Gig review: High House

Back in summer 2012 when I was working at a local radio station - Stafford Music Festival had taken place, ending, as it usually does with a day of live music outside Stafford Castle. At this event local unsigned band High House performed (unfortunately I was not there that day) , but many of my colleagues were and they were well and truly wowed. The next day everyone at the station was talking about them "you've gotta here High House, they're brilliant" and some of their songs were swiftly added to the stations music library.

I was a bit sceptical about whether they would be any good but decided I'd check them out, and I was pleasantly surprised - I went onto their Facebook page and had a listen to a couple of live sessions of their tracks 'Dreamer, Drifter' and 'Photographs' and was more than impressed.

There are quite a few indie/folk bands emerging, and after the success of Mumford and Sons - commercially and critically, that's no surprise. But unlike quite a few other bands that kinda sound the same and all merge into one, High House do like a couple of others (Of Monsters and Men for example) have their own distinct sound. I think this is mainly thanks to the uniqueness of lead singer Dan Croppers voice but I think without Laura's vocals it would feel like something was missing, the songs are just right with their voices entwined.

Since last summer, I have continued to listen to the band mainly via their Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/high-house

and so I was incredibly pleased to find out I would finally have chance to see them live, when they once again took part in this year's Stafford Music Festival. They were scheduled in for 22nd May at the Gatehouse Theatre as part of the Folk and Blues night. Myself and a couple of others from XL-FM headed down early to have a chance to interview the band (you can hear my chat with Laura here: )

When they took to the Met Studio stage you could sense a real buzz in the audience (a sell out show!) the harmonies sounded even better live, and the musical talent of all members shone - guitars, drums, keys and so much more. They played old favourites and also debut some new material that showed further development and the maturity of the band. My ultimate moment of the evening though, came at the finale, when without any mics, electronics - they sang and played Fleetwood Mac's: Dreams - covers of songs can go either way, they can either destroy an original or interpret it so well that you forget it's a cover, luckily High House did the latter - beautifully making one of my favourite songs completely their own.