Taking a break from their tour with collaborative album partners King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Mild High Club took on a sold out Leedβs Brudenell Social Club with their own recipe of psychedelic space sounds.
The internet search-elusive BIG (not surprising considering their name), a band of Leeds locals, began the night by offering us a few dreamy slacker rock tunes. βPlease Donβt Go Awayβ is entrancing, with grooving guitar and enthusiastic drums.
Aldous RH is Alexander Aldous Robinson Hewitt, who played his songs with a band of four others who β you couldnβt tell if he didnβt say so β had never practiced together before. Hewitt was nervous, he admitted, but it didnβt show. They played beautifully in a jazz-tinged set full of slow liquid guitar builds, velvet piano and svelte vocals that floated through the crowd β Prince and Pink Floyd in an impressive combination. βSensualityβ is a sleek little number with gooey funk synth. During their last song, everyone, band and crowd included, was invited to crouch to the ground and sing along, βWe all need a bed, son,β echoed through the room.
One thing we seem to get in England that doesnβt happen in the US is a crowd chanting along to an instrumental solo. Mild High Club frontman Alex Brettin had a little chuckle to himself as they sang along to a guitar solo, the room having already heated to boiling and a sea of heads filling every inch of Brudenellβs Community Room. A string of fairy lights made their way across the crowd, the most appropriate crowd surfing fit for the bandβs heavenly sunburst of a song in βHomage.β
A switch of instruments and a shift to classical piano sounds brings jam outros abound, transforming the room into a worthy jazz salon. As celebratory smoke rises from various points in the crowd β βIβd be happy to smoke that with you laterβ β they close on the ever-loved βWindowpaneβ with the sounds of (Mild High Club-staple) glittery surreal harpsichords.