Saturday night was a big night for the Horsell Common boys. They had awarded first support to an up and coming band, Broadway, through a MySpace competition that they launched themselves, were touring with besties Trial Kennedy, and were celebrating both the end of their national Rescue tour and the end of the Horsell road for drummer Leigh Pengelly.
The show was completely sold out and for the first time in my recent memory there was actually a queue into the band room, a separate line into the bar and a third gaggle of punters waiting to get upstairs.
Broadway bought some of their own mates with them, and although it must flag me and my mate Erin as Women Of A Certain Age, I confess that when we arrived at the Corner and heard them playing a cover of Hazard we were very pleased. Hazard. You know? Richard Marx?
Yep. Anyway, they had it all – two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer (handy), a dude on keys and a vocalist. Nicely harmonizing death roars (kudos to keys-man) with melodic vocals, the ‘80s synth was a refreshing point of difference. I thought (maybe since they had an American lilt and polish) “commercially viable”, before I could stop myself. They’d want to be too, with six of them, otherwise they’ll drink more than their rider is worth and there’ll be too many for one Tarago.
Goodnight Combat Fighter followed – a five-piece with three guitarists – and produced an amazing intro to their set. The song it bled into was perhaps not as strong, and vocals, while sounding beautifully homegrown, were a little pitchy in places. Nicely crafted if rough, sonically, with brashy guitars. Sometimes seeming a little bit everybody-elsey, their move into pop-ish tunes with less feedback was tight and lapped up by a willing crowd.
Not surprisingly, given their experience, Trial Kennedy raised the bar immensely with better delivery, better sound and better stage presence. The earlier two acts had some lessons to learn from these blokes as far as between-song banter went: it is tricky not to sound desperate when you don’t know what to say. Massive soaring vocals were anthemic but not unoriginal. A tight, interesting band, they are definitely headline material – which I’m sure everyone but me already knew.
The crowning act of course, was Horsell themselves, and the capacity crowd was there in force to farewell Leigh. I had encountered dancing Mums and Dads, proud brothers going sick, awestruck young musicians from the earlier supports. It was one of those nights where everyone was in top spirits and rocking-the-fuck-out. Especially the aforementioned Mum. She was loving it.
Horsell Common exploded messily onto stage with bassist Luke Cripps enjoying the space afforded him (since he wasn’t roped to a microphone like Mark Stewart ). Leigh had dispensed with his shirt for his final duties as drummer and the three of them just seemed to be having a shit-load of fun. Help Is On Its Way was an early standout, delivered with passion and sung along to by an excited crowd.
The chemistry between the three was fantastic and with loads of double kicks, excellent sound and electric crowd participation the Horsell boys punched through You. Leigh might have dropped the ball a little bit during Everlasting (which was met with a huge roar from the punters) but what were they gonna do? Sack him? They got back on track for the finale, a return to their true form, and gave the crowd a multiple choice option for the next track.
Did they do Lost A Lot Of Blood or did I just write that down cos it was one of the options? Whatever it was, Mark advised the crowd, “If we do this song, you’re fucken singing it!”, which their fans were more than willing to do. By this point, they had at least a third of their crowd seriously jumping around, with a few errant crowd surfers getting up.
Not one head in the place could resist nodding to the absolute driving of bass, guitar and drums and as they launched into recent Triple J single Good From Afar. The Js got a little thank you shout out too. Good From Afar sounded just like the recording, which is always wicked.
A couple of the Trial Kennedy blokes could not help themselves any longer and joined their mates onstage to have a bash on some older tracks. Leigh continues to absolute cane his kit and was often going faster than my eyesight could register. A poignant moment where everyone was jamming and facing Leigh was gorgeous, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sad for them.
A tight and explosive finish was the big final note for Mr Pengelly. It was obvious to everyone that it was an awesome moment for these boys; one that they won’t forget after years together. I daresay the celebrations kicked on long after the gig ended and the exhaustion started to set in. With Leigh being sent out with a great last gig, and surely a heap of man-hugs backstage, it will be interesting to see how Mark and Luke are looking when they get some rest and break in their new drummer. Watch this space.
