Giddy up - the Wunderhorse are in town

Another week of the corporate calendar flies by in an instant. Often, we need something to break up the week and provide some respite from the hamster wheel we find ourselves relentlessly spinning in. Enter midweek concerts.

Thursdays are a risky business when work is concerned. Often a last minute, nasty surprise can arrive on your desk (not literally, I mean inbox – this isn’t the dark ages) late in the day, rendering evening plans at risk, cancelled or plagued by work-related anxiety. This Thursday was no exception, with a mountain of tasks and pressures piling as the minute hand inched closer and closer to my contracted freedom. Fear not, dear reader, as I swept my responsibilities aside against my better judgment to enjoy an evening sampling guitar rock’s most exciting offering, Wunderhorse.

Like Cinderella escaping the ball before midnight, I dashed out of the office with Alexandra Palace in my sights before any overzealous colleagues could fit me up with the crime of more work. Mine was not a pumpkin-turned-carriage, but a Great Northern train. Mine was not a glass slipper, but a brogue converted into a black Adidas trainer. Leaving my troubles behind me, the promises of indie rock, mullets and oversized t-shirt swallowed me up like a Black Hole near Muswell Hill.

The venue

Alexandra Palace, known to its friends as Ally Pally, is a brilliant venue in my eyes. Located at the top of a deceptively brutal hill in North London, it is most famous for hosting the World’s Darts Championship every year and possessing one of the best views of the London skyline. Primrose Hill, Hampstead Heath and Ally Pally are clear at the top of the London viewpoints.

Aside from the view, Ally Pally boasts an outdoor space complete with a bar, with more bars and food in the inside atrium.

The actual hall itself is an impressive beast; with high ceilings and the classic architecture you would expect from a building with its history. It is quite a unique venue in that it has clear windows at the top and back, meaning that pre-sunset, natural light streams in. On an overcast Thursday evening, this made for quite a dramatic, gloomy and moody vibe. Perfect for our melancholic rockers who would take to the stage in due course.

The very civilised interior of Ally Pally

The support

Another poor showing from me, in that I only caught the end of Shame. However, they had a similar vibe to Wunderhorse in their Nirvana-like sound. They seem to have grabbed some online attention, so I’m sure they will bolster festival lineups and open for similar guitar bands in the coming years.

The crowd

Plaid and mullets. There is no more to say.

Wunderhorse

Wunderhorse are something of an enigma. Their ludicrous name instantly grabs your attention, but the music makes you stay longer.

Fronted by Jacob Slater, who himself has a surprisingly lengthy history in the music industry and TV world (he played Paul Cook in FX’s Sex Pistols biopic, Pistol) is the leader and messiah-elect of Wunderhorse young, feverish fanbase. He is both intense and aloof, leaving many wanting more. To say some of these young fans worship him would be an understatement. Not an open book, his mysteriousness presumably pulls in curious fans that much more.

When asked to describe Wunderhorse, I often go with ‘angsty indie’. The lyrics are dark, with themes well beyond your normal explorations of love, strife and loneliness. Butterflies, the opener of their debut album, Cub, has some very dark connotations, as does Epilogue, the closer of the same.

The gloomy Palace

Before this performance at Ally Pally, I had seen Wunderhorse three times. Once at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, then Brixton’s O2 Academy, followed by them supporting Sam Fender at the O2 Arena (looking back, O2 does have a real monopoly on sponsorship for some of these venues). Their live show is loud, powerful and never lacking their intensity. On stage, Slater cuts a Cobain-like figure – beating his guitar with every down pick, oversized clothing and rapturous screaming. He puts everything into every performance and can never come away feeling shortchanged on account of this mercurial front man’s energy. Having met him in The Beehive Wetherspoons in Brixton post-Brixton show, I can confirm he is a very reserved, but friendly person. This is at odds with the figure we see on stage – a growling, screaming animal of a singer and guitarist.

And this show was no different. Coming out to a sea of camera phones, Wunderhorse were greeted with animalistic intensity. The crowd was likely averaging an age somewhere between 16 and 22 – and they seemed starved of Wunderhorse exposure. A show in Birmingham earlier in the week had commanded a lot of negative attention online – with accusations of violence, aggression and even sexual assault levelled at the crowd. However, this London crowd was thankfully far more restrained.

Wunderhorse arrived on stage and Slater did something I did not expect at all. He broke into a short, a cappella performance of Neil Young’s legendary song, Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black). A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Wunderhorse ripped through the hits and the majority of their latest album, Midas. The riffs curdle and Slater bellows through these angst-ridden anthems to the delight of their passionate fanbase. They also performed impending new single The Rope. Unfortunately, it appears to tread some familiar ground in that it is very similar to Midas lead single, Midas (Mid-ajcent, if you will). A rousing effort, but it does not seem to have re-invented the Wunderhorse wheel.

The show followed with few surprises, with particular highlights being Purple, Silver and Arizona. Leader of the Pack garners a huge reaction from us all. An interlude featuring an impromptu snippet of Baba O’Reilly also features, another lovely surprise.

The encore is similarly unsurprising, with mega hit Teal and July closing out the show. Slater had finished the preceding few shows with a version of his solo song, One for the Pigeons.

Unfortunately, us Londoners were not so lucky. July is such a strange song in many ways. Wunderhorse are an undeniably heavier band than many other indie outfits, but July is a straight up assault on the senses. Slater himself morphs into an even more extreme version of himself – barking, screaming, growling and crowing like never before. It is an appropriate closer.

Wunderhorse seem to be only on the up at the moment. Midas was a commercial and critical success, and their shows only get bigger and bigger. They are on at Glastonbury this year, which can only expose them further to the baying masses. Make sure you saddle up – the horse are in town.

Friday night

A slight change-up this week. Fast forward around 18 hours and I found myself in the Pride of Spitalfields pub in Shoreditch, lubricating myself ahead of a headline show by Harrison Affair as part of the Far East Festival. Performing at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane, Harrison Affair delivered a triumphant showing. Keep an eye out for them, they’re going places.

Harrison Affair