Remember '99 On the Beach Where We Lay?

Here's some sweet and swoonsome Lover's Rock for Valentine's Day and a gig review to boot.

I went to see Hollie Cook at Gorilla on Sunday night- I didn't really get any decent photographs of the gig but earlier on in the day I saw this pair of shoes hanging from a tree in Old Trafford. It was snowing heavily when I set out and it kept it up on the way into town, not the best preparation for an evening of reggae and tropical pop. Gorilla is a brilliant gig venue, inside the railway arches on Whitworth Street, great sound and small and intimate. Despite the conditions outside and most people turning up in several layers of winter clothing Hollie's joyfulness at seeing a full room and subsequent set could warm the heart of the most curmudgeonly gig goer. The band are tight as you like and aren't afraid of wandering off into dubbed out versions during the second half of the songs, the delay pedal on top of the keyboards getting frequent use, bouncing chords and sounds around the room. Much of the set is taken from the new album, Vessel Of Love- this one, the single, sounding especially good, Hollie's voice floating on top of the band's reggaeton groove...



Hollie has released 3 albums now (plus a dub version of the debut), sung and toured with the reformed Slits and supported The Stone Roses at Heaton Park in 2013. She should be playing to bigger crowds than the couple of hundred who have turned out on Sunday night, a wide mix of ages from early twenties and students through to those in their sixties. They finished with a magnificent dubbed out version of this to close the set.

99