Oxjam 2019

Oxjam has been running for a few years now in Norwich. Isolated to one day in autumn, punters are taken on a walking festival around the city. The event itself had a fantastic curation this year. The lineup was well balanced and eclectic, demonstrating that Norwich does have a robust music scene.

Kitty Perrin delivered a perfectly treacle-like folk-pop performance. The melodies floated seamlessly and fit so comfortably in the Rumsey Wells dark ‘underbelly’. Cosy is the only way to describe it, fairy lights strewn across the slightly cramped bar, which given the early start and sore heads stayed relatively unused throughout. The largely young audience sat eagerly as Kitty started on her sweet and slightly humorous track which blended a story of a break-up with the 2016 election results – all brought together by a beautiful chorus hook. A great start to an excellent day.

Emily Parrish closed the Rumsey Wells show, her guitar slightly distorted – whether that was intentional remained to be seen, but it set her apart slightly from the typical singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar. She covered both Paolo Nutini’s Candy and Britney Spears’ Toxic, which were both great arrangements. After this, the crowd slowly made their way to the Louis Marchesi

Billy Lubach was by far the stand-out performance of the Louis Marchesi. He exuded talent, and his guitar work and vocals created enough stage presence to put a trance on every member of the audience. He’s the archetypal British folk musician, and utilised chirping guitar flourishes which were accompanied by an excellent vocal texture that reverberated around the cavernous undercroft.

Louis Marchesi was brought to a close with Salvador, or as one punter described, ‘the saviours of indie’. That was perhaps not quite the case, but they acknowledged themselves that the format of stripped-down semi-acoustic didn’t quite suit them. Jan, the guitarist, noodled cosmically away behind Lucas’ steady acoustic work, and honey-like vocals. It fitted very well in the Louis Marchesi.

As the crowd moved onto Karma Kafe, some people seemed to have been lost on the way- it was notably sparser in the Norwich Lanes nightclub than the Marchesi undercroft. The sound system was unfortunately a bit lackluster, meaning that the first band on, Yellowhammers, sounded slightly muddy- they had a brilliant and exciting concept- but they seemed slightly loose, which didn’t do them many favours. With a little tightening they could be a potent four-piece. It’ll be exciting to see what they do next, as their crunchy, grungey (at times) 80s punk sound created threat and menace in all the right places, a welcome break from the quieter events of the afternoon.

Following Yellowhammers was the hilarious and talented LCR Soundsystem. LCR Soundsystem was created by Joshua Davis a few years ago, the concept being to cover songs by LCD Soundsystem, but change the lyrical subject matter to that of being a student in Norwich. Josh remarks as he gets on stage ‘this is a sad band’ and the sad band vibe is reinforced when he explains how this is both a return gig and a farewell gig. Josh is obviously a talented multi-instrumentalist, playing the beats on his sound interface while also playing guitar and singing. Dedicating his final track to all of his friends, it’s an emotional, yet very positive end to Karma Kafe.

Later in the evening, after a short meal break, Marigolds kicked the party off in the Oxfam shop. Considering that shops usually aren’t used for gigs, Oxfam seem to have a fantastic setup. While the bands weren’t perfectly lit, the sound was phenomenal. Marigolds’ spacious indie-pop filled the room of seated punters. With a reduced lineup of just Joe, Davey and Poppy, they were a lovely sight to behold – all three lined up and silhouetted by the window-lights.