His Lordship @ 229, London (Live Review)
- Published in Interviews
His Lordship
229
Words & Pics by Captain Stavros
Three Men, Ten Tons of Noise (Suck it Sheffield, we cheer louder!)
Who knew you could disappear into the dimly lit belly of an affluent paediatric hospital on a Friday night and not end up escorted out by security and thrown on some list? Yet just off Great Portland Street station, down a staircase that feels like an exclusive “earlobe-tug-and-nod” members’ club, sits venue 229; a bunker with attitude. And tonight, it’s heaving.
Warming the room is Gary The Tall, dropping a two-hour cocktail of northern soul, deep-cut garage, and current tracks that sound like deep cuts (the Alla-Las moment went down very smoothly). Compliment the man on his taste and he’ll flirt back at you with amorous appendages but, honestly, you can’t fault the set. The crowd is a glorious collision: early punks, denim with a crease in it, biker lifers, and mums in sparkling silver trainers who told their partners they were “just nipping out.” A perfect prelude to something rowdy.
Gary signs off with a distorted blast of ‘Assembly of the Buglers’ bleeding into a warped snippet of ‘God Save the Queen’. An anthem in meltdown. A warning shot across the bow. The room shifts: His Lordship are coming.
A Big-City Detonation. If you mixed the sleaze-strut of Eagles of Death Metal, the blues punch of early Black Keys, and bottled the lightning from a Roadhouse bar fight, you’d only approximate His Lordship. They arrive like they’ve been plugged into the national grid. ‘I Live in the City’ fires the starting pistol, a full-tilt opener delivered at near-illegal tempo. The energy isn’t at 11; it’s snapped the dial clean off. Drugs do them for kicks, not the other way around.
On guitar and vocals, James Walbourne (The Pretenders / Pogues alum) is a study in commitment: buckets of sweat but the Western jacket stays on. A slave to fashion, a slave to rhythm, and a menace with a six-string. Beside him touring bassist, Dave Page, holds down bass duties with quiet authority; the unflappable third pillar in this touring trio. And then there’s Kristoffer Sonne: a drummer who looks like The Descendents’ cartoon mascot Milo grew up, stole a kit, and started drinking double espressos. His glasses fog, the spotlights halo him like a rock’n’roll poltergeist, and by midway through the set he’s paddling an invisible canoe across the stage to a speaker cabinet before mounting and fellating the microphone. Having toured with Elton John and Willie Nelson, he’s clearly no stranger to flamboyance or smoke. He drums like he’s possessed by something. The three of them make the noise of ten.
Rock’n’Roll Frenzy. The set barrels forward: raucous, relentless, and joyfully unhinged. At one point, a disabled gent near us pauses from tapping at his betting up as he absolutely begins to shake with joy and excitement so hard that he nearly bounces out of his chair, filming absolutely nothing with his iPhone and having the time of his life. Remember to buckle up big fella! Hard to watch the gig when pure bliss is happening right beside you, but it only adds to the night’s electricity.
Then the chaos narrows. The lights lower. Walbourne steps forward, voice softening: “This one’s for a friend who taught us some bad things… but he taught us a lot more about good things.”
He eases into ‘Gin and Fog’, the song he wrote in tribute to the late Shane MacGowan; a hush settling over 229 as it unfurls. For the final bars, Walbourne leans gently against the kick drum, as if anchoring himself to the pulse of the friend he’s remembering. It’s tender, raw, and easily the emotional spine of the evening.
A beautiful goodbye and then, like any good wake, the room snaps back into motion.
A ripping cover of ‘The Way I Walk’ lands with swagger, grit, and absolute precision. Fucking love The Cramps and they nailed it.
Closing Fire.
The only downside?
Just one encore.
The upside?
It’s a scorcher — the crowd howling back the immortal line: “My girl is red hot — your girl ain’t doodly squat!”
Chuck Berry meets Marty McFly at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, but wired, wilder, and significantly louder.
One of the best gigs we’ve reviewed all year.
Three men. Ten tons of noise.
And if you didn’t think it was red hot… you, my friend, don’t know doodly squat.
