Horsebox - London Buffalo Bar - 10/01/07
4/5
By: Christiana Spens
My mother does not generally chat up boys in bands on long train journeys, but last December was an exception (or, at least I think it was an exception). I was in London at the time and received a phone call in the evening, a Saturday as I recall, and was a little bemused to hear my mother recalling how she "...met some lovely boys on the train, in a band called Horsebox, and they toured with the Magic Numbers - you saw them recently, didn't you? - and I got Tom's number actually, you should call them, they're lovely boys."
Well, as the good little girl that I am, of course I took my mother's advice, mostly because I'm gullible and easily swayed by silly coincidences and strangers on trains and pretty tunes. I didn't have a laptop with me at the time so asked my little sister to look them up and play one of their songs for me, and that was when I first heard "Cherry Pie".
Upon melting into its soft slumber, I stopped being concerned that my mother was taking phone numbers of men significantly younger than her and realised that it was all in the spirit of bohemian harmony (my mother did grow up in seventies Australia, after all, with surfers and hippies and too much Patchouli oil) - she was merely passing me the baton, in the form of Tom Horsebox's phone number.
So I called him up, said hello and found they were next playing in London in January. A month or so passed, of hibernating from the storms in Scotland and cursing the smoking ban there and the gales for blowing away the spark of the lighter - finding that the mugs (of hot chocolate) don't work nearly as well as the drugs - and gin doesn't taste as good outside of London.
Therefore, when January came and I clambered out of my quietude, I was relieved - London was still smouldering, and I was still running back for more.
Wednesday came quickly and soon I was sitting with Horsebox (my mother was right - they are lovely boys), glasses and beer bottles crowding the table and smoke clouding the red walled Buffalo Bar like a smoggy red dawn, before people from all over the country (my friend came all the way from Wales) filled the little bar with noise and romantic eyes and waifs and strays, and that was when the music began.
Strange Idols were on first, though I was a little disconcerted by the lead singer, who looked scarily like Peaches Geldof and was still at school. I found myself surfing a wave of condescension, until I realised that meant she was only about a year or two younger than me, at which point I ordered a gin and tonic to make myself feel mature. I liked their songs and the singer was wearing a very cute little dress, so kudos upon them, even if the little dance moves were rehearsed and repetitive and it looked just a bit like she was dancing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush. But never mind.
Horsebox had a different kind of youthfulness about them, which was more like a big hug from a friend when you fell over and grazed your knee in the playground. Actually I think I'm starting to romanticise childhood at this point, because I don't remember any big hug like that, only getting shoved into the tarmac and girls nicking my lip-gloss. However, it's never too late for a big consoling hug.
Horsebox are unpretentious and genuine - there is a kind of natural insight and solidity to their tunes, and yet they are still buoyant, youthful and fun to be with. They love what they do, they're comfortable with themselves, and their sound is their own. 'Cherry Pie' was my favourite song of the night, it swooped me up gently like a soft cloud floating somewhere above the tobacco and fumes and the dirty baby blue sky.
Horsebox have a similar wholesomeness to the Magic Numbers and there is the subsequent feeling that perhaps Horsebox spend their weekends strumming guitars in hot air balloons (actually, someone should definitely arrange that, there are not enough great gigs in the sky). You go to a Horsebox gig and it's summer again, which is refreshing when it's such a cold, cold night outside, to walk so easily into a little summer of love. The hugs do work.
The next band on, Goldrush, brought a little gust of winter with their pangs of existential angst (beautifully played as they were - I especially loved the French Horn with the strobe light attached to the flared bell) and waxing philosophical about the meaning of it all, when maybe I don't really care for defined meaning anymore - I've read the books and I'm still just as confused. So maybe now, in this jaded age, I'd rather escape into pretty, pretty songs and the warm voices of a band you know you can rely upon.
Perhaps it all depends on who you were when you were seven: I was never one of the girls forming pop acts in the grimy bathrooms, with names like Dolly Mixture (my sister was in that one). I was stealing back my stolen lip-gloss as they distracted themselves with their reflections singing with hairbrushes into the mirrors, and then ran off to play hide and seek with the boys.
Because the only real consolation for any heartaches, grazed knees or stormy weather is no doctrine, no daydream of a destiny: but instead it is a hug, a kiss, and a song called 'Cherry Pie'.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment