Review: Skinny Lister, The Fleece – ‘A religious experience’

You wait twelve months for the best gig of the year and then, on a mid-December evening, it comes charging out of the darkness and smacks you over the head.

A triple threat, a combination of sucker punches, a holy trinity. Skinny Lister and friends at The Fleece were virtually a religious experience. Only much better.

Hannah Rose Platt released a brilliant album, Deathbed Confessions, on Xtra Mile Recordings this year. She’s a singer songwriter who leans hard on the swoonsome goth vibes.

Stories of ghosts and ghouls, monsters and myths chill the very corners of this place. On latest single, The Wendigo Rag, Tim Burton cobwebs and a Cramps-y bass line create a deliciously dark groove as black eye-liner curls around slick pop edges.

She’s like one of the more curious members of The Addams Family; oddly spooky with a huge smile and a nifty way with words.

As The Fleece fills to bursting so Noble Jacks bring some serious folk bounce. Normally a gloriously energetic four-piece (their show at Lost Horizon was a huge highlight from early in the year), for this gig they’ve slimmed down to a duo.

The energy levels are still mighty though. Will Page drags his bow across the strings of his fiddle and people leap about all over the place.

Trip to the Forge is a right old hoedown, it’s all excitable dance partners and handclaps while Better Man is billed as their “pirate anthem”. Whatever it is, it’s completely infectious, the sort of music that makes toes tap and faces break out into delirious smiles.

There’s a debt to The Levellers in much of what they do but when it’s this good, who cares? The Blacksmith Stomp sees acoustic guitar and fiddle create a sea of heaving, bouncing souls. It would take a brave band to have Noble Jacks support them.

Bravery is not something that needs to be considered when Skinny Lister are anywhere near a stage though.

Bristol’s (they’ve all moved to this fine sea-faring city this year) very own purveyors of Shanty Punk are a full-sail strung, an all-out cannon blast, a swirling, storm-lashed, good time.

Towards the end of the evening a passing member of The Longest Johns throws his arms wide and simply says “Skinny Lister…the best band in the world” and, you know, right now it’s hard to argue.

From very early on in the set, every voice is raised in a glorious euphoric noise. Wanted is a classic set-opener, full of punkish pummel and folk swagger, while George’s Glass has both band and audience cavorting recklessly.

This is an office Christmas party teetering right on the edge of madness from the first minute.

Unto the Breach, taken from their latest album Shanty Punk, is relentlessly Pogues-y and so much fun.

With the sad loss of Shane MacGowan, just a few days ago, it seems as though Skinny Lister are more than happy to pick up the Pogues’ baton and scamper away with it. There will be no catching them.

Arm Wrestling in Dresden sees fizzing ball of energy, Lorna Thomas, throwing herself into the audience. From here on in she seems to spend more time dancing, surfing, grooving with the people than actually on the stage.

She hurls herself from the bar of The Fleece during Six Whiskies, swims across outstretched arms and is carried, Queen-like, back to the safety of her band as they whirl away. She arm-wrestles and struts her way around, high fiving as she goes.

John Kanaka is a shanty, lustily sung by every single person here. Scrap that, it’s lustily bellowed, screamed, shouted. The Longest Johns (well, two of them) join the mayhem for even more shanty fun on God Damn the Amsterdam and every single ounce of Bristol goodness is squeezed from every single person.

By the time Skinny Lister crash into Trouble on Oxford Street there is complete delirium. The perfect mix of punk and folk, huge singalong chorus and accordion-driven insanity, this is glorious.

Right now, right here, Skinny Lister are the best band in the world.

Main photo: Gavin McNamara

Read next:

• Review: Django Django, Strange Brew – ‘Sublime indie ecstasy’
• Review: The Magpies, The Folk House – ‘Utterly infectious’
• Review: Ida Mae, The Louisiana – ‘Something for everyone’

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