The question that always arises in the earliest intimate moments of any relationship is “how do I know this person isn’t going to murder me in my sleep?” I think I’ve found the solution. Make them listen to Noah and the Whale’s track “First days of spring”. If their eyes don’t mist over half way through grab your coat and run for your life. They are probably a serial killer could not be moved by it. One person to whom I introduced it burst into tears on the train on the way to work while listening to it.

It’s a mystery to me why they aren’t filling stadia but then I’m still convinced of the need for and near certainty of socialist revolution in my lifetime which probably does not make me the best judge of the popular mood. Instead last night they filled a venue called Xoyo which is one of those places the young and the beautiful flock to. I was allowed in either because the door staff took pity on me or they thought that the cat hair and toothpaste combination on my shirt marked me out as a fashion leader.

It was a three band line up to mark the fifth anniversary of the record label Young and Lost Club. Of the first band I can say nothing due to lingering too long in a pub. The Ex Lovers have a Teenage Fanclubby Sterolabby sound and suffered dreadfully for the first part of their set from a sound mix which had the drums obliterate everything else. Once a decent balance was restored one of their songs certainly got the love juices of the couple in front of me going. Gosh, how they canoodled. It must have been their special song. They had enough strong material to be of interest and it’s worth doing a bit of research on them.

I’ve been desperate to see Noah and the Whale for several months and this may have led to some blunting of the critical faculties. However there are few sounds sweeter than a well struck fiddle and they offer that in abundance. In performance, more than on record, their debt to the English folk tradition is apparent with a fair bit of that type of singing where everyone in the group joins in. There’s probably a name for it. I’d go further and say that they are improving and renovating English folk music which has always been the poor relation to its Irish cousin, in this house anyway. At the same time they manage to avoid that aural obscenity “folk rock” (c.f. Horslips and Capercaillie).

Like the earlier act they had a couple of problems with the sound which required a finger in the air gesture to the man at the desk. If there was a problem with the set it was too short and that’s rarely the normal complaint. Forty five minutes of happy people revelling in a fine performance. They concluded with the song everyone wanted to hear and were gone. Perfect.