With a maximum capacity of 60 people, it’s safe to say that the Mystery Jets‘ album launch party was an intimate affair. The special free show, was in part a celebration of the group’s new record ‘A Billion Heartbeats‘ set for release April 3rd 2020, but the gig was also organised in association with ‘Attitude is Everything’: the partner charity of lead singer Blaine Harrison. The group explained that after singer Harrison was forced to tour in a wheelchair for one of their earlier tours, they vowed to ensure that all their gigs would be played at accessible venues in future.
The Dr. Martens Boot Room is essentially just the back room of the Dr. Martens retail store in Camden market. Just after 8pm, when as many people had made their way into the small room as possible, the band took to stage – squeezing through the crowd to get to the slightly raised platform serving as a stage for the evening.
Whilst the show was billed as an album launch party, the group played a good mix of older and newer material. The intimate venue made the show feel more like watching a group of mates playing around together – which I mean in the best way possible. The indie band showed their experience, putting on a great show, whilst still joking around, exchanging smiles and genuinely enjoying themselves. Also, whilst the group gave live debuts to a number of tracks from their new album, the band were also debuting their new guitarist too – following the departure of founding band member William Rees a few months earlier.
A few of the track’s from ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ have now been out for close to a year (given the various delays the project has had so far) which meant that tracks like the title track ‘A Billion Heartbeats‘ and ‘History Has Its Eyes on You‘, which Harrison explained was written “for International Women’s Day last year“, were met with a great response from the crowd full of fans, who knew most of the words by now.
Mystery Jets have a lot of hits, which they reminded us all of throughout their strong set. The best response of the night easily came from older fan favourites ‘Two Doors Down‘ and ‘Young Love‘; on both the tracks, lead singer Harrison was at times drowned out by the 60 fans all singing in unison, in one of those moments during which it was hard not to feel warm inside. Other tracks from the group’s discography such as ‘Serotonin‘ and ‘Bubblegum‘ received equally great responses from the crowd, as it was clear that all in attendance were big fans of the indie group.
I feel that I can’t really criticise the length of the show, given it was a free event and all in aide of charity, but it definitely left me eager for more music from the group. Mystery Jets put on a great live performance and it is clear they are happy to be back performing in a live setting again.
The Gig Archive 