Venn Street Social, Huddersfield, UK30th June 2022
Midas Fall & Support: Yasmin Coe
Thursday the 30th of June 2022 was Velvet Sheep Day! Yes, it was time to get up early, take a trip by coach and train to Huddersfield in Yorkshire and see a Velvet Sheep promotion on home soil. There haven’t been any for quite a while due to various reasons but those I have been to in the past have offered up interesting buffets of musical tastes that it’s been prudent to keep an eye out for events cos otherwise you might just miss that undiscovered gem.
The day started early, very early. I was up at 5am and on a coach at 8am travelling up the M1 towards “The North”. Every sign I saw on the motorway seemed to exclaim “The North” boldly and emphatically and with a threat. “Watford, Bedford, THE NORTH!” Anyway, after five hours on the coach I arrived in Huddersfield via Leeds and had a few hours to kill before the evening’s entertainment commenced. So, I went to a Rock pub, looked in some charity shops and the front windows of some art shops around a 1970s looking shopping arcade before making my way to the Venn Street Social for the event.
Yasmin Coe
It turns out that one of the artists had decided to pull out at the last minute which was not very nice so leaving the two remaining acts with more time to play. But they didn’t play for longer, their sets were just brought forward slightly so the evening ended earlier. First up we had a solo artist and newcomer, to me, called YASMIN COE. Originally from Hull but now residing in Manchester she travelled from that city on the train on her own with her guitar and peddles to open up the night. I think I was told at one point that she is only 19 years old, but she’s been writing, recording and performing since at least 2017, solo and under the moniker of Crow.
Music & Performance
The venue is quite small and can hold around 60 people I’d say but tonight there around 20 people in. Still enough to provide atmosphere and a board for the songs to bounce off. Yasmin wore a blue dress and knee length boots for her set and whizzed through half a dozen songs about love, break up and the human condition before thanking the assembled bodies for coming and leaving the stage. I know nothing about her you see, I came to the show blind and allowed my impressions to form on the night. What I noticed is that she was a confident performer with a fluid and not too long patter between tracks and she reminded me of the band sensibilities of ECHOBELLY or LUSH crossed with the solo musings LILY ALLEN. The vocal delivery was introspective, questioning and matter of fact with a lot of looking up into the heavens. I'm not quite sure about how I feel about her yet, more exploration of her material is due first methinks, but she’s definitely an assured performer.
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 7
Light: 7
Sound: 8
Total: 7.5 / 10
Midas Fall
MIDAS FALL on the other hand have been around for over 12 years and they’ve released many albums starting with 2010s ‘Eleven, Return And Revert’ and they had travelled from further afield to get to Huddersfield. Glasgow in fact and farther up in Argyll and Bute. https://www.facebook.com/midasfall
Music & Performance
The set was awesome! It was one long fluid and exquisitely mixed bath of Shoegaze with Metal overtones. It was simultaneously mesmerising and hypnotising and punchy with abrasive smoothness etched all over it. I got a sense of the stone streets of Glasgow along with the salty moss aromas of Argyll and Bute suffused with wood notes and watery chills. I can’t pick out individual songs to wax lyrical on, I can just take the whole experience as just that, a whole. I loved the energy and the intensity that came across as fully as it would have if it was a packed venue. The bassist was animated throughout so was the guitarist. Both bending and contorting and twisting as if these bodily shapes emphasised the sounds being created. At times they posed like gnarled trees fighting for space in the shadows. Vocalist Elizabeth Heaton cavorted the stage with less vim than the other two but her voice made the moves in the other ways, the drummer moved even less so. No manic gesticulations or toothy gapes from him, he just focused on keeping the whole set tight and in the groove. I tried getting some animated shots of him but alas he would not oblige, never mind.
But all in all, this was a splendid set that flowed. It was haunting, Gothic, abrasive as I mentioned and full of sound and scent textures created with E Bow, Capo, Slides and tremolo picking that filled out the scene like a well-executed sound painting a la ALL ABOUT EVE and ALCEST. Loved it. Enough said!
Setlist
01. *Unnamed Live Intro*
02. Low
03. Glue
04. BPD
05. In The Morning
06. Nautical Song
07. Bruise Pusher
08. Salt
09. Howling At The Clouds
10. Soveraine
11. Evaporate
12. Moviescreens
13. Stalking Moon
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Light: 7
Sound: 8
Total: 9 / 10
In summary, the Venn Street Social is a great little venue. Its intimate and focused and when full with around 60 people or so still has the chops to exude a great atmosphere. The sound engineer did a great job as well, both artists had their sound down to a tee, many venues I’ve been to are hit and miss with this, either deliberately or due to “Can’t be bothered” ism. But here, very good indeed. You have to walk across a courtyard to the bar though, which is no bother and there's a covered outside area for smoking and what have you. The walk back to Huddersfield Train Station is a five minute one, the journey back to Leeds or Manchester as painless as that. Disregarding cancelled trains of course!
All pictures by Claudia Black
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