LIVE: MOHIT - The Macbeth, London 16.04.15

Beer-fuelled and seemingly excited to be out after a day of work or school or whatever people do with their days, a substantial crowd gathered fairly early in The Macbeth. The outside of the venue plastered with posters, and the inside full of talk of the new single, there was no questioning that this was MOHIT’s single launch.

First up, however, was support from Virgin Kids, a London garage punk band with equally impressive hair and sound. Whilst I’ve no doubt the band wouldn’t have struggled to get even the dullest crowd up and moving, it seemingly required no effort at all. People willingly moved away from the bar to the front of the stage and gave Virgin Kids almost undivided attention; it was a heavy start to the night, that’s for sure, but left everyone suitably awake for the rest of the evening.

Yama Yama followed – the solo side project of Francobollo singer, accompanied by various band-friends of MOHIT – gracing the audience with a sort of musical internal monologue. Switching within moments from dream-like hazy sounds to unrestrained volume, Yama Yama kept the audience on their toes, and, despite the fact that the sun failed to show on Thursday, added an almost summery air to the evening.

By the time MOHIT were ready to take to the stage, the room was impressively full. It’s easy to forget that this is band who are only just releasing their debut single, when they can so easily fill up a room with a bunch of seemingly very excited people. If MOHIT were at all nervous, any indication was completely hidden: they took to the stage with a brash confidence and, taking places in front of a light installation done by their friends, burst full throttle into their set. Their lack of set genre and avant-garde nature of their music is certainly clear, but so is their talent. The vocals are at points a little bizarre, and at others perfectly controlled, with the instrumentation varying to act as the perfect accompaniment no matter what’s going on.

MOHIT don’t, of course, let us forget the reason we’re here. Before playing debut single, ‘Southern Seed’, the band apologise for a lack of CDs, but instead hand out bottles of beer with download codes on – of course, the perfect way to please an audience at a gig is booze and free music. Whilst they certainly didn’t need this to engage the audience, it was by no means unwelcome, and after momentarily inspecting the bottles, attention turned straight back to the band. ‘Southern Seed’ was of course received with great delight, and finishing the set, MOHIT left the stage to bombardment of much deserved “well done”s.