The Whybirds, Baedeker, Amy and the Integrals, Harriet Langley, Johnny Mudd.

Lev 2 Esquires Bedford. 19th December 2009.

The turnout is poor, in relative terms, for the headliners The WHYBIRDS. Back on 7th November, myself and a few of the hardier locals travelled down to Highbury Garage to support their "Cold Blue Sky" album launch. The gumption showed in promoting it in London is a gamble that pays off. The venue is packed and the atmosphere is red hot. The Whybirds play a stormer. Tonight is rather flat in comparison. The quartet are ever professional and give it their best. Their predominantly hairy faces are full of lugubrious concentration. The quartet's maverick instincts are in line with the innovations and poetry of country folk, but always delivered with a rock and roll heart. It creates a timeless feel. They deliver some sweetly disillusioned and magically perceptive songs that draw from the former's pallette. It still eludes adequate description as it combines elements of the Wild West fed through to the alcohol stale streets of the almost-wild East Beds. They continue to be a band with so many strings to their bow. A songwriting basis that consists of clever wordplays, wonderful expressions of emotion, and a full on fusion of both a country idiom entangled with rustic rock. Check out "Mona Lisa", "Morning Light" and "Girl is on Fire". They enrapture this reviewer totally, without any doubt.

Opening is JOHNNY MUDD. Confident, he is joined early on by Ms Amy Integral for a duo of "Shy that Way". An earlier "Someone to Live For" is an impressive taster. Johnny explains to us that he thought it would be easy to write new stuff, but it's not. He seems to end up with bits of songs which, sometimes, can be tagged together. His interplay with the audience is clear and precise as he explains a story, prior to "When will I see your face again", Apparently, a housemate of Johnny's had asked him to sing more falsetto which he does on a cover by Jamie Scott. His debut airing of "In the Distance" is also worthy of note.

Unfortunately, due to the recent bad weather, tonight's guest acoustic artist from Norfolk, Jess Morgan, is not able to travel. Safety is paramount. Replacing her at very short notice is HARRIET LANGLEY, who virtually reproduces last night's set. She does throw in "Crazy", which I don't think she played last night (?).

AMY AND THE INTEGRALS are finally reunited for this pre-Christmas gig, of which Amy is certainly excited. The set is chilled with strumming guitar work. Effortless vocals and a relaxed smiling face, it reminds one of hot summer's day, even though tonight is one of the coldest nights of the year.

BAEDEKER are, to be perfectly fair to all the other bands tonight, a class apart. With cerebral rock outs, their gargantuan formula is massive, with crashing walls of sound aplenty. Just putting it simply, these monolithic psychedelic rockers Matt, Dan and Nick offer a thirty minute splash of quite awesome stoner majesty. As can happen at times, they are so out of sync with everything else on show tonight. They are only a trio, but sound engineer Caz extracts so much from her controls that the resulting effect is more like a six piece. This sound is worthy and truly of the infamous Baedeker blitz. The Baedeker tourist guide is imprinted in history through those terrible explosions which were heard and felt some nearly seventy years ago. Tonight, belatedly, they hit Bedford town centre.