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It was a tumultuous build up to the sophomore edition of Misery Loves Company this year; a festival that had, up until a few weeks ago, promised a day packed with twenty-four bands spread across 4 stages at 3 of Bristol’s finest inner city venues. For reasons still unknown this got drastically scaled back to just the 4 acts performing at SWX on Saturday night- and although truly gutted not to be able to see the full original line up- as the saying goes, the show must go on and if there is one thing that you can be certain of, no matter what, the Bristol alternative scene will always turn up.
First on the bill are Nottingham based sisters (Nyrobi & Chaya) ALT BLK ERA. With an almost ethereal presence, floating across the stage like horror shop mannequins before assaulting those assembled with an uplifting wall of sound, melding elements of rock, rap, trap drum and bass, alt-dark pop and electronica into a genre bending sound that just works. Despite, or maybe because they are siblings, the sisters sublimely play off of each other on stage; Nyrobi is brash and in your face, delivering the majority of the rap styled vocals, whilst Chaya is more reserved yet has a steely commanding presence; acting as almost yin and yang to each other both girls harmonise their voices together magnificently.
During the set they mentioned that they use songwriting as a way to help process the emotions surrounding Nyrobi’s chronic illness. Writing songs together since 2022, ALT BLK ERA’s debut album, Rave Immortal, is due for release early 2025. Tonight's show included an outing of soon to be released single ‘Come On Outside’, alongside crowd favourite ‘Straight To Heart’ and the boppy recent release ‘My Drummer's Girlfriend’. The set was rounded off with another sneak peak from the upcoming album ‘Come Fight Me For It’ which saw the middle fingers of the assembled masses raised high.
Nottingham were well represented on tonight’s bill, with independent pop punk powerhouses As December Falls taking to the stage next. What followed was a flurry of high kicks, hair flicks, guitar spins and all round immaculate vibes. The largest circle pit of the night was witnessed during the aptly named ‘Carousel’ with ‘Ride’ seeing the first crowd surfers of the evening.
With the twin riffs of Ande and Tim coupled with the uplifting vocals from Beth, you cannot help but have a good time at an As December Falls gig, no one agrees more than drummer Lukas who, although relegates to the darkest corner of the stage, has a constant smile on his face the entire set. If you happen to be seeing one of tonight's headliners on tour next year (but more on them later), you’ll have the chance to see As December Falls in support.
The first of the co-headliners are Watford based quartet The Hunna. Their set was a swell of energy that saw the crowd at their most raucous. Before long mic stands were knocked over, t-shirts were off, bass drums were abused as organised mayhem broke out on stage, all coming to a crescendo with the hyper energetic live version of ‘Can’t Break What’s Broken’.
In a change of pace from the majority of the set, a highlight had to be shortly after the opening chords to ‘She’s Casual’ rang out, the crowd took over and sang every word, with beans on, for the entire first verse. I have to say that I hadn’t given The Hunna much notice prior to tonight, but I will most definitely be taking a deep dive and searching them out for another show in the hopefully not too distant future.
Many may recognise the second co-headliner as one half of ADHD social media awareness duo Rich & Rox; bringing the proceedings to an end as her onstage persona, the recently crowned breakthrough act at this year's Heavy Music Awards, RØRY. Emerging onto stage with what I think was some sort of Face-Hugger from Alien on her back it was clear that RØRY had a lot of fans crammed into SWX. As we all know RØRY has ADHD, this often leads to some over sharing as she admitted that her partner Rich had to run to the local Tescos to grab a disposable razor as she’d forgotten to shave her bikini line despite opting for some very short shorts on stage. RØRY will be heading out on a headline tour in 2025 and will be dragging the peeps from As December Falls along for the ride.
RØRY acknowledges that of the 10 songs on her upcoming debut album Restoration, 9 of them are sad, a reflection of her piecing her life back together over her current 6 year journey of sobriety, exploring amongst other things, her bisexuality, the loss of her mother and her own failed attempt at suicide all sprinkled with a little bit of gallows humour.
During one interlude she was able to help two fans, Kaitlyn and Becky make their relationship official, “but as I’ve got no songs about love, so here's another sad one”; queue phone lights in the air and ‘Jesus & John Lennon’. Pushing home the message to “not stop yourself from doing anything because you don't think you’re good enough”, using her own experiences as a case study that if you “just try the thing you don’t know where it will take you”, as a nearly 40 year old (happy birthday for this Friday by the way) who she thought the record industry wouldn’t give a chance RØRY is now winning awards, embarking on her own headline tour, releasing her debut album on her own record label (SADCØRE) and even being able to witness her first ever moshpit at one of her gigs (good work Bristol). Summing all of that up and bringing the night to a close, the Bristol crowd was treated to a first play of the new single ‘Sorry I’m Late’.
Despite the hiccups in the build up, what was able to be put on Saturday night was a solid show, that I for one thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully whatever issues caused this year's edition to be scaled back so much at such a late stage can be worked out in time for next year and the festival can return in 2025 at full strength; it would be a huge shame if this was the last time that we saw Misery Loves Company in Bristol.
Words and photos: Simon Arinze
Despite the hiccups in the build up, what was able to be put on Saturday night was a solid show, that I for one thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully whatever issues caused this year's edition to be scaled back so much at such a late stage can be worked out in time for next year and the festival can return in 2025 at full strength; it would be a huge shame if this was the last time that we saw Misery Loves Company in Bristol.
Words: Simon Arinze
Photos: Simon Arinze
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