This is an excerpt of an article written by Tom Girard
With the summer festival season now well and truly in the rear view mirror it seems to have become a bit of a tradition for The Vault to put on a particularly great night as we move into autumn.
Last year it came from SugarSlam and Granite Wolf, and this year, as the weather began to shift, The Honest Crooks and Clameur De Haro looked to be the ones doing the honours.
It was the six piece affectionately known as The Clams who kicked off what had been billed as a contest between the two bands (thanks to one of the better gig posters of recent memory and really little else) and they launched into their set in typically fun style.
With the band crammed onto the small stage, as they warmed up so did the audience in the already busy venue with both their ‘bluegrass’ versions of famous tracks and their own songs going down well and getting people dancing and singing along.
A couple of new additions to the set came with covers of Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love and The Rolling Stones Paint It Black while even someone throwing up in the middle of the venue didn’t seem to put the audience off as Clameur De Haro continued to prove they are one of the most reliably fun bands in the island and as suited to a rowdy Friday night in town as they are anywhere.
Tonight The Honest Crooks were taking something of a step back in time appearing in their original three-piece form.
With that in mind they launched into an uproarious set of their brand of ska punk mixing their own songs with covers, including a few we’ve not heard from them in sometime.
The audience helped out providing some of the saxophone parts and both band and crowd were having a great time even as things fell apart a bit on a cover of Rancid’s Radio and the Crooks own song Rain & Shine where bass player (and almost birthday boy) Cheese had to take on vocal duties as Raddy couldn’t stopped laughing.
In some situations this might have been disastrous but here tonight, with the crowd firmly onside and all in the fun spirit, it just made for a show that felt like a fun blast from the past that all culminated with a tremendous run at A-Ha’s Take On Me with the audience and band singing in unison.
As it was billed as a contest I’ll continue with that conceit but can only really say that it was a score draw (though far more interesting than that might sound) as both bands made for a great night’s entertainment easily making us forget the change of seasons outside with summery sounds aplenty.
