Slow Club, Union Chapel, London

I’m late to the Slow Club party. Not fashionably late but proper ooops-this-is-embarrassing late. It’s my fault, knew they existed but never really paid attention, never gave them a chance until late this year when the name was casually thrown into a Summer Camp review. A quick listen later and… oh my days. Palm of hand thuds into forehead, powered by bitter self-recrimination. Twice.

So, yes, I regret finding Slow Club late, and after tonight I kind of regret finding out about them at all. Can’t bear to think what I’ve missed, feel sick at the thought of not seeing the early shows. God, they must have been so sweetly messy and shambolic - that‘s a positive by the way, I hearts sweetly messy and shambolic. Would love to have seen the switched-on fiery wits of Rebecca and Charles clash good-naturedly then collapse into giggles over the years too. But regrets ain’t good for you. It’s all about the here and now. And the here and now is, oh man, it’s really very, very great. The two of them blessed with genuine warmth, chemistry and slightly coy charm. Charles has a lovely new stripy t-shirt and Rebecca, well, I’d wondered if I‘d have any difficulty reconciling @SlowClubRebecca with real-life on-stage Rebecca, but it‘s pretty much the same thing; straightforward pure Yorkshireness, honestly funny and funnily honest, just a few less mentions of Harry Styles. Their excitement at having touts outside is delightful: ‘We’re like New Young Pony Club or something’, is cutely typical of their understatement and what seems to be a vaguely over-whelmed bafflement at their popularity and at the devotion that’s flooding from this crowd. A crowd that soaks up everything, whether it’s Slow Club classics (they play ‘Because We‘re Dead’, I couldn’t ask for more), gorgeous new tracks or a magically enthused romp through ‘Darlene Love’s Christmas’ masterpiece. C’mon you know which one.

Here’s the thing: I really, really like and I totally love Slow Club. Here’s how and when: I really, really like Slow Club when they’re sparse and brittle, a guitar, a gold drum and that mind-blowing voice taking easy advantage of the acoustics in this chapel. When those hand-on-heart, heart-on-sleeve (yeah, it’s a messy business) lyrics are crystal clear and we get to savour the wordy interplay and the blazing sincerity. When they’re like that those lazy descriptions of them as folksy twees are exposed as hopelessly inadequate. It’s powerful, raw and kinda brutal.

And when do I love them? I love them when they’re Riot, when they’re Noise. You know in Where The Wild Things Are? When Max hollers ‘let the wild rumpus start’ and all those beautiful monsters go whooping, hollering and chasing? When it’s cacophony and chaos? When the beating heart that’s driving it louder, wilder and more delirious is powered by crazed exuberance and pure super-joy? That’s Slow Club at their best. They sweep you off your feet. They triple your pulse-rate. Close your eyes, throw back your head and howl along with them. They leave you exalted, exhilarated and exhausted. And when they do that, then that’s when I love Slow Club.

Because I’m late to their party the distinction between new and old is a little blurred here. I’ve mainlined the records but live it’s all fresh to me. What I know to be new sounds lush though. Not more grown-up (since when has more grow-up ever been a good thing in pop music?), but definitely evolving and redefining their template; a couple of rough edges knocked out, and a couple more in their place. Typical of their stealth-like growth (Shepherd’s Bush Empire next year? Wow.) the progress seems natural and unforced. No hype-generated crash’n’burn here, instead a band getting bigger and better through word-of-mouth, through releasing quality, through, y’know, learning, improving, getting smarter. It’s like the olden days. It can only be healthy. The world could be theirs. The Grammy is assured. And from here on in I’m gonna be there too (pretending I was there all along).