rock star jumping around thing, however his headphone transmitter pack went flying off, sliding under Neil’s guitar pedals. Billy joked “no more jumping until the end for the last song”.
Next we had ‘Headcase’, another from the 2021 ‘Eat Your Words’ EP. This involved more crowd participation with us all being required to sing “Why you gonna get stuck in my head like that”. Again this another lively number that you felt you knew. After the song ended Billy said “Now that was pretty special, Neil’s been growing his ego lately, so to just help him grow it a bit more let’s do it again” as we all sang the line once more to him. Neil nodded his approval.
The final song was ‘Honey’ and this one did prompt some jumping around as expected, both on stage and in the crowd.
I was hugely impressed by Crystal Tides, Billy is a brilliant frontman, always interacting with the crowd and that goes a long way towards bringing new followers in, it gets the punters going and makes them involved. The whole feel and demur of the band was one of positivity, they were always smiling, looking happy to be on stage, giving it their all across the board. They do have that feel of those indie pop bands of the early millennium, something I am sure that would also really appeal to the US and European audiences too.
They have recently supported Feeder and will be continuing support for the rest of The Lottery Winners tour. They will be back in Brighton playing at The Great Escape in May, I urge you to go and catch them.
Crystal Tides:
Billy Gregory – vocals/guitar
Harry Knowles – lead guitar/backing vocal
Joe Knight – drums
George Regan – bass/backing vocals
Neil Cripps – guitar
Crystal Tides setlist:
‘Courtney Love’ (from 2021 ‘Eat Your Words’ EP)
‘Backbitting’ (2019)
‘One Night In Paris’
‘Just Friends’ (a 2023 single)
‘Give It All’ (new unreleased song)
‘Headcase’ (from 2021 ‘Eat Your Words’ EP)
‘Honey’ (from 2022 ‘Side Effect’ EP)
The Lottery Winners
I was a Lottery Winners virgin before tonight, I had certainly heard of them and was familiar with their 2023 single ‘Money’ which featured Shaun Ryder. Often I had seen Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff comment on his social media of his love for the band and I believe they did once support The Wonder Stuff some years back, let alone Miles Hunts appearance on The Lottery Winners song ‘Bang’, so when the Brighton date appeared on this tour, I really wanted to make sure I came to see them and witness all this good stuff I’d been hearing about.
Brighton marks the fourth night of the ‘This Is How It Feels’ tour which ends in April with two sold out nights no less at the Blackpool Tower.
The band formed in 2008, playing local pubs and have continuously gathered momentum since. With plenty of singles under their belt since 2013, and three albums out since 2020, their most recent album ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ came out in December 2023 and featured legends such as Frank Turner, Shaun Ryder and Boy George, the album itself scored number one in the official UK album chart.
The stage all dark, the vintage theme tune ‘Grandstand’ was played and the band came on stage, frontman Thom Rylance was holding a go pro camera on a stick, “There’s loads of you here, I don’t know how to turn this off”, someone shouted back “leave it on”, “okay I’ll leave it on and you can hold it for the next hour and 10 minutes. I’ve had a lovely day in Brighton, I’ve been to the beach, built a lovely rock castle, cos you’ve got no f’kin sand”. Eventually after asking the rest of the band how to turn off the go-pro, he said right let’s start this again and he ran to the side of the stage, shouting now and ran back to huge cheers, “we are The lottery Winners and we are from Leigh, is anyone feeling worried” and bang the band came to alive and we were into ‘Worry’. Thom screamed “it’s my nan” as bits of paper from a previous show fell down from the ceiling such was the power of the bass making the building pulse.
“Give me some energy Brighton” shouted Thom, and boy oh boy if there was one thing felt throughout the whole gig it was energy. Thom gave plenty of crowd talk between and during songs, much of it hilarious, so much so I don’t think he would feel out of place doing a standup routine, it reminded me of Frank Sidebottom back in the day when he would do some great lead in talk with the crowd before breaking into song, always keeping it familiar and fun. An example of this followed as Thom declared “I feel cool, like a rock star, do I look one, No? I look like Elton John… if he wasn’t famous”, he then asked the crowd if it was anyone’s first time and told everyone that the focus should be on him as he was the genius and special and writes all the songs, I wrote this song and everyone here tonight will know the words to it, that’s what a genius I am, “Hey Jude…” with that the crowd started singing along “told you, you already know the words, I am a genius”, the band played along with Thom joking, “I’ve ruined it now, even the Beatles didn’t play that one second”, pulling on his guitar the song morphed into ‘Favourite Flavour’, an awesome sing along tune with bass player Katie Lloyd singing along.
