The Ruckus Presents (London)

As you’ll probably have gathered by now we held a gig at Proud Galleries in Camden yesterday, here in London. It was a wonderful evening, one that left me feeling particularly full of festive cheer. We were lucky enough to showcase some extremely fantastic talent to our friends, gig goers, followers of the blog and such like. We want to thank everyone who helped out in any small format (ahem, our friend Lee who made Ruckus ‘tache cupcakes!) and for all those who performed and attended. If you weren’t there, please check out the below pictures so you can feel like you were there in spirit.

Up first, we had very special guests, one that I have personally wanted to thank countless times for travelling all the way up from the South Coast to play for us. I present to you Jack Palmer and Will McNicol who we first saw play at Southsea Fest in Portsmouth.

Like I’ve said before, Sheena and I were stunned at the talent of these two gentlemen. Their set at Southsea Fest has made it into my top gigs of the year; a perfect calming evening set accompanied by lovely mugs of tea. We recreated something similar at Proud last night, but with a few more people and a few more twinkly fairy lights. The dexterity from these two just completely astounds me, effortlessly swapping in between instruments for solos and duets. Loop pedals, it seems, still blow my mind.

We then had Treecreeper, the first time we had seen them play, rocking out Proud with a blissed out set of Folk-Americana. Apparently they are a little more rock-esque but being it a Monday night they performed a gorgeous more stripped down set, even playing the room an acoustic version of their recent single, ‘Juniper’ for the first time. One of my favourite things is discovering a new band and it’s a bit lovely that I got to do that at our own gig. We have upcoming plans with Treecreper very soon in the future (more details to follow!).

Our final performer of the evening was a 2010 Ruckus favourite, Jamie Ley not only because he saved me from getting run over back in September but because of tracks such as ‘Suzy Sang’ which encourage me to smile and sing along. Jamie seems to have been a soundtrack to the second half of my 2010 so it seemed only fair that we got him to play for us. And he turned up for the first time with a violinist and double bass player which sounded bloody fantastic.

Something has to be said for Jamie’s stage presence; managing to capture the eye of everyone in the room so perfectly. For Jamie’s encore he led the room in a cover of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham which along with the Christmas tree, fairy lights and cider truly made me feel truly festive. Jamie and his band deserve a lot of credit for the hard work he puts in on his live performances – check the MySpace here.

We want to thank everyone who came down and lent their support to the night (including Pat, our lovely sound engineer) which allowed us to showcase some truly excellent bands; the atmosphere seemed to calm us all, the drinks were flowing and we were treated to some first rate sets. We feel we were very fortunate to be able to bring to Proud a selection of some of the most superb emerging musicians throughout the UK (and also, get to see it ourselves!). Thank you to Jack Palmer & Will McNicol (and friend!), Treecreeper and Jamie Ley. Now go check out their MySpaces.