Peace, Love & Gloves/Xander Allen & The Keys/Chloe Glover

The Winchester, Bournemouth

Dorset Music Award winners Peace, Love & Gloves have been a bit quiet on the live music scene for a while. “Why” I hear you all cry? Mark and the boys have been really busy creating some great new tunes to add to and freshen their live setlist. Tonight we are at the Winchester in Bournemouth for the band’s first gig in a very long while.

As per usual virtually all the £5 tickets have been snapped up by their infamous fans the Gloves and Glovettes, who are all eager to hear the new material. As well as the main attraction there are a couple of quality local supports to entertain the very enthusiastic audience. The 1st of these is Chloe Glover; a young 17 year old performer, who with her guitarist Jamie Southard is fast becoming a welcome regular on the local music scene. Initially Chloe battles with the Saturday night noise coming from all areas of the venue, but as things settle down more and more people start to pay attention to her great sounding soulful voice. The audience are treated to a set of well rehearsed popular covers including; Bastille’s “Pompeii”, Mumford and sons “Little Lion Man” and a really nice ending with Kt Tunstall’s “Black Horse and The Cherry Tree”. Having seen Chloe perform a few times before, it is fantastic to see that at even at her tender age her confidence has grown massively, tonight performing well to a difficult audience and receiving positive responses.

Chloe Glover 1

Xander Allen & The Keys arrive here tonight on the back of playing several gigs in Bournemouth already this week. Their manager Luke Adams certainly works these guys hard, but from what I can see it keeps them sharp. The band have just released a new 5 track EP called “The 1st Marker” and they are by no means shy at mentioning it to the audience several times during their set. The band perform a set of some cleverly reworked covers including MGMT’s “Kids” which is combined with a little bit of Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Naughty Boy’s recent chart smash “La La La”. There are also some original tracks from the aforementioned EP, “Shivers” which has more than a passing resemblance to U2’s song “Exit” from the Joshua Tree and one of the funkiest of songs “Different Lies”. This band boast to having the coolest bass player in Bournemouth, the number one drummer from Slovenia and a frontman with possibly the driest humour, really put on a thoroughly enjoyable show that has something for everyone. They leave the stage to generous applause and a few sales of the new EP.

Xander Allen And The Keys 1

The audience has swelled in numbers and the mighty PLG are onstage facing their audience with them chanting the words “Goujon Goujon” until Mark raises his hand and asks for some quiet. The start is a bit different from what we are normally used to, the four guys perform a brand new acoustic track called “Coke Bottle” with drummer Jason on Cajon, the barely patient audience listen to what is quite a departure for the band and a welcome change of style. Business as usual soon resumes as the band then turn up the amps for “Bang Bang Bang” as well as a host of other crowd pleasing favourites including “Hold On” and “Call Me Out” which sends the Winchester dance floor into total chaos with the fans singing every word along with the band. Things then quieten down as the band perform the promised new songs that arrive in the form of “Amago”, “Too Cool” and “Bad But”. The songs show some great but simple infectious guitar work from the ever evolving Rikki, with Mark’s style of vocal delivery showing some nice progression. For possibly the 1st time ever this shambolic band actually have a set list and wilfully keep to the list of organised songs. But onstage this chaos that the band create is usually really appealling; keeping the audience on the edge, not knowing what will happen next. The band bulldozer through the venue’s curfew by 15 minutes pleading with the sound man to allow them more time, they end with “Monster” and all the crowd go home with smiles on their faces.