These American boys well and truly won us over
We love a bit of Mt. Joy here at One on One HQ. After all, there’s not much about them that we don’t like. A knack for writing stadium-sized folk-pop songs? Check. Sounding a little bit like a cross between Mumford & Sons and Kaleo, complete with the former’s hands-in-the-air choruses and the latter’s beautifully distinctive vocal abilities? Check. Oh, and the enviable ability to permanently look like they just walked out of some super-cool musicians’ community in Los Angeles that you’re not even remotely cool enough to be invited into? Check, check, and check.
We knew we couldn’t miss this gig
Naturally, it goes without saying that we try and see as many of the bands we like in concert – after all, live music is Kinda Our Thing. So, when we found out that Mt. Joy were hitting our glorious hometown on their mammoth European tour, we knew that we just had to be there.
We went, we danced, and we had a good time; and, as luck would have it, we even learnt a thing or two while we were there. Want to know what we learnt, dear reader? Well, just read on and find out:
1) They’ve got a stupidly underrated back catalogue
Sure, you might’ve heard a couple of the singles – Silver Lining, perhaps, or Astrovan – but did you realise how many great songs Mt. Joy have written that you probably haven’t heard yet?
It’s a case of ‘each to their own’, of course, but we really do think that some of the band’s best tracks might just be the ‘lil hidden gems that they tuck away in the middle of their album/setlists/random Spotify playlists and wait for people to find them of their own accord, rather than the ones that have been splashed all over the mainstream radio and blogs for the last however many months.
2) They’re strangely impervious to electric shocks
For all their joys, there are some downsides to touring some of the UK’s smaller, more independent venues. One of these, on this particular occasion, may or may not have been that the lead singer of the band received a minor electric shock every time he got within ten centimetres of the microphone at this show. Still, it didn’t seem to bother him, and they still delivered a great show – that, dear reader, is what we call Rock And Roll.
3) They’ve got rather good taste in support acts
Emil Landman wasn’t a name who was on our radar before this show, but he sure as hell is now. With his dry wit, butter-wouldn’t-melt voice, and indisputable boyish charms, we fail to see how anybody could not fall in love with him – oh, and he happens to have mastered the knack of writing gorgeous, sensitive, and instantly memorable folk-rock songs, too. What a git.
4) And, finally, they know how to give the people what they want
They came, they played the hits, and they dropped a snippet of Ain’t No Sunshine into their set for good measure. If that ain’t a crowd-pleaser, then we’re not sure what is.