Where you find Boot Music, you find good music. This is a staple rule of understanding the Merseyside music scene.
The team are often behind some of the best indie nights the region has to offer, and as last year came to a close, that truly was the case. In a trio of shows across the north west, the Boot Music team put on their ‘Best of 2024’ showcases, and one of them saw Roscoe Street take to the stage alongside a diverse group of support acts.
Georgia Johnson has become a staple of Merseyside’s live scene at the moment, and that’s for a very simple reason; she’s a fantastic musician with a clear vision. Her indie-pop and folk influences feel incredibly relevant, and her songwriting manages to feel both playful and thoughtful. This means that, even when taking to the stage without her backing band, Johnson promises a captivating performance.
Johnson immediately commences her set with the beautifully dreamy ‘There’s a Beach in Vienna’, a track which compliments the acoustic setting perfectly. Her vocal tone is simply gorgeous, with the stripped-back arrangement permitting the audience a true look at her singing and songwriting skills. Johnson uses the instrumental bridge to introduce herself, remarking that a solo arrangement for her sets is a rare occasion at this point; her welcome is a warm one, and any nerves relating to the vulnerable nature of the set were not apparent whatsoever.
Johnson follows this up with a performance of ‘Bearhug’, the title track of her 2024 debut EP. She describes the track’s themes, with its exploration of being LGBTQ+ and coping with existing outside of an expected status quo. The musical simplicity of this track not only functions beautifully within an acoustic setting, but, as Johnson explains, serves as a ‘fuck you’ to lecturers who, when listening to this track as a work-in-progress, insisted that a song could not only contain only two chords. Perhaps it is the lecturers who could learn that adhering to rules rarely produces fantastic music.
It’s a brief set for Johnson, who goes on to gift the audience just two more songs, ‘The Moon’ and ‘Out in the Cold’. However, that makes the set no less enjoyable – the magical experience of Georgia Johnson in an acoustic setting lends itself to brevity, making it feel like a truly special and intimate set. This was not Johnson performing to merely impress, but to express herself and her art with genuine heart and sincerity; a singer who does not simply want to perform, but needs to perform. Johnson certainly has a chance of being the next big indie darling, as long as she remains true to defying lecturers.
By the time Là Jibà take to the stage, the room has already filled up. There’s a clear, strong network of support for the band already; even if it consists of family and friends, musicians will know that sometimes they can be the hardest to get to turn up for a show.
Between song names such as ‘Fries in the Bag’, and the choice of attire that includes a Bob the Minion hat, it might be easy to assume that Là Jibà are here just for fun. However, it is clear only minutes into the band’s set that, whilst they are indeed incredible fun, they are also serious musicians with a fantastic amount of talent. Their take on jazz feels refreshing and modern, with a tongue-in-cheek experimental flair that doesn’t sacrifice quality; math rock fans will appreciate how the guitar work dances about with incredible technical complexity, whilst jazz purists will take great enjoyment in the band’s capacity to create slick, charming grooves.
Moments of surprising beauty are found interspersed with songs about cows in a field, with the band clearly enjoying the music they create. A change of pace is offered as the band take the position of a backing band with guest vocalist KRISTA. They lose none of their charm or stylish charisma, but also permit KRISTA to truly take centre stage, with her enigmatic and soulful vocals effortlessly enrapturing the audience.
It is perhaps this charisma that explains the somewhat baffling composition of the crowd – that is, a crowd of predominantly younger (and much cooler) people than myself. Jazz is often perceived as the genre of the old man, when punk has lost its edge and pop has lost its lustre. However, Là Jibà are introducing jazz to a whole new generation of listeners in creative and entertaining ways, whilst being technically proficient enough that even jazz snobs won’t be able to resist feeling at least moderately impressed by Là Jibà’s antics. Even myself, a longtime skeptic of the instrumental world, couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed when the time came for Là Jibà to leave the stage.
It must be something to do with that Bob the Minion beanie.
Perhaps the single most important moment of any band’s set is the very start. This is when a band can hook the crowd in, and perhaps snag a few curious onlookers from the bar. It’s also when a band can clear a room entirely, including any next of kin. So perhaps if your band has experience of the latter, take a leaf from the book of Hungry, and invite a Mancunian to deliver poetry.
With nary a single note, Hungry have set the tone and baited the audience. It’s a scathing critique on class and identity in the form of an introduction, as the Cambridge-born now Manchester-based four-piece offer northern poetry as a distraction from any potential soft southern edges; it’s all conducted with a wry sense of humour, and belies a true love for the north. Then, as if sensing that the crowd had been thoroughly hypnotised, the band step forth.
‘Are you impressed yet?’ bellows vocalist Jacob Peck, barely fitting within the cramped confines of the Jacaranda basement venue, both literally thanks to his imposing height, and figuratively as his monstrous stage presence suddenly engulfs the space. From here, the band launch into their single, ‘The Jig’, and the room is set alight.
