In case you haven’t heard, Tut’s are putting on a beginning-of-year spectacular in their own understated way – 15 nights and 60 odd bands.
Tonight saw Haight-Ashbury light the place up in their own psychedelic way.
The headliners are a criminally unappreciated Glaswegian three piece named for the district in San Francisco that saw the birth of the hippy movement.
When you’re listening to them in person it’s a strange experience-they’re psychedelic enough to make you wonder if the band spent a great deal of time in CA then formed, or if they’re just expertly bringing together a couple of wildly differing styles; namely psychedelica and grunge.
But they package them so effortlessly you don’t feel at all torn between them, and there’s no sense of imitation to any of it.
Monday’s in January are made for Haight-Ashbury – it’s freezing cold, you’re wondering whether to go catch the last train home and conscious that the drink in your hand dispels any myth of new years’ resolutions.
Then when they take to the stage with an unassuming but amiable presence you forget whatever you were thinking about.
It’s summer, nobody has a job to bother them in the morning, and the drink in your hand lets you think about things other than the impending nuclear apocalypse.
Haight-Ashbury straddle the difficult line between dreamy and trite, halcyon and clichéd with a deftness of touch that’s brilliantly refreshing.
If you get the chance to see them, you should.
Words/photos: Simon Jones