Before the next song ‘Meaning Of Life’, Thom gave a big up to both support bands, joking Crystal tides “were a bit too good for his liking and he’ll be having words afterword asking them to be a little bit shitter………..and less handsome…apart from the drummer as he’s alright”. ‘Meaning Of Life’ is a great song, it has brilliant lyrics “came from no-where, but never felt more alive”. I imagine that very much sums up the band, who were clearly having a fine time up on stage, both Katie and Thom bouncing around, laughing, Katie always smiling as she slayed her bass guitar. So much so after the next song ‘Sertraline’, Thom said it was all going really well, and mocked investigating a squeaky cable behind Katie while he sneaked a puff on his vape, “seems fine, he said shhhh, but it’s going to go downhill now as guitarist Rob (Lally) is going to sing a song now”, everyone cheered prompting Thom to throw a mock tantrum that he is the one we should be focusing on, how dare we cheer him and egg him on. The song was ‘Let Me Down’, the one sung by Boy George on the album, with Rob now centre stage, Thom on guitar, Katie’s backing vocals and bass work made this a beautiful song.
“Did you enjoy him singing that did you, best singer in the band is he, shut up, I guess Katie will want to do one now”. Thom feigned upset as he secretly vaped again behind her, “Can I sing one now” she asked. “Make it quick” quipped Thom, “I’m going to go and stand in the dark over there and draw a better picture than you singing this song”. The song was ‘85 Trips’, a nice slow dreamy and bass heavy number.
Thom then revealed his picture, showing the band on Brighton beach with the pier behind them, with him holding a bucket and spade, he said he ran out of time so the drummer Joe (Singleton) was lying down on the pier in the distance, he turned round noticing Joe had left the stage “my god where is he, he’s turned tiny in real life”. He said he no longer gives them away to a deserving fan now since one turned up on eBay, but they will print 12 copies which will be sold over on the merch stall. Someone in the crowd shouted “how much is the wig?” Katie replied, we don’t talk about referring to Thom’s haircut as until recently he had always sported a shaved head, prompting Thom to recall the band playing Elton John as the walk on song and calling him various Elton related names throughout the night such as ‘Rocket Nan’, ‘Candle In The Wig’ etc.
Next up, the pace was slowed right down with ‘Overthink Everything’ an acoustic number with just Thom on an acoustic guitar. He got the crowd to all hold up the lights on their phones, then as the band came back to the stage he proceeded to turn them out pointing at them one by one, like a game of whackamole. Thom had everyone sing ‘Caravan Of Love’ acapella, before they launched into ‘Much Better’, a strong lively number.
Thom joked again about the merchandise in particularly the Tea Towel, asking us put our hands up if we were going to buy one, he counted the hands in the air until he reached ‘21’, the name of the next song, with everyone singing back in unison “twenty one, twenteeee wuuuun”. What a song this was, roadie Joel joined the band on this number putting on his matching brown mechanic style jacket matching the rest of the band, each with their names on. The energy really was full on with the crowd by this point of the evening, it had become a good proper sing-along, with Katie singing towards the end “I don’t wanna go home” I reckon matching everyone in the venue’s sentiments, even more so as the band went straight into the strong crowd pleaser set closer ‘Start Again’, the whole band really going for it.
Was it in the end, thankfully not, the band promptly came back on stage for an encore of two songs from their most recent ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album. Starting first the utterly brilliant ‘Letter To Myself’’, a song which very much describes itself where the current Thom writes to his 12 year old self, it is expertly written and well worth checking out the music video for on YouTube. For the final song, the Go-Pro camera was revived once more, Thom jokingly saying “we are going to film this for our Instagram, so if everyone kinda young can come forward and everyone old go to the back”, prompting lots of jokes about the over 50’s being the ones buying the tea towels. And with that Katie launched that bass and started singing ‘Burning House’ while Thom recorded with the Go-Pro. A fab end to an awesome evening. Yet again I am leaving Chalk with a beaming smile. The only downer for me was the curfew, I happily could have listened to the band play longer. They are a tight band, you can see all the love they have for each other, lots of banter, ribbing and loads of smiles and laughs, what a way to start the weekend.
The Lottery Winners:
Joe Singleton – drums
Katie Lloyd – bass guitar/vocals
Robert Lally – guitar
Thom Rylance – vocals/guitar
The Lottery Winners setlist:
‘Worry’ (from 2023 ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album)
‘Favourite Flavour’ (from 2021 ‘Something To Leave The House For’ album)
‘The Meaning Of Life’ (from 2020 ‘The Lottery Winners’ album)
‘Sertraline’ (from 2023 ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album)
‘Let Me Down’ (from 2023 ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album)
‘85 Trips’ (from 2021 ‘Something To Leave The House For’ album)
‘Overthink Everything’ (from 2021 ‘Something To Leave The House For’ album)
‘Much Better’ (from 2021 ‘Something To Leave The House For’ album)
‘21’ (from 2020 ‘The Lottery Winners’ album)
‘Start Again’ (from 2021 ‘Something To Leave The House For’ album)
(encore)
‘Letter To Myself’ (from 2023 ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album)
‘Burning House’ (from 2023 ‘Anxiety Replacement Therapy’ album)
