The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMusicLive music

Simon Garrard at the Buffalo Bar

Simon Garrard at the Buffalo Bar | Live review
7 May 2013
Anne Higgins
Avatar
Anne Higgins
7 May 2013

The Buffalo Bar is intimate and full of cosy red bricks with a scattering of palm trees. Entering this live music venue, Sam Way lulls you in with an endearingly shy, yet beautiful acoustic performance, filling the room with echoes of heartache (Golden Soldier) and recitations of his favourite poetry. For the most part, the audience is sedentary, listening to his striking break-up lyricism. His final piece shows his diversity as he enchants the crowd with his amusing take on the appropriate moves to his song Dancing Shoes – the crowd are drawn into re-enacting the movements of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, crouching tigers and Neo from The Matrix. His vocals are reminiscent of Jack Peñate and seeing him in an intimate setting is a privilege.

Having met the wonderfully amiable headline act, Simon Garrard, prior to his set, you know that he is going to give one hundred percent. Whether you know him or not, by the end of his performance, you feel that you have gained a musically talented and genuinely hilarious friend. He has only one rule for the audience: “dance your asses off and have a good time.” His charisma and gruff vocals in I’m on Fire uplift the entire bar as he bounces from wall to wall, literally, from the stage, to his friends, to his band (whose virtues he endlessly extols), and to a self-created circle jig.

Garrard is here to promote his latest EP This Is England, and he excites us with promises of an album on its way. He may love the act of performing, but he also has messages to convey. The lead track, he explains, is about his reaction to closet racism, after an experience he had on the tube. It is through his art, rather than through political rants, that he expresses his feelings. Simon mixes things up with soulful entreaties to the audience one minute, and the next he is leaping around the stage supported by his bassist, drum player and his pretty, barefooted, tambourine-playing back-up vocalist. His excitement is bolstered by his band’s well timed jokes and crowd-pleasing games of “bass line bingo”. There are moments where he proves his vocal prowess with solos and a Queen cover that adds new dimensions to traditional lyrics.

Ending his show with Let It Go, he thanks the crowd for coming with a sheen of happiness upon his face, when really one feels we should be thanking him for his stellar enthusiasm.

★★★★★

Anne Higgins
Photos: Sarah Tsang 

For further information and future events visit Simon Garrard’s website here.

Listen to The Boat here:

Related Itemslive musicreview

More in Live music

Vienna New Year’s Day Concert at the Musikverein

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

Rufus, Martha and Lucy Wainwright Present: A Not So Silent Night “Virtually Together”

★★★★★
Francis Nash
Read More

Pete Tong and the Heritage Orchestra: Ibiza Classics – O Come All Ye Ravers at the O2 Arena Online

★★★★★
Dan Meier
Read More

Courtney Barnett live from the Royal Exhibition Building Melbourne

★★★★★
Georgie Cowan-Turner
Read More

Gorillaz: Song Machine Live

★★★★★
Sylvia Unerman
Read More

Andrea Bocelli at Teatro Regio di Parma Online

★★★★★
Dan Meier
Read More

Foy Vance: Hope in the Highlands

★★★★★
Georgie Cowan-Turner
Read More

Liam Gallagher: Down by the River Thames

★★★★★
Jonathan Marshall
Read More

Blossoms at Brixton Academy

★★★★★
Mae Trumata
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks
    Theatre
  • Start the year right with these eco-friendly vegan and vegetarian food deliveries
    Food & Drinks
  • Hello Cosmos – Dream Harder
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Assassins: Exclusive new clip
    Cinema
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Uncategorised
  • Schemers
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Away: An interview with animator Gints Zilbalodis
    Interviews
  • The Queen of Black Magic
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Uncategorised
  • Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

The Red Lapels at White Rabbit | Live review
Noah & the Whale – Heart of Nowhere | Album review