Quebec Spring

The Old Blue Last

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Inside Quebec Spring’s Beautifully Unhinged London Takeover

If the walls of The Old Blue Last could talk, we’d be in a lot of trouble (all of us), fortunately tonight there’d be more singing than talking. The last to make it through the door we’re first shredded for our attire (Oilers jersey) by Sarah the Quebec delegate in charge of international publicity and then hustled upstairs with a non-descript envelope shoved into our hand. Hawa B’s on stage and her set is kicking off.

She’s on stage, solo, framed by a crisp white spot. Picture a Targaryen with long cream coloured dreads that dangle loosely past her butt. She’s got a strangle hold on the mic, and her voice is that of a siren. It takes a lot of guts to get up on a stage, solo, with what’s probably an insane amount of jetlag, but there’s no cooling her jets, she’s off like a rocket. Her voice control, and range, is exceptional as it is unpredictable. Scratchy, full and low, or banshee-esque it’s a roll of the dice and you get whatcha get.

There’s a point on stage where she begins to twerk, it’s maddeningly hypnotic, and we know she knows it. She pops sly glances over the shoulder in-between gyrations. She finishes her set in the same manner a hot air balloon rises, only in reverse. She pushes out the last of the hot air out of her with a force that lifts her off her stool. She disappears off stage and into the crowd as her backing track vanishes along with her. A bedroom burlesque set culminates in a full chorus of ‘wooooooooooooos’ from the audience. Our throat is hoarse from whooping along with them.

There’s a break where we peruse the contents of the envelope. There are instructions for a social game and… drink tickets! Libations are served and introductions/reunions are baptised in tequila. We run into a few Mothland label reps, who not only have a critical eye for budding talent but are a ripping good time. Catching up, we’re introduced to Cultural Directrice, Ingried Boussaroque, who’s not only helped organise this bangin’ soiree but is also a multi-instrumentalist themselves (and amateur whiskey aficionado). We chin-wag about the importance of bringing people together, dragging them out of their flats and into venues to experience music live and the importance of keeping the exchanges of cultural ideas free flowing and alive. We couldn’t agree more. She palms a raffle ticket into our hands and says, “Good luck”, even though we’ve done nothing to earn either. We miss out on every prize including the grand prize (a trip to Montreal) by literally one number, and a pair of tickets to the sold out Angine de Poitrine that very night. Still though, we can’t help but feel fortunate for just getting to be here. The crowd’s a vibe and the scene is buzzing (and so are we after a few more tequilas). We’re asked to line up along the stage for thank-you prizes which are FLASKS FULL OF BOURBON!

Next up, we have the completely un-hinged Annie-Claude Deschênes who represents the energy of a Mogwai that’s had water poured on it. She announces that she got off a plane four hours ago but doesn’t look the part. She oozes the slick trash goth core vibes of Italians Do It Better with a powder pink pastel foundation locked in and framed by a ruby red do. Annie clutches a half empty uncorked bottle of wine with the supermarket security tag still around its neck, ‘it was a gift!’.

Annie is a party in a pair of slip-on Vans, a dark wave pop punk. She’s a huge presence in a tiny package, like her tunes, she’s TNT. The set is as performative in as much as it’s an event horizon, no one is safe but they’ll all be fed. She bounces off stage with disinfectant spray and a rag cleaning a table, and setting it for two. She feeds the two (un)lucky audience members a smorgasbord of disgusting gelatinous shapes of different viscosities. This was only track two. As the set progressed, there was no safe place for anyone, or their drinks. We tried to put our pint down, multiple times, but it just kept bouncing and rattling towards the nearest edge, her set deaf-ined a new level of mega-sound. Her dank-ass beats slapped to-fuck and reminded us of the early years of DFA, music that sounded like dinosaurs fighting. By the end, she’s wrangled everyone into the pool, the stage, for a dance-off while plastering them with mouthfuls of whipped-cream straight from the can. Annie looked like she was psyching herself up for a fight more than pumping out the set for a dance, and we’re here for it.

