The Hoosiers @ Rough Trade East, London (Live Review)
- Published in Live
The Hoosiers
Rough Trade East
Words & Pics by Captain Stavros
Big choruses, bigger merch pitches
There’s a very specific kind of London in-store crowd: diehards pressed shoulder-to-shoulder beneath low lighting, clutching fresh vinyl copies like sacred texts, already mouthing every lyric before the first chord lands. Some bloke next to us spent the opening minutes humming what few lyrics he could remember to Phil Collins’ ‘Easy Lover’ louder than the venue playlist itself while his son complained his free pint was “too cold” before abandoning it on the floor. Secretly, we wanted to volley it clear across Rough Trade East. By the time Irwin Sparkes shuffled onstage at Rough Trade East for their album release show on Friday night, the room was already won over. The queue had wrapped itself into absurdity long before doors and inside was a strangely wholesome cross-section of people — older couples, indie kids, thirty-something nostalgics, first-timers dragged along by friends. Packed out, but notably free of the usual aggro. No shoving, no beer-launching alpha behaviour. Just a room full of people ready to sing every word back at the band.
Which they did. Loudly. Constantly. Sometimes louder than the PA itself.
That enthusiasm carried the night further than the performance did.
Support arrived in the form of one lone guitar-wielding wanderer, Irwin Sparkes, pacing the perimeter before eventually taking to the stage like a busker who’d accidentally stumbled into a label showcase. Technically, he was solid: sharp guitar work, clean sound, all nervy energy and falsetto elasticity. The crowd bought in quickly. Even sceptics had to admit the musicianship throughout the evening was mostly tight.
Mostly.
Because, for a band launching a new record, the actual music often felt secondary to everything orbiting around it. A glance at the setlist suggested at least 11 tracks planned, yet barely half seemed to materialise in full. Songs were repeatedly interrupted by sprawling bits of banter, self-congratulation and increasingly relentless merch pushing. Vinyl. Cassettes. Downloads. Tour plugs. More plugs. Another reminder to buy the album — an album most people in the room had already purchased in order to attend. The irony hung thick in the air.
And while frontman charisma can usually paper over pacing issues, the pauses here became terminal. After just two songs came a drinks break. Between tracks, momentum leaked out of the room in real time. Audience participation was encouraged so often it started feeling less like connection and more like stalling for time.
At one point the duo asked the crowd what they wanted to hear, only for the illusion of spontaneity to collapse almost immediately: “Oh yes, that’s the one I wanted to play.” It summed up the evening’s biggest issue. Nothing felt particularly malicious — just oddly manufactured. Every gesture of inclusivity or compassion came with an undertow of calculation.
That tonal whiplash became increasingly difficult to ignore. One minute: earnest speeches about the state of the world and the importance of kindness. The next: sarcastic cracks about firing crew members or exhausted-tour-life moaning after less than a week on the road. The messaging zig-zagged wildly between heartfelt and hollow. Even songs framed as emotional revelations about finding their “voice” sat awkwardly beside lyrics about Hollywood excess and big-booty girls in LA.
Still, when the band actually played, glimpses of why people connected with them in the first place came flooding back. The crowd knew every line by heart. Choruses detonated around the room with genuine warmth. There’s clearly affection for this band that time hasn’t eroded. And instrumentally, things were competent enough, even if the Alan Sharland’s drumming occasionally stumbled over fills and missed cues that threatened to derail otherwise polished arrangements.
The audience were already there with them, invested. Every chorus came back twice as loud from the crowd, every pause filled with cheers and applause. They didn’t need selling to. But between the endless plugs for vinyl, cassettes, downloads and the upcoming autumn tour, the night slowly stopped feeling like a celebration and started resembling a particularly upbeat shareholders meeting. Had the band leaned into the music instead of trying to constantly manage the atmosphere around it, this could’ve been something genuinely moving. They didn’t need to be sold to every three minutes.
Instead, the night landed in a frustrating middle ground: a technically decent performance undermined by bloated pacing and strangely disingenuous crowd work. The fans supplied the heart; the band kept interrupting it.
Maybe that’s the danger of nostalgia gigs in intimate spaces. Sometimes proximity reveals too much. Sometimes “never meet your heroes” isn’t cynicism — it’s quality control.
Stick with the album.
