St Andrews Radio

Muisc is Love presents ‘This is the Kit’ // Rozi Plain // Jamie Harrison – 23rd November 2011, The Barron Theatre, St Andrews

The reader should be warned: ‘Music is Love’ has become a bit of a misnomer of late, in that these three simple words fail to convey the bondless range of emotions every single gig instils in the folk-loving hippie crowd of attendants. It’s not just love. It’s extremely cute and artsy love, sprinkled with colourful and sunny love, and all of it garnished with a pinch of gorgeous and lively love. And that’s just the beginning. For a good couple of hours, The Barron did turn into somebody’s living room and Arts’ students sketched away, immortalizing a perfect soulful universe brought to life by Kate Stables, Rosalind Leyden, and Jamie Harrison.

Commencing the evening was Rozi Plain (Rosalind), but even the mention of an opening act sounds artificial. No-one was second to anyone else, and Rozi was joined on stage by Kit and drummer Jamie Withby-Coles (not to be confused with guitarist Jamie) in the exact same formula that was to be the night’s ‘headliner’. No. Creating ranks sounds wrong simple because everything was top-notch throughout. But coming back to Rozi’s set, it was a heat-warming mix of lush piano tunes, gentle guitar harmonies, melodious percussion and a voice as sweet as honey on warm toast. The cuteness of it all achieved epic proportions and The Skinny magazine are spot on when they claim that ‘Rozi Plain’s catherine wheel vocal harmonies set your mind a-wandering and you begin to recline into the sound of her voice and melodies like you would a warm bath surrounded by candles and shared with a lover’.

The following performer, Jamie Harrison, simplified the get-up, relying solely on voice and acoustic guitar. And he didn’t disappoint. Quirky, short and snappy ditties mixed with ragtime blues tones and conveyed a young man’s system of beliefs about the world, alongside the love for a certain bear. His delightful snippets of life philosophy mesmerized the audience while the stuttered dialogue only added to the overall charm.

As in a perfect circular universe, the opening act also closed the night, and by the second intermission the Barron’s dull grey walls were flooded by colourful drawings, as vivid as photographs and as heartfelt as love letters. Winchester’s own Kate Stables candidly filled the stage with good melodies, banjo-tinged tunes, the most genuine smile ever, soul and ‘Two Wooden Spoons’. Supported vocally by Rozi, percussion-wise by drummer Jamie, morally by the audience and generally by cosmos, I imagine, she delivered a calming set of ‘Spinney’s, ‘Earthquake’s, ‘Moon’s and ‘Sometimes the sea’. Perfectly pure and blissful. And how can you not adore a singer that praises the sounds made by the artists’ frantic scribbling?

All things considered, the night bred so many positive vibes that it could keep the world comfortably spinning on a round-about of love, devotion and good spirits. Amazingly lovely and astonishingly adorable, well worth every penny and every second.

Ps: you know you live in a small community when you’re rubbing elbows in the audience with the last band you’d seen on stage (namely King Creosote).