Venue:
St John’s Church Kingston
Date: 29/01/2024
St John’s Church is always a good intimate venue and wanted to see Gruff for a while.
Played of course most of his new album Sadness sets you free. This is a good thing as it’s a corker. I wasn’t too on board with a lot of his solo work but he unusually seems to get better the later he gets
This album and the one before are way better in my opinion than than the ones before. Going for the more reflective and beautiful and the stripped down non drummer set suited it perfectly
Cover up the cover up, an anti Tory song is an absolute highlight. No SFA songs other than a great and obscure Colonise the moon. I wonder why he won’t make a new SFA album but maybe they don’t like the beautiful music he makes now.. he’s a genius in my book
But I’d love to see a new SFA tour as it’s criminally forgotten what a great band they are. The rest of the band are playing as Das Koolies and they are not bad at all, but they miss the beauty of Gruff for sure
The audience:
Middle aged of course. Plus some halfwit shouting out he couldn’t hear the pedal steel player.
It made me think..
SFA and Gruff are one of the best 90s bands and no one realises it
Nice and local for me, so I wish I’d known about this. SFA sort of mostly passed me by at the time, although some of the singles were fab. The Das Koolies album is really good too. I must investigate more of Gruff’s solo stuff, so if anyone could advise me where to start it would be much appreciated.
Hotel Shampoo is the easiest entry point, I would say, being full of catchy, immediately hummable tunes. The follow up American Interior is more thoughtful but almost as user-friendly. His more recent stuff, before this one, has had songs written to a core concept, which makes these albums always interesting, but maybe a bit more work. The first couple feature a lot of Welsh language songs, and still have a lot of SFA DNA to them..
I’d go for the new one plus Seeking new gods.
They are both great
The others I found a bit hard work but I think I need to repeat listen
I saw him in the Sugar Club in Dublin last weekend and it was a great show. I was never a SFA fan and I know only a little of his solo stuff but it sold me. They were good craic with the boiler suits and the applause signs they brandished at various points. Halfway through the gig they read out and then shredded “emotional baggage”, written by the audience. I wasn’t sure about whether the band were great musicians or not but the tunefulness of the songs was notable. He’s no great singer but that didn’t take away from what was a very enjoyable night out. I’d go to see him again.
This track one of my favourites of the year so far
SFA are probably the band I have seen the most times. I fell out of touch with them / Gruff, this gives me a nudge to dive back in 👍
I was going to wade in with my traditional “He’s been pisspoor since Mel Smith died” but I feel bound to say that SFA are easily my favourite band of the last 30 years. In fact they’re almost the only 90s/00s band I can still listen to. So inventive, so consistent. Gruff’s solo material doesn’t do it for me as much but I continue to admire his not-staying-stillness.