WILD SWIM @ THE PACKHORSE, 28.11.13, Reviewed by Rachel Noon …
It’s a Wednesday night and The Packhorse pub is quite literally packed. Four bands, each with one thing in common, studying Music at the University of Leeds. The talented bunch have all got together to show off what they’ve got. Collective ’92 opened followed by Kanna and Disraeli Gears. Wild Swim headlining the show after recently winning Band of the Year by BBC Oxford.
Wild Swim originally formed all the way back in late 2005 at school in Oxford and performed as ‘Picturehouse’. Despite the very positive name change, the bands five-piece line up has always remained the same.
First impressions do matter and with roaring opening vocals from Richard Sansome in ‘I Know Where Home Is’, they sure do impress. Dressed in black loafers, a print tee and with one arm wrapped around the mic stand, the other in the air, recently-graduated-tailoring-student, he sings.
Third song in and ‘Echo’ is a favourite. It can be best described as perhaps a bit of a musical tease, luring you into peculiar and ironically echoic couple of verses until, oh, there goes the alternative drop switching to something much more Chilli Peppers. This only shows the diversity in Sansome’s vocal range and the rest of the bands melodic talent. The crowd change from watching in complete awe and digesting every note through a perfect head nod and a grin, which can only indicate a pleasant surprise to their ears.
Thrashing of drums, on point harmonisations and ‘New Dawn’ is levelling with ‘Echo’ on the super official song scoreboard. The band keeps up with Sansome’s powerful and, to put it simply, ridiculously good voice. The unpredictable changes in tempo throughout keeps the audience on their toes. Wild Swim completely lose themselves into the song and the rest of their set.
This was most definitely a modest performance, these guys are talented, but by no way giving any sense of over confidence during their show, which I think is pretty rare. However, they genuinely seemed grateful for the audience’s and other bands support, which is nice.
I grabbed 21-year-old and final year Music student, keyboard and button-pressing extraordinaire, Jamie Jay (how’s that for an introduction) from Wild Swim for a quick post-gig chat.
How do you think it went?
I thought it went great, I think the whole night went really well. It was really nice to get everyone together especially in the middle of all this work. It was really hot as usual, lots of lights but it was really good fun.
What do you think of The Packhorse has a venue?
Really cool! I cycle past this place every day for the last year because I live in Headingley. I’ve been in one or two times. I’ve actually been in a quiz here in my first year.
What are your plans for the future?
Well, we’ve just spent the whole summer writing our first album, which is exciting. It should be out early 2014. But that kept us pretty busy throughout summer; no one was allowed to go anywhere, one day off a week max! But currently, we’re in the process of recording at the moment, starting to get vocals down. Basically finishing off the album and playing lots of shows.
Any ideas for album names yet?
We need to start thinking! We could be boring and name it after one of the songs, I like the idea when Radiohead put out ‘OK Computer’. Apparently that’s what they kept saying to each other when they were recording. Maybe we should find something like that when we’re all together.
Where are you playing next?
We’re doing a headline show at the O2 Oxford on 25th January, so if anyone is in Oxford then they should come along and see what it’s all about.
Check out their SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/wildswimmusic
Rachel Noon