The set ends and 50 pizzas show up. Everyone is stuffing their mouths with slices of molten cheese; smiles pulled taught from ear to ear. The night is electric. ‘Hey, CAPTAIN!’, is shouted at us. We look over the crowd to see the bespeckled Marilyne ‘The Sqwanch’ Lacombe hopping up and down. They were heading to Camden and we were invited,  Angine de Poitrine was on the agenda, and we were on the list. Fucking-eh. We bopped our way over, got in, the Electric Ballroom was packed to the brim, the gig was out of this world, and the night was unforgettable. You, dear friends, still have time to catch the aforementioned and MUCH MUCH MORE! They’re touring all through the weekend and beyond. Catch ‘em while you can and tell ‘em the Captain sentcha. 

The Pale White

The 100 Club

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Take It Off (Or Don’t): The Pale White Bring the Heat

There are at least 100 exhaled breaths hitting us like the backdraft from a fry kitchen extractor as we descend into the 100 Club. Acclimatising, we crane heavenward for answers and instead get a ceiling snaked with metal conduits and—wow—the highest concentration of broken zip ties ever witnessed. Our eyes track the chaos down to the two-metre-tall ‘100’, looming over a bass drum stamped with The Pale White in a A Clockwork Orange-style stencil. Oh, my brothers.

The Pale White—Adam and Jack Hope, plus Scott Hepple of the Sun Band—three Newcastle lads who look like they’ve slipped a time vortex and come back swinging. Adam dons a Canadian tuxedo, Jack’s in a Lennon-era “New York City” ringer tee, and Scott’s rocking something he probably outgrew in Year 8, paired with a pair of bootcut trousers that button in the back. The tunes follow suit: a mash-up of styles that shouldn’t work but absolutely do.

Opening with ‘Lost in the Moment’ is bang on—so is the crowd. Everyone’s up, belting it back. ‘Moth in the Headlights’ follows, snapping at its heels with an aggressive kick drum that sets the tone for the night. Adam’s vocals flirt with falsetto—think The Darkness—but pull the chute just in time, settling into a slow, rising hum like a mate spinning a yarn in a packed pub.

“We just released two albums in one year, how about that?” Adam tosses out, low-key flexing (Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal energy). Fair play—it’s no small feat. He asks for hands up across the room, like we’ve all just been yelled at to freeze. Is this the new 6–7? Who knows.

‘Absolute Cinema’ lands next, all Queens of the Stone Age circa Songs for the Deaf swagger. Around here, Adam pivots to stage banter via heat complaints and starts taking bets on how long the tux lasts. A chorus of “TAKE IT OFF!” rains down—largely from the women in the room. ‘I’m Sorry’ goes big: wall-climbing antics and Jack absolutely decimating the tubs.

‘Göbekli Tepe’ swings in heavy—literally. There’s friendly fire; the boat’s rocking and casualties are inevitable. Scott Hepple takes a bass headstock to the noggin courtesy of Alfred (and the Sun Band), but the mop top absorbs most of it. Soldier on.

Truth is, it’s hard to watch anyone but Jack. With premeditated chaos, he steals the show—working the kit like it owes him money, lighting cigarettes on a powder keg, mugging for cameras mid-assault.

So, what do we take from it? Easy to dream about floating off in a hot air balloon, away from it all—but good luck getting a pilot’s licence. The band stagger off spent, running on fumes, then rally for the die-hards with a cover of ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’ and ‘Nostradamus’. And that’s that.

We’ll leave you with Adam’s earlier wisdom: “Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened.”

The Pale White are on tour now—we reckon you’ll dig the gig.

Jens Lekman

EartH

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Something Borrowed, Something Bleak

It’s been more than two decades since Jens Lekman first drifted onto our radar — back when both he and we had hair, and the internet still felt like a series of whispered secrets rather than a shouting match. One of those secrets arrived in the form of a grainy clip: Lekman, unfussed, sardonic, wedged between the fuzz in the back of a police van. It was enough to hook you. It just took 22 years for the story to come full circle.

Fast forward to a brisk Saturday night at EartH — a venue that feels less like a gig space and more like an H.R. Giger-designed shuttle hangar dropped into Dalston — where those paths finally crossed. Cavernous, a little cold, faintly surreal: the perfect setting, as it turns out, for Lekman’s peculiar brand of emotional theatre.