It’s a danceable punk sound, perfectly balanced between scrappy and refined, radiating a subtle yet swaggering facsimile of indie sleeze. The poet reappears in the midst of the crowd, shepherding people into a pit and commanding that they dance, beer gripped tightly in hand; it works, and the room breaks out effortlessly into a hurtling, moving storm of bodies.
Hungry conduct their set with a wild and unpredictable nature, breaking down the barrier between audience and musician until it’s unclear who is performing for who. ‘We are here representing Manchester, and in keeping with that spirit, Here’s some more landfill indie,’ declares Peck, launching into unreleased cut ‘Cambridge is on Fire’.
A looping bass line hypnotises the audience as Peck sharply alternates between scrappy yelps and ferocious shouting. There’s something brilliantly dirty about it all, as the band reclaim a musical culture that had been sanitised to the point of total blandness. A breakdown in the track’s back half gets heads banging, whilst knowing glances are exchanged between concertgoers; Hungry are something special.
‘We are here to kill indie sleaze,’ proclaims Peck with a wry smile, perhaps aware that the band are closer to the true indie sleeze sentiment than any 2024 marketing team moodboard. Despite this indie core, however, Hungry refuse to be beholden to musical expectations, as jazzy undercurrents bubble beneath the surface of the band’s indie and punk surface. Hands are in the air, and so are feet, as the room bounces on command. It is masterful control of a crowd, headline worthy in its nature. It is the mark of a band your favourite independent record chain are going to be championing one day.
Impossibly, the energy continues to exponentially grow as the band arrive at the end of their set, with ‘Sick of It’. Peck descends into the audience, as a surprisingly ferocious pit explodes into existence around him, commanded by the snarling punk thrash Peck’s fellow musical magicians craft on the stage.
There’s a purposeful nature to Hungry that sets them far beyond many of their peers. It’s not simply just more indie music by another indie band, despite their proclamations of affection for landfill indie. It’s an experience that strips away any protection that the artist-listener divide may offer, and places you right in the midst of Hungry’s sonic hurricane; you are at their mercy, and there’s no place you would rather be.
Are you impressed yet?
For some acts, even headliners, it can take a while for them to fully hit their stride during a set; the atmosphere requires sculpting, and the energy requires charging. That, however, could not be further from the truth for Liverpool’s Roscoe Street. From the get-go, the sextet make the room feel like not simply a concert, but an entire festival, immediately taking total control of the audience and getting them to sing along to songs the band have yet to even release, such as ‘Attitude’.
The band go on to state how it has been an entire year since their first show, and how it has them feeling introspective. The audience are informed that they’ll be now listening to a more mature, emotive track that was written just that very morning, before the band promptly vault into their debut single ’Overdraft’ with a ‘fuck off’ to the prospect of Roscoe Street being about anything but the good times.
A cover of Toto’s ‘Georgie Porgie’ demonstrates just how robust Roscoe Street are as musicians, swapping out their indie rock sensibilities for more of a refined jazz flair. Original track ‘Losing Feelings’ brings back the bombast, with bright keys laced throughout alongside a brilliantly groovy bridge that demands that the audience gets moving. The follow-up ‘Sun-bleached’ snags the listener with a superb saxophone hook, before culminating into an exuberant dance climax that sees the band descend into the audience, dissolving the barrier between performer and consumer to truly transform the night into a celebration of living.
From here, the night begins to come a close, but the energy shows no signs of decreasing; if anything, as the band launch into ‘Another Glass’, the buzz in the room goes up another notch. It’s the sound of youthful, jazz-infused hedonism, egging you on to have a night out that you won’t forget but your wallet might regret. Things truly explode, however, when the band invite guest rapper MC David onto the stage, and the band’s single takes on an entirely new persona. His vocal delivery is vibrant and slick, rounded out with a distinct 00’s grit, complimenting the indie funk of Roscoe Street in the most electrifying way. The crowd absolutely adore it, completely thrown by the band’s total defiance of doing what is expected of them.
As the band close up the night’s proceedings with one last original number, ‘Russian Roulette’, MC David still on stage, you can’t help but wish that the band might yet pull out a few more songs, or maybe simply refuse to bring the show to an end. Music can be an incredibly powerful tool, and to say that all music should be devoid of political and social messaging is nonsensical and frankly anti-music. However, in an era of constant, never ending gloom, Roscoe Street offer something equally as important: pure, unadulterated fun. What this sextet provides is a vital reminder that, despite it all, there is an incredible amount of fun and joy to be had in life, perhaps just beyond the doors of a local music venue. Sometimes to have fun can be the most defiant thing of all.
So let Roscoe Street get you another glass, and get back on that dance floor.
Featured photo credit belongs to @dylancoxmedia.
Follow the artists on social media below:
Georgia Johnson
Là Jibà
Hungry
Instagram // Spotify // Bandcamp
Roscoe Street
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