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The crowd for Puressence has gone from being a disparate collection of fans into something resembling a reunion. This latest offering at Putney’s very comfortable Half Moon pub on a fresh, warm April evening feels like attending a secret gig with a tight-knit band of true followers. I now recognise the front-rowers and travelling fans as easily as the singer and guitarist.
Deep leather sofas and friendly bar staff help make the pub as popular for pulling in the punters for live music as its taste in acts. Entering the pub I’m welcomed by hearing lead man James Mudriczki warm up in the show venue adjacent to the main bar. His voice so hauntingly powerful that the jukebox can’t be heard even when it’s throwing out Led Zeppelin. Half an hour before show time (and a couple of cheeky drinks) the regulars and few new eager and fuzzily excitable faces filter in the venue for the support, an act of very talented lads called ‘One’.
Support acts can have a hard time in pub venues, but the Half Moons atmosphere nurtures the unsigned but not unsung. As their assured set starts and penetrates the beery fugue sweeping over the collective, the crowd grows. One’s short collection showcased energy, great playing and a very believable stage presence. The lead singer has a great voice and the effortless energy produced by the quartet had more pouring through in the outer bar and healthier cheers ringing after each song.
One, an alternative act without the posing, appears to skip through styles in a way that is not upsetting to the rhythm of their play. A thumping tune called Own Little World starts, followed by a smoother tune just a tiny touch reminiscent of some sixties do-wop plastered in guitar credibility. A small concession would be that the song they finished on had a lot going on, sounding like too many different parts crushed together. It could have been tighter and wasn’t the strongest tune they showcased, but still a part of me felt like I was watching an embryonic Kasabian, a band with the look and the sound and the belief.
After the gracious and enjoyable One had ended, we had the big boys of Manchunian music, my all-time heroes, Puressence, gracing us all with an acoustic set. James’ rolling pleasers from previous albums into the microphone is as amazing a live music experience anyone can get. Casting Lazy Shadows gets the crowd chairman affectionately dubbed Mohican Man rolling his head like he’s inferring messages from the gods, and it’s an infectious knack too.
Life Comes Down Hard and Sold Unseen covey extra sentiment in their slowed down sugary form than the original versions could. In between favourites James has time to engage the crowd, praising the sound engineer for lovely delays and asking for the mirror ball to be shut off, wrong ambiance mate, just wrong! Even a dab of Fast Show heth-theeth-heeth and Scorcio is bounded around after a little indulgence in Hungarian. Lowell, the fine guitarist, plays expertly and with passion that makes you see the full band compliment as a cheeky indulgence, acoustic as the raw and true catharsis for the lyrics.
Two new songs were showcased. Raze Me To The Ground, introduced by James with ‘optimistic…as always…’ is a pure Puressence anthem, and true, their music is not decked in sunshine and lollipops, it’s not music for holiday camps. It’s music to affect the soul and make listeners say ‘yeah, I feel that, I can relate to that.’ Most songs, metaphorical lyrical flights of fancy they may be, still hit the ears like they were written about you, your life, your dreams, people you hate and love but can’t stand to be close to sometimes. James lives the songs as profoundly as Lowell thrashes them free of the chords, singing with such unerring self-belief and love of the music he’s mesmerising to watch. Lowell is matchless in support.
Chat about a set-list written in calligraphy and mentions about Lowell’s guitar being a lovely shade of red all help pull you free from the last song truly settling, before plunging back in their world again. Of course hit This Felling is the big pleaser, and Every House On Every Street elicits ‘shushes’ from all corners of the crowd to allow James’ accapella line to pass unhindered into the ether.
The encore sadly only had one song, but when it’s a version of Bright Eyes as amazingly enchanting as anyone could wish to hear, nobody is likely to leave feeling short-changed. It feels like a short set, though they’ve been on most an hour and half, but all Puressence gigs pass too quickly. ‘We like it here, we’ll come back here, but you might not.’
James wanted the cheers to be loud enough to ring in their ears so it drowned out Talksport radio on the drive back to Manchester. A simple and humble request, but one that we all tried our best to fulfil.
*Thanks to Pandora Vignaud for the show picture (used with her very kind permission).
*Thanks to One for the band shot.
Myspace: www.myspace.com/theyareone
Myspace: www.myspace.com/puressence
Website: www.myspace.com/halfmoonputney
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