Beans On Toast LIVE @ Electric Ballroom 11/12/14

Rounding off a UK tour (and a very exciting year) there’s no better place for Beans On Toast to be than Camden’s Electric Ballroom. Despite the weather – both freezing cold and raining – fans began gathering outside over an hour before doors. This was perhaps, partially due to the fact that an abundance of people were buying tickets on the door. It’s no secret that Beans On Toast isn’t huge on marketing, and it seemed as though, despite being part of a tour, this gig was fairly low-key, and many people hadn’t known about it until just before.

Inside, the Electric Ballroom felt like a weird, booze-filled Santa’s grotto; fairy lights hung from the ceiling giving the place an unusually warming glow.

First support came from singer-songwriter Frankie Forman. While everyone bustled about, getting drinks, trying to go for cigarettes without getting too wet, Frankie’s voice filled the room. It was a performance, to say the least – she’s bluesy, sultry, and it didn’t take long for most of the room (particularly the males) to become almost infatuated with her.

Next up was Will Varley; similarly to Beans On Toast, a folksinger with a fondness of rather wry, comical lyrics – there was definitely a mention of children having STIs… Seemingly bewildered by the venue, feeling the need to highlight that this was, in fact, a ‘proper gig’, he nervously tried out new songs, much to the pleasure of the crowd. While there’s something risky in having too very like acts playing consecutively, in a case like this, it’s perfect. It was Will’s humour and slight political jest that made caused him to be so warmly welcomed.

Aside from being a proper gig for Will Varley, it was the biggest Beans On Toast show so far. Although it was made clear that a big deal would not be made about this night, and it would be like all the other shows, there was undeniably an air of sentiment and pride. For starters, his parents were there running the merch stand, and he undeniably had a lot of friends come along to support. Starting with Folk Singer, Beans (or, Jay) proves how humble he is. Shoeless, equipped with a guitar and accompanied by Bobby Banjo, Jay felt the need to check he had the attention of the crowd – as though anyone’s eyes were anywhere but on him. Going on to play The War on War and then Things, it didn’t take long for this to spiral into a typical Beans On Toast gig. He sung Things from within the crowd, someone had already thrown up only three songs on and everyone was scrambling to get as close to Jay as possible, and he’s more than up for it. There’s something so refreshing about a musician not being seemingly repulsed by crowd interaction, and he takes this a step further, using a fans shoulders to his advantage for Angry Birds and Can’t Get a Gig at Glastonbury. Rather politely, the crowd was asked what they’d like to hear. It was, as Jay said, ‘like an after school detention’: a rather shambolic mix of enthusiastically raised hands and desperate attempts at shrieking the name of a song. The first request, Oil, required a certain degree of crowd interaction, something, which, presumably because of the inebriated nature of the audience, failed miserably. A point was made of the length of the show, an hour and a half being somewhat daunting compared to the 25 minutes of old Beans On Toast shows, but the requests flying in proved that it was more than possible to fill up this time. He played through everything everyone wanted: M.D.M.Amazing, Beer and a Burger, Dirty Paki, Children of Bedford, Don’t Believe the Bullshit and Whole Lot of Loving, as well as playing a couple of his songs for Lizzy Bee. Intending to play these in order, the set list was somewhat thrown off by request, but he managed to play a few and they were charming as ever. Arguably what is most charming about Beans on Toast’s gigs are the stories he tells during the songs, and his reluctance to do so. Constantly checking his phone, Jay made sure before telling stories that everyone did want to hear them – and of course, they did.

Before playing Nola Honeymoon, a song that usually requires a brass section, Jay invited Lori Campbell on stage, the only special treat this gig was getting. As a ‘frumpet’ player, Lori managed to flawlessly imitate the brass section, to the point where it was difficult to know if she had some sort of tiny invisible trumpet hidden in her hands. Jay then entered the ‘sit down’ section, playing Flying Clothes Line, before attempting an encore. I say attempted – while he thought he would struggle to fill up an hour and a half, Jay had, in fact, done it without realising. Thus, his encore consisted of him running off stage for no more than 2 seconds, before running back frantically to play The Price of Rice, thanking the crowd before leaving. Everyone was left wanting more, the amount of requests that were bitterly ignored an indication of this, but reluctantly left, eagerly awaiting the next Beans On Toast gig.