The Beat Surrender

I’ve been raving about Alex Cornish since reviewing his first single last year, followed by his fantastic debut album, Until The Traffic Stops. Therefore, when the opportunity to see him live came up I jumped at the chance. Even better news I wouldn’t have to travel too far to do it!! since Josephs Well is only about 20mins from my house.

However due to my legendary navigation skills and a massive fear of parking too far away from the door it took me over double this amount of time. The Leeds City Centre one-way system is a nightmare, I could see where I needed to be but just couldnt get there. So, in my quest to park on the doorstep I drove around and around until I worked out how to get to it, never mind it meant I could listen to When the Traffic Stops at least three times.

I hadn’t been to Josephs Well before so was looking forward to it, however from the outside I have to say the venue didn’t look like a pub, more like it blended into the adjacent office block and initially I thought it was something like a homeless project, no real pub signage doesn’t help. Lovely bar man served me and since I was driving and had the start of a really bad cold coming on decided to stick to pop imagine my surprise when he said it was free!!!

Once inside the first act on was Pete Briley, a bit of a one-man band he seemed an accomplished guitarist and percussion was provided via his foot/drum. He came across as a very friendly and chatty guy a bit in the mould of Joey from Friends, not really sure if the nice but dim was an act but he really did seem to be enjoying himself and happy to be there.

This was for me quite infectious, afterwards he went round trying to get folk to sign up to his web site and selling his CDs for the great value price of £1. For me the standout tracks were Tallulah and Sputnik. With practice and time spent on his vocals, he could be someone to look out for. He has the song writing ability and while the vocals could do with a bit of polish musically, he is accomplished. I also liked his stage presence, he explained in detail the meaning of the songs and in many cases why and when he had written them.

Next act was a seven-piece band called Lady Jane, three girls on vocals plus two guys on guitar, a guy on drums and another on keyboards. The lead vocals were absolutely brilliant, so strong and powerful, however when the drums/guitars come in they overpowered due in main to the loudness. Strong tracks were This race, Glued, Getting Down and Deeper. However, the best for me were Boomer and Moving On. As the set progressed, the music did seem to settle down to a more acceptable noise level. I liked the jazz/blues influences but would have preferred to be able to actually hear the girls vocals rather than the music, which while well played wasn’t what they seemed to be about.

The room never quite filled up at best I guess there would have been around thirty people, but I doubt many were actually paying public, many seemed to be with one or other of the acts. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to hearing Alex Cornish live and hoped this wouldn’t put him off too much. I know he usually plays all the instruments himself (while recording in his bedroom) and I had questioned how this would work playing live. Well the answer was he brought a band with him, drums, guitar/backing vocals and keyboard. Opening track was the new single United, this was only spoilt slightly by the loudness of the drums, overpowered the vocals a little.

Alex Cornish reminds me a little of Chris Martin/Coldplay he looks uncomfortable in his stance, bending awkwardly towards the mic with a tortured look about him, however vocally he definitely is his own man. Next up was Same Ride, Same Way followed by a new track not from the last album.

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