This wasn’t a standard tour stop. The evening hinged on Songs for Other People’s Weddings, a collaborative project with author David Levithan, who appeared intermittently throughout like a narrator slipping between dimensions. Opening the set with spoken word — unconventional, a touch disarming — Levithan set the tone for a performance that refused to sit still.

Visually, it was somewhere between a wedding reception and a fever dream. The band looked like they’d raided a jumble sale en route: grooms, ushers, a rogue cowboy. No cohesion, yet entirely cohesive. Off to one side, a guitarist tuned up beside a conjoined mannequin, its arm threaded eerily through a jacket sleeve — the kind of detail you might miss if you blink, but once seen, impossible to forget.

Lekman himself eased things into motion with a series of cooing nonlexical vocals — delicate, precise, quietly magnetic. It’s always been his trick: drawing you in not with bombast, but with something subtler, stranger. His songs live in the in-between — the emotional grey areas most artists sidestep — and here, that sensibility felt magnified.

There was a tension running through the performance: the band, visually stiff and almost statuesque, while their sound moved with fluidity and warmth. Clarinet, saxophone and flute weaved through the arrangements — a reminder of how rarely these textures get their due in live indie shows. Meanwhile, lyrics danced between sincerity and mischief, casually dropping references as jarring as “the human centipede” into songs ostensibly about love and marriage.

And then there’s Lekman himself — the quiet one you don’t quite trust. The kind who, if a chair suddenly collapsed beneath you, might be found moments later with sawdust on his cuff and a hacksaw tucked out of sight. There’s a playfulness to him, but also a sense that he’s always one step ahead of the room.

Levithan would reappear at intervals, prompting the crowd — at one point urging everyone to shout where they’d come from. The response was chaotic, global, human. His musings veered philosophical: “last” as an adjective, “last” as a verb. In the context of weddings — and by extension, relationships — it lingered in the air. End, or endure?

Backlit, Lekman cast long, wavering shadows across the amphitheatre walls, his silhouette dancing high above the aisles as if the venue itself had become part of the performance. And vocally? Time has done nothing to dull him. If anything, his voice has deepened, gained a resonance that anchors even the lightest moments.

After a two-hour first half — yes, really — the shift was inevitable. Ceremony gave way to party. Jackets were slung over mic stands, drinks appeared in hands, the band loosened. Lekman announced it plainly: the wedding was over, now came the celebration.

What followed was a run through the back catalogue that felt both generous and inevitable. For the die-hards, it was the moment everything clicked into place. Songs that had lived in headphones for years finally breathed in the room — and didn’t disappoint.

By the time the encores roll around, the atmosphere has tipped fully into something communal. Lekman shares a story about a Japanese band covering one of his songs — he’d been enjoying it, blissfully unaware, until the slow realisation dawned that it was his own work being reflected back at him. There’s something quietly profound in that: the rare chance to experience your art without the weight of authorship.

It brings to mind Scott Walker, who once said he’d listen to an album exactly once after finishing it — loudly, intensely — because he knew he’d never return to it again. A kind of self-imposed distance between creator and creation. Back to Lekman, and you get the sense he’s lived in that same space for years, only now catching a glimpse of his music as the rest of us hear it.

We’re reminded, too, of a hazy encounter with Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan — somewhere between tequila shots and poor decisions — asking her what it felt like to create the very music she loved dancing to. The answer? Lost to the night, somewhere between the bar and The Dolphin. But the question lingers here, in this room, as Lekman stands centre stage, hearing his songs come back to him from a hundred different voices.

The night closed, fittingly, with ‘Black Cab’ — a request bellowed early and answered late. As Lekman softly strummed, the crowd took over, singing it back to him in full. A quiet, collective handover. Performer to audience. Creator to creation.

Multiple standing ovations followed, though leaving proved harder than applauding — bottlenecked exits forcing everyone to linger just a little longer. Not that anyone seemed to mind. The performance had already settled in, refusing to be shaken off too quickly.

Some gigs entertain. Others stick. This one — strange, funny, thoughtful, quietly subversive — did the latter.

