Inspirition - Dusk Till Dawn

Inspirition appear to be a woman with a splash of pink hair and a turquoise shawl over a Katie-Jane Garside dress, and a grey bearded gentleman on guitar.

Could have been a jazz singer in a previous life, but tonight Matthew she's going to be Kate Bush. The chap is going to be the tuition cover CD from Total Guitar magazine.


They've come from the west country to be with us tonight and left the rest of the band at home. They could have done with bringing a backing tape with them, rather than this. Its not mixed right, the vocals make you wince occasionally and the guitar needs reverb and the treble turned down a smidgen.

I've heard Kate Bush-alikes with lone axe accompaniment before, and its rarely done well. Here its abrasive when it ought to be more gentle.

There's something of the Tortoise Shout about her and the introductions to the songs, she's got a good voice, its just tonight its packed wrong, I bet they sound great on record


Hang on a moment, shouldn't this place be called "Dusk 'Til Dawn" rather than "Dusk Till Dawn"? For typographic reasons I'll let them off the missing apostrophe but misspelling the abbreviated 'until' seems a bit more wrong. Hmm, oh my mistake. As you were.

Witness To The Beard - Dusk Till Dawn

Officially the finest band name of 2009, Witness To The Beard are a London-based three-piece, I know the drummer off of the internetz.

Dusk Till Dawn is an odd wee venue, in the middle the Archway roundabout. Its a warm night so there's a crowd drinking outside, but inside its starting to fill up for Witness To The Beard's second ever gig. Some day these people will be proud members of 'the Beard Army.

They start off a little grungey I thought, but then it carries you away on a wave of roughed up Kingmaker riffs and Longpigs howling. They've got a rare appreciation for guitar hooks, and the tall bass chap does some neat noodling.

The grunge gives way to some nice warm fuzzy bluesy numbers, like a duvet soaked in hot totty. But the White Stripes cover felt a wee bit flat, aiming to be like the original version when they could have made it more their own.

Then a weird thing happens that catches me off-guard, the guitar and bass players swap round, the drummer swaps round her drum sticks and they start to sound like The Fall.

All shouts and jagged chord changes. Hammering into yer heid like rusty railroad spikes. Its wondeful.

The Beard Army's chanting 'Witness! Witness! Witness!' between songs is strangely infectious.

Some songs come over like The Hector Collectors have grown a set of balls. A final cutdown medley of rock hooks, kind of like the Witness equivalent of !!!!111!!roflcopter!!

Truly they are the future sound of London rock, and one day we shall all bear Witness To The Beard.