{"id":8077,"date":"2019-09-10T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=8077"},"modified":"2019-09-04T18:29:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T18:29:57","slug":"ryan-hamiltons-songs-stories-show-otley-bloomfield-square-25th-august-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=8077","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Hamilton\u2019s Songs & Stories Show\u2013 Otley, Bloomfield Square \u2013 25th August 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Currently touring the UK supporting Clem Burke\u2019s band The Tearaways, Ryan Hamilton pencilled in a couple of intimate, acoustic songs & stories shows in between touring duties. So following a Saturday night in the company of Frank Turner\u2019s acoustic album release show at The Brudenell, we take a Sunday evening drive to the idyllic, sleepy town of Otley, just a few miles away from the masses nursing hangovers and sunburn at Leeds Festival.<\/p>\n

Bloomfield Square is the coffee shop come print shop owned and run by Terrorvision frontman Tony Wright. \u00a0He sometimes hosts gigs, this is one of those. It\u2019s certainly the most intimate gig I have attended, more of a house concert than an acoustic gig. It\u2019s sold out, and there are maybe 25 people here.<\/p>\n

The two sealed their friendship a couple of years back by recording a Country album together. \u2018Grand Ole Otley\u2019 (get it?) You should! Unfortunately there no Country collaboration with the two tonight, Tony is serving drinks while Ryan sings songs and plays guitar, accompanied by a couple of his Harlequin Ghosts, i.e. bassist Rob Lane and keyboard player Carol Hodge.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIm sweating like a blind whore in a cucumber patch!\u201d Says Ryan after an extra chilled one-two of \u2018Bottoms Up\u2019 and \u2018Records and Needles\u2019 opens the set in fine style. Yep, as the man says, it\u2019s very hot in here.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Carol\u2019s harmonies are the perfect accompaniment to the be-hatted Texan songwriter, the likes of \u2018Feels Like Falling In Love\u2019 and \u2018Won\u2019t Stop Now\u2019 are full of emotion and the band sound great. So intimate it almost feels wrong to join in singing. But as the heat rises and the drinks flow, we lose our inhibitions and sing along. The songs float by like a summer breeze, it\u2019s a shame they can\u2019t actually conjure up a summer breeze in here!<\/p>\n

This is not like a normal gig, this is just like watching your mates jam at a house party. Tony comes down the stairs with a fan to help cool Ryan\u2019s ass, \u201cWhat the fuck\u2019s going on in this country? Global warming…don\u2019t tell my president, we just tried to buy Greenland!\u201d says Ryan at one point.<\/p>\n

The laid back rock \u2018n\u2019 roll of \u2018Get Down\u2019 works well and \u2018Never Should Have Moved To LA\u2019 with its \u201cSee You Next Tuesday\u201d refrain is high energy euphoria, just as it is on record.<\/p>\n

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Never afraid to expose his bad luck stories and experiences we get tales of cheating, drug addiction and drunken drummers, and of course his ongoing fascination with English swear words. All told as he swigs from a bottle of red wine. It\u2019s highly amusing and very entertaining.<\/p>\n

The most fascinating of those stories is the tale of Smile Smile. The story of the former band he had with his fianc\u00e9e is truly fucked up and I realise this is something he is still dealing with and what a large majority of his lyrics are actually relating to. I won\u2019t go into details, you can find out more if you look about, but there could well be a documentary on the way, so look out for that.<\/p>\n

\u2018Truth On Tape\u2019 is a Smile Smile song and documents his fucked-up former life. A song he emailed to his ex as a diatribe, which she then wrote melodies to and sent back to him. They did that a few times, had enough for an album, then they toured it. Now that\u2019s fucked up! It\u2019s a heartbreaking ballad that takes on new meaning when you know the background to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Springsteen style, he tells some of the back story mid-song and goes into how Rolling Stone called them out for sounding like a U2 song, then he breaks into \u2018With Or Without You\u2019…same chords and melody, yeah!\u00a0 They then mash it up, the Truth On Tape chorus with Carol singing the U2 backing vocals, clever stuff and a highlight of the evening.<\/p>\n

\u2018Be Kind Rewind\u2019 incites the most enthusiastic crowd response. That poptastic, sing-along chorus gives summery vibes, the instrumentation is taken down to minimum accompaniment for the \u201cnah nah nah nah\u201d refrain and we sing like a beautiful choir, albeit a small one. The bass and piano pick back up to take the song to its conclusion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How often do you get to see a Texan singer\/songwriter sing songs with no PA, in a coffee shop in Yorkshire run by the singer from Terrorvision? Not very often is the answer! But life throws out these opportunities and you have to grab them while they last.<\/p>\n

Like witnessing a gig in your own front room, Ryan Hamilton and a couple of his Traitors played a special, intimate show that succeeded in capturing the essence of where live music originated, and what it should be about.<\/p>\n

Author: Ben Hughes<\/p>\n

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Currently touring the UK supporting Clem Burke\u2019s band The Tearaways, Ryan Hamilton pencilled in a couple of intimate, acoustic songs & stories shows in between touring duties. So following a Saturday night in the company of Frank Turner\u2019s acoustic album release show at The Brudenell, we take a Sunday evening drive to the idyllic, sleepy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[112,1833],"class_list":["post-8077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-review","tag-ryan-hamilton","tag-tourlife","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8083,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions\/8083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}