My friend Sean referred me to the band Hope & Social about a year ago. I watched a few of their excellent videos and ever since I’ve wanted to see them live. I got my wish tonight and they exceeded my expectations!

The band is full of very very accomplished musicians – this is one great thing about them. It means that they can be very playful in gigs – even covering a few songs tonight weaving them into their own songs (including, amazingly, You’re in the Army now and Tiger Feet!!! Don’t let that put you off!) The other thing that makes this band so special is the audience participation they encourage at their gigs. More than once the gig reminded me of being in church! Communal singing, clapping and a mixed group of ages in the ‘congregation’. It also gave you the ‘warm fuzzies’ as well. What a wonderful band! I’ll be finding the next opportunity to see them again as soon as possible!

Here’s a video I took on my Flip Video HD camera I got for Christmas. It’s not great quality and doesn’t do the band justice but I share it here anyway! The band are accompanied in this title song of the album ‘Sleep Sound’ by a local choir called Voices of the Day – you can see glimpses of them lit up in red light on the video:

You can listen to the new album here: