The Leisure Society

As heartening as most of the (semi) recent folk rock revival has been, it hasn’t half gotten serious pretty quickly. We’ve got Marcus Mumford straining to cram as many agonised Shakespeare quotes and references as humanly possible into his lyrics, Laura Marling grimly dissecting her relationships and her romantic failures and many, many others trying to out-passion each other at every turn. It gets exhausting, so as an antidote we should all go and see The Leisure Society live to make up for it. They’re not exactly The B-52’s but live their songs build to the point where they’re infused with such a sense of joy and fun that it’s impossible to resist even when they’re inspired by difficult periods in singer/songwriter Nick Hemming’s life. In a way it’s kind of weird how they’re not bigger, considering that they scored an Ivor Novello award nomination before a record contract and sold out Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush at their first gig. However, all that means now is that a show of their will be an intimate showing from a group playing to the very best of their ability, basically unparalleled at what they do whether it’s the band themselves or backed with a forty piece orchestra, as they did at the Barbican in 2011. Either way, it’ll be worth it just to give this band the credit that they richly deserve, and show the world that music doesn’t have to be humourless and dour to be deep, meaningful, and in the case of The Leisure Society, utterly sublime.

Have been watching these guys since before they were signed - gigs where they had to use a cajon as there was no room for a kit on-stage. So whilst many are, quite rightly, drawn in by the peerless songwriting, for me they've always been a strong live proposition.

Happy to say that despite taking some time out, they're still as tight as ever. Now a lean 5 piece, the sound these guys make is characterised by great arrangements supporting those wonderful melodies Nick seems to have in endless supply.

As a bonus, the screens around the room displayed former childrens laureate (and current Observer cartoonist) Chris Riddell producing live pencil interpretations of the songs - take that Kate Bush!

A great night as always with a group of top notch musicians who still appear to be enjoying themselves. It's good to have them back, but I do want to know where I can get my hands on one of those illustrations.

To think one can be in the centre of a huge city and yet have such an amazingly intimate muscial experience! The church is a perfect size, with wonderful acoustics - combined with the intense instrumental and vocal skills of these three musicians, this made for a unique evening.

I strongly recommend listening to the new material - possibly their best to date.