Friday 9 November 2018

A Thousand Yard Stare In The House of Love

In the early nineties I became aware of an excellent band called Thousand Yard Stare. Their music was full of jangly and impressive guitar motifs and titles that were often two words melded together like "Wideshire" or "Seasonstream". Eventually after two albums and several EPs they split but their music stayed with me.

Post millenium I started tracking down their music, the two albums and all their EPs (just in CD format), Ebay was instrumental in me tracking this stuff down.

So to the gig, first of all The Boilershop is remarkably pleasant and extremely clean, even in the toilets, absolutely pristine unlike say The Riverside or The O2. All the staff were excellent and sparkling water was available for £2.50 a bottle which was good.

House of Love:



I'll start of with the headliners House of Love who most people had come to see, and they were absolutely excellent drifting from subdued to noise as and when required. They opened with "Christine" the opener from their debut album , which is what they were touring. Unusually their second album has the same eponymous name as the first and contains the excellent "Shine On". Here's a minute of "Christine" that I caught on Instagram.

Thousand Yard Stare:



Due to issues with public transport I arrived at the Boilershop ate ten to eight, doors opened at seven thirty so I thought I wouldn't miss anything. I was wrong, as I was walking up the road Thousand Yard Stare were playing probably my favourite of the their songs, the great parent / child narrative "Version of Me".

The sound of the band in the Biolershop was excellent with drums, guitar and vocals all coming over brilliantly,  Apparently "0-0 After Extra Time" isn't about football, but we got "Comeuppance" (still relevant today, "Seasonstream" and "Wideshire" as well as a few I missed the titles of, but the sound was excellent the jangly guitar motifs came through loud and clear. Click on the links to get an instagram minute of the songs that I caught.

After the gig I spoke with Stephen (vox) and Dominic (drums) who were exteremely affable and seemed to have really enjoyed what, in my opinion was an absolutely brilliant gig, everything that I expected. They said they hadn't included any new material as this was a greatest hits tour, but the new stuff more that stands up with the old material and does sound great. You can hear the new stuff on the "Live at Electric Studios" and their latest two EPs.