Ellen & The Escapades – The Railway, Winchester 09-11-11

Support: Matt Isaac, Vikram Singh and Stuart Blakeledge

Reading back through this, it turns out I’ve written a good 2 or three paragraphs of crap before getting to the important bit. Probably best if you skip that and start just somewhere around paragraph 6.

The fact I am writing again after a bit of a hiatus will probably tell you that I have something particularly worth writing about. You won’t have noticed that I’ve been on hiatus, which I why I’ve just said it, and you probably don’t care, but the point is, something either amazing or awful has crossed my path in recent times.

This was not the band I was planning to see on Wednesday night. In fact, I didn’t really know who I was seeing, or even if I’d be in Winchester.

I came down to see a friend of my girlfriend’s house-mate (When these connections bring you to places you wouldn’t otherwise have been they seem to become that much more significant) play at The Railway, a venue which has changed quite a bit since my friends used to play there during my college days.

Ellen & the Escapades hail from Leeds and a little bit of the research I have done since suggests they aren’t as obscure as I had previously believed (purely on the basis that none of us had heard of them, I will eventually stop inflating the worth of my own opinion/knowledge… one day!). In fact they have played at the Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds festivals and have been spotted by BBC Radio 1 , so there has certainly been some exposure and they are currently on a tour of the UK.

Anyway, that stuff is pretty irrelevant to the actual gig…

I don’t know if you have ever been to a gig or concert where you haven’t heard of the artists playing, or without even knowing the style of music? The bands playing were all generally folk biased and although the quality was there, it’s not normally my scene, so it was one of those evenings where I was appreciating what I was hearing without ever finding myself particularly involved. I didn’t really expect much to change when Ellen and some Escapades took to the stage, with some vague suggestion of wondering back home being floated amongst the group of us. Then…

The music started and Ellen simultaneously opened her mouth; my jaw dropped and I felt myself suddenly transfixed. She has one of those ridiculously amazing voices that just completely doesn’t belong on a mortal human. The kind of voice that made the likes Sinaed O’Connor or Stevie Nicks so special and so incredibly timeless, not that they offer a perfect comparison. When you read posters and reviews, the reviewers cleverly manage to throw in a few words and phrases to allow a snipped to be added to subsequent publicity. I’m not capable of that and my reviews would not look particularly impressive on publicity anyway, but I do kindof have one of those sentences for you, because for once, it’s appropriate… ‘Ellen and The Escapades offer a welcome change of pace from today’s pop music. Ellen, with a beautiful, haunting, effortless and almost visceral voice is enough to melt the coldest of hearts is ably supported by the rest of the band.’

The opening song, if memory serves (I don’t know many of them!) Was ‘Yours To Keep’ and of the 4 on their EP is my personal favourite. Musically there is a hint of Damien Rice and vocally, well, what else can I say really, it was this song that had me immediately hooked. It’s a more mellow number, which was followed up by a well mixed set of more bouncy and upbeat numbers, together with some of the slower numbers that burrow into you, tear out your emotions and smear them all over your face for the whole world to see.

With clear pop, folk and rock influences, Ellen & the Escapades are the type of band you would assume could easily slip into the public consciousness and help to bring music back from a dubstep induced implosion.

I have just learned that they will be playing in Guildford (my home-town) on 23rd November, right in the middle of my trip to Vegas. I am genuinely upset I won’t get to see them. But you can be pretty certain that the next time they are down south, you’ll find me there, probably stood in a mesmerized stupor (maybe even leaning against someone and dribbling) until they leave me, once again, pining.

5/5

764

Find them here and listen, lots: –

www.ellenandtheescapades.com
www.myspace.com/ellenandtheescapades
www.facebook.com/ellenandtheescapades
www.twitter.com/ellenescapades