St George’s Church, 22nd November 2008

As part of their “Fishbone for a Drink” tour (aka “weird venue tour”) Guillemots descended on St George’s Church in Kemptown. It’s an interesting place for a gig, but not the weirdest on this tour – which included an old custard factory, a pavilion and the winner of my personal ‘weird award’, a man-made cave.

The scruffy former music teacher, Fyfe Dangerfield, led his Guillemots onto stage from the back of the church with accordions and guitars rather than wafers and wine and they were straight into hit single “Annie Let’s Not Wait” from their first album, “Through the Windowpane”. Next up Fyfe ignored a lone – and somewhat premature – heckle for “Trains To Brazil” to introduce their biggest hit to date (as he reminded us) “Get Over It”, from sophomore album, “Red”. Fyfe stuck to his piano for most of the tracks, but took to the guitar for a while before a stripped down version of “Made Up Love Song #43”, which got another cheer. The real highlight came a few minutes later. Fyfe is a great pianist and his voice is more captivating than I remember from previous festival performances and I swear (on the bible) he nearly made me cry with his solo rendition of “Falling Out of Reach”. He followed this up with another solo song about the end of the world, “Standing on the Last Star”.

After that it was back to the full band line up, with Magrao and Aristazabel taking to the piano either side of Fyfe. After some banter about drummer Greig’s Scottish accent and his mid-life crisis ear piercing, Pete the monitor man made an appearance on stage, goaded by Fyfe’s geeky charm, to deliver a random fact about their last gig venue, Falmouth. (Apparently granite isn’t good for you). Perennial favourite “Trains to Brazil” went down a storm and after some shouts for more, Fyfe returned alone for a track performed with only a keyboard for company, as he wandered up and down the aisle amongst a reverent audience. The band are impressive multi-instrumentalists but it’s Fyfe’s talent that stands out, so it’s no surprise to learn he’s working on his own album alongside the next Guillemots’ record.

Next time they play Brighton, you never know, maybe their most famous fan in Sussex, Paul McCartney, will turn up…

Words by Andrea Fox

Photography by Rob Thomas