Matthew C. Whitaker

The MOTH

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Biscuits, Banter and the Omnichord

A glitter-bombed stage and a curtain of gold tinsel greeted the audience at The MOTH last Saturday — the sort of shimmering, slightly tacky décor that feels half cabaret, half community hall disco. Front and centre sat Matthew C. Whitaker, looking like he’d wandered in from a sun-bleached coastline somewhere, with an open Hawaiian shirt and a mane of hair that had the air of seaweed dried in salty wind.

Whatever the room lacked in subtlety, the music quickly made up for it.

This was a seated show, which suited the mood. As the lights dimmed and the usual pre-gig chatter dissolved into a sea of polite shushing, Whitaker was already deep into a feverish strum — something that felt faintly indebted to the flamenco urgency of Spanish Caravan. His small-bodied acoustic guitar sat perched on his thigh like a prized catch, the amplified tone crisp and articulate.

The opening number, ‘You Can Only Let Us Down’, set a sombre tone. Whitaker himself acknowledged it moments later with a grin: “A bit of a downer, wasn’t it? Just had to get it off my chest.”

From there, the set loosened up. Violinist Alan Shunya joined him on stage, adding texture and variety to the follow-up material. Whitaker joked about “pitting up my songs with his bits and bobs,” but the pairing worked beautifully. Tracks from the upcoming album Songs for the Weary — including the jaunty ‘Chestnut Tree’ — brought a warmer, more playful energy. A smooth undercurrent of bass hummed beneath delicate strings, the whole thing vibrating with quiet confidence.

Whitaker’s stage presence is half the charm. Between songs he bantered freely with the crowd, interrogating a front-row punter about quitting cigarettes before abruptly deciding it was time to get on with the show. The audience lapped it up — heads nodding in rhythm, a steady ripple of laughter throughout the room.

Material from his first album, Feud, made an appearance too. Whitaker delivered a cheeky low-key brag about selling out the vinyl pressing (“all gone… three years ago”), before launching into a piece that sounded like revenge on horseback — galloping rhythms and inherited grudges wrapped in warm folk instrumentation.

A highlight came midway through the set with a sprawling mini-suite drawn from Songs for the Weary: a megamix-like overture that eventually flowed into ‘Mind How You Go’. The instrumental introduction stretched luxuriously, electric keys sliding in alongside a newly electrified bass. It built into a kind of sonic smorgasbord — part folk, part experimental gadgetry — even featuring a tiny theremin-like flourish. It was easily the most technically adventurous moment of the night, and the crowd responded with an enthusiastic (and slightly premature) “wooo” from somewhere behind the bar.

Whitaker acknowledged the interruption with a smirk. Apparently, it had never happened before.

Later came ‘Bones’, driven by sharp skeletal plucks that clattered through the mix while softer strums floated around them. The mood tipped toward the eerie — an intrepid little ghost story in musical form. Around this point, plates of biscuits mysteriously began circulating through the audience, passed along the rows like communion wafers for the mildly folk-curious.

Not everything landed equally. A couple of songs from the Henge project felt more like curiosities than centrepieces, and even Whitaker seemed slightly tentative performing them. Still, the occasional rhythmic wobble was handled with good-natured humour, and the audience remained firmly onside.

Before the end came perhaps the most unexpected moment of the night. As Whitaker introduced a Suzuki Omnichord, promising “sleazy jazz beats” if there were any children in the room, his bandmate quietly slipped off stage mid-show — apparently for a swift and entirely unannounced bathroom break. Whitaker carried on regardless, coaxing frantic foxtrot rhythms from the Omnichord at maximum speed while the temporary absence became part of the evening’s loose, slightly chaotic charm.

The encore — ‘Whisky Cats’ followed by ‘Valerian Tea’ — closed things on a slyly comedic note. The latter, in particular, had the unmistakable feel of a lost sitcom theme: the most Peep Show-adjacent tune you’re likely to hear outside the show itself.

Even if folk-leaning oddities like this aren’t normally your thing, Whitaker’s charisma and musicianship make it difficult not to get swept along. Beneath the jokes, biscuits and omnichords lies a genuinely talented songwriter — one capable of turning a glitter-drenched room into something quietly captivating for an evening.