Tequila Mockingbyrd

London The Fiddler’s Elbow

After setbacks, they’re back on track.

It’s the last date of Tequila Mockingbyrd’s summer schedule; the end of a tour that started disastrously after their van was trashed and gear stolen in Barcelona, and continued only after a crowdfunding campaign raised £6,000 to keep them on the road. But they’ve made it. Tonight is a rare London headline show, arranged so hastily it’s not even on the T-shirt, on a night so sweltering that even the beer needs to drink more beer.

The T-Byrds are at something of a crossroads. They’ve lost a couple of members, album number two is on the way, and the signs are they’ve offloaded some of the debut’s gravel in favour of a shinier sound. But they’ve always been a band who’ve known how to write a chorus, and who know how to rock. They can still do that spiky punk-metal-meets-the Shangri-Las thing, and in vocalist/guitarist Louisa Baker they’ve found a singer who can handle both the grace and the grit. New(ish) bassist Jacinta Jaye throws all manner of classic shapes – aided and abetted by a magnificent curtain of hair – and Josie O’Toole is one of rock’s most watchable drummers, a whirling dervish of fiery determination and rapidly breaking sticks. This Ain’t Done is a tense, towering highlight, Jägerbomb bounces along with all the energy of a hyperactive puppy, and new songs Tell Me and Enjoy The Ride show there’s plenty more where that came from.

Business as usual? Looks like it.