To celebrate the release of their new and really rather good album ‘Skying’, The Horrors announced a secret free gig last night (July 11th) at The Shacklewell Arms in Dalston. Despite ‘doors opening at 8pm’, I was told that all wristbands had sold out by half 6 (damn you guestlisters). However giving up wasn’t an option; I WAS going to see the band in this tiny venue who I’d previously watched two weeks before in a packed out tent mudfest at Glastonbury. 

With the Klaxons and various other hipsters sauntering around the pub in turned up jeans showing off their wristbands, I decided that the only way of getting in was sneaking in, and that I did. Let in through a door which I thought was the wall, I entered into the smoky haze in which green lasers and mirrors lining the walls tricked your eyes. The place was tiny- sharing sweat with the hipsters was the only option.

If you know me then congratulations; if you don’t then commiserations. For this part of the evenings descriptions I shall tell you that I’m very small so the prospect of not seeing anything and being surrounded by the smell of leather jackets forced me to stand on the radiator at the back of the room, where I balanced against the wall for the entire gig with a view that I’m sure nobody else had. The Horrors played an ethereal set of songs taken from albums ‘Skying’ and ‘Primary Colours’, with no songs from debut album ‘Strange House’ in sight. ‘Sheena is a Parasite’ or ‘Count in Fives’ wouldn’t have gone down very well I imagine as Skying has taken a completely different intense sound from the 80’s but new single ‘Still Life’ and ‘I Can See Through You’ showed how Faris’ voice stands strong amongst the synths. Although it sounds a bit long on the album, ‘Moving Further Away’ was a brilliant atmospheric closing song at the show, leaving the audience in a trance and for me to realise that sneaking in wasn’t all a dream.