The Rifles LIVE @ The Boogaloo, Highgate 23.1.14

It’s not often you’re asked to cover an album launch party and when you are you never really know what to expect. Those 3 words often conger up mental images of top execs drinking cheap champagne while Z list celebs boost each other’s ego with the band spending all the budget on things that can’t be put through a legitimate tax return. Luckily tonight is nothing like that, instead the venue is a North London boozer rich with musical history counting cult musical figures such as Shane McGowan as regulars. The Boogaloo in Highgate is treated to a brief but storming set by local lads The Rifles to celebrate the launch of their new album, ‘None The Wiser’.

The pub is packed with the regulars you expect to see at a Rifles gig. Weller haircuts aplenty. Their fans are a loyal bunch, loyalty likened to that of your favourite football team. The difference being you know the result, and it’s a fucking messy one.

The lads are mingling in the modest crowd taking time to shake hands, have a chat and pose for the odd picture. It’s then time for them to take their place smashing their way through new and old. With the original rhythm section back in their rightful place making the original line up complete you get a sense the lads are back to their best and enjoying it more than ever. War cries of “come on” from Grant Marsh as they walk through the crowd show exactly how up for it they are.

They open with the familiar riff from latest single, ‘Minute Mile’, akin to that of The Strokes and blaze their way through new and old tracks spanning their career. The set includes new album tracks such as ‘Heebie Jeebies’, which even though unreleased, feels like it’s been knocking about for ages due to the popularity of it in their live sets, it’s already proved a staple of their gigs and is greeted with great affection.

The real treats, unsurprisingly, come from the older tracks with the crowd chanting every part of them word for word. These are in the shape of ‘Peace & Quiet’, ‘The Great Escape’ and crowd favouite ‘Romeo & Julie’. The band know what the crowd wants and they know exactly how to give it to them. They may never break the mainstream and be popular amongst the apparent ‘ones that know’ at the NME but who gives a fuck. They’re great and everyone who’s currently covered in sweat and warm beer knows it too. The atmosphere is brilliant, grown men with arms around each other singing love songs doesn’t often happen but when it does it’s beautiful.

The Rifles feel like our dirty little secret, having a weekend fling every now and then and getting messed up in the process. And that’s exactly how we like it. It’s with genuine affection that everyone wishes The Rifles and their new album success and given tonight’s performance we haven’t heard the last from them. I haven’t been back to the pub since the gig but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s missing a roof.