@alpaca.presents
by Brandon van der Berg @vdb.brandon
The night of the 30th says wonders about what intimacy can do for a show. Not the lovey-dovey kind, more specifically I mean an absolute silence that sits over a room so present that you fear the pressure of a whisper could echo and jolt your peers, so you hide amongst yourself and hold your thoughts tightly like some precious fleeting thing is about to slip away. At least, that’s how I felt watching Izzie Auty-Dawe open the stage for a night of sincerity, wit and ultimately, some fantastic live music. Izzie Auty-Dawe Sadness is found in unexpected things. It's found in a calm, understanding nod or a choked laugh like you’re brushing off someone’s cheesy joke. Izzie has a way of bracing you in the parts of your life that you cherish, the parts that were good before something went wrong, and letting you sit with it alongside her. It’s these small embellishments of her performance that stay with me. I thought maybe I was the only one who felt like that before turning my eyes to the audience and seeing something not unlike the groups of penguins that huddle together for warmth. “This song is for my flatmates, but they’re not here so you can be my flatmates instead” *Crowd laughs* The hooks fall in pocket, the melodies have integrity and consistently feel original to her, the instrumentation lacks in size but this holds no weight over the quality of sound. A good songwriter doesn’t need 50 musicians to hold an audience, just her and a guitar. A very conversational approach to her lyricism. You don’t have to worry about disassembling 50 metaphors in your head, rather the confrontation of saying things how it is and not shying away from their effect really puts you in a place to listen. “I feel proud to have you in my life” The guitar, for the most part, is rooted in rhythmic singer-songwriter playfulness with a sizeable pinch of jazz and neo-soul. It stays interesting and it’s very easy on the ears. A performance that left a few audience members in tears and set up the rest of the night really well. For Fans of Lizzy Mcalpine and Holly Humberstone. Find her on Instagram @izzie.autydawemusic Find her on Spotify Eva Penney You can hear sirens and cars from outside. You’re in a room that’s starting to get slightly humid from exhalation that carries that smelly smell that smells of a gig room and below a red light and, between them, the hair colours that make a good Neapolitan ice cream, is Eva Penney alongside her band members Max Bass @maxxglp and Mimi Drummer @mimi.edwards . Drum sticks – ‘click click click click’ The band starts playing something dreamy and weighted. The audience quieted themselves, turned their heads and moved forwards with all the grace and sophistication of a team of Olympic synchronised swimmers who had fallen prey to the pied piper, the one from Shrek, beloved animation. The one that makes you dance. Not the one that steals children away to Transylvania. It's catchy, it’s dark, it downright feels like a breakup with just the right amount of attitude and at the same time quite nonchalant about how heart-wrenchingly sad some of the songs are. At times her eyes were dead closed, her forehead clenched while she held her guitar like it was a good friend helping her through a tough time, at others she was light-heartedly but literally telling herself to ‘shut the f**k up’. It's that mixture of comedy and sincere vulnerability that filled it with charm. You lose yourself in the memories she pulls to the surface like some goosebump puppeteer donning her experience, her story with no hesitation, no fear, in plain unspoiled view for all to see. For Fans Of Billie Marten, Do Nothing and Lianne la Havas. Find her on Instagram @penn3y_coin17 Find her on Spotify Zena “This song is about my boyfriend who’s got food poisoning right now” It's new, it’s exciting and it’s seriously moving. If I may, Scott Pilgrim VS The World is an absolute classic and should hold a place in everybody’s heart as fantastic cinema. If anyone has ever wondered what it must have felt like to be in the crowd during ‘The Katayanagi Twins’ fight, the one with the fight between two ethereal beings of musical awesomeness who fight an epic battle. This is a pretty safe comparison to the experience you’ll have seeing Zena live, or at least the way you feel knocked back when that final chorus hits, regardless of which song you pick. You can see the moments where she is perfectly lost in the moment, not necessarily unaware, but surrendering herself to the stage, to the experience. It makes you still.
Zena - “I’m the dad and this is the old ball and chain Handina ”
Handina Bassist @handinadutir0- “Not the mother… the wife.”
*Gestures to Ollie @ollie.armstrong*
Zena – “This is the responsible older sister on Guitar”
“Louis Drummer @louismccausland is the fun uncle, not the pervy one and this is Victor Pianist @vicassokeys, he’s the judgemental older brother”
General goofy comments and a really close nit team of witty, seriously talented musicians make for a promising foundation for any entertaining act. But to me, what objectively proves its worth regardless of your taste, is its power to completely enthral you in itself, that emotional inevitability you must humbly accept.
You could be amidst an uncanny choir of a pulsing tide like dream, welling up or screaming “adored by everybody its PRISSY F***ING POLLY”, a song about a bully you’ve never met but I swear, insulting her and yelling along is incredibly fun and the quirky performing gestures made to emphasise the comedy of it all, really drive the point home that you’re not at a gig, you’re at a show.
Remember hearing “I write sins not tragedies” by Panic at the Disco for the first time? Yeah, that’s the feeling.
Childlike excitement portrayed in the frame of someone slowly coming to terms with themselves and accepting the good with the bad.
For Fans Of Amy Winehouse, Fiona Apple and Naipalm.
Find her on Instagram @zenaaaahmed
Find her on Spotify
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