Remember the End of Year Ball? Let us refresh your memory…
Kate Nash
You either love her or you hate her. And for those that love Kate Nash, she is sufficiently cute and cockney so as not to disappoint. She sings her way through quirky song after quirky song and has a good bang at her piano. Foundations has almost the whole crowd singing, as everyone who knows Kate Nash certainly knows this song. She includes in the set her own ‘message’ to the graduating students. This message is ‘You don’t have to suck cock to succeed’. She then makes this line into a painfully repetitive song that even the most avid of Kate lovers get bored of by the end.
Her live performance is a reminder to most that she is indeed a product from the Brit School. Compared to The Subways’ performance later in the night; her’s contains little excitement and passion. Throughout her set it is the enthusiasm of the crowd that makes her performance, rather than her own talent.
Harriet Shepherd
The Subways
For those of you who don’t know, The Subways are an indie rock band whose best known song, ‘Rock and Roll Queen,’ was used to promote Rock ‘n’ Rolla and used in a cosmetic advert as well. Their performance was met by an over energetic audience which seemed appropriate as The Subways were extremely active with a combination of well known songs from their debut album Young for Eternity as well as songs from their second album All or Nothing.
Front man Billy Lunn interacted with the audience, getting them involved, to the point where someone threw a shoe on the stage. Songs such as ‘Rock and Roll Queen’ and ‘Girls and Boys’ really got the crowd going, and for a small stage the acoustics were great and the vocals weren’t drowned by heavy drum beats or a guitar that’s a little too loud, as so many small gigs tend to be these days.
Tom Lewis
Lethal Bizzle
What’s his name? Bizzle. Lethal Bizzle. And as much as watching his videos on YouTube might convince you otherwise, he’s not just about stupid sunglasses, and acting like he’s the best thing out of South London since, well, North London.
Unsurprisingly, Grime (the dirty, heavy rap you probably know Dizzee Rascal for) translates extremely well to a live venue. While it might all seem a bit repetitive on a music video – a little self-indulgant or, God forbid, boring – when you’re standing in Asylum with half a bottle of wine and a beat that doesn’t so much pound as wade stylishing, you tend to have a good time. A few surprising twists turned a set that might not have been received too well into something fairly spectacular. Flourishes like dropping in House of Pain’s Jump Around with, of course, Lethal’s own rhymes, or adding More Fire Crew’s Oi made something that could have been somewhat inaccessible into something furiously good to dance to.
While people at the back seemed less enthusiastic, the dancefloor was packed and truly electric. A highlight was Pow, followed by the entire crowd booing out of Asylum the one idiot that tried to start a fight. Overall, if you have even a passing interest in dance music you’ll never hear outside of Crystal Clear, or rap you’ll rarely hear at all, Lethal B put on a set worth seeing.
Turville Young
Colin Murray
When Colin Murray took to the Asylum decks, there were many weary punters on the dance floor. After an exhausting evening of merriment and mayhem, who could possible carry on for another couple of hours? But in no time at all he helped us all find our dancing feet again. While it wasn’t the cool electronica extravaganza some were hoping for if Zane Lowe had been there, Murray played everybody’s favourites (even if nobody will admit it). Playing an eclectic set, with everything from Gogol Bordello to Rage Against The Machine to the Happy Days theme tune, he made sure that if you were there, you were having the time of your life – even if you wouldn’t remember it in the morning. Gulping shots between spinning records, proclaiming his love for the audience and crowd surfing his way to a finale, it was clear that Murray enjoyed each minute as much as the students did.
Lily Hayes
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