If you ever find yourself at a gig where the stage is dotted with 70’s style table lamps that dim and flash with the music in a comical haunted house type way, you can be fairly certain that you are about to be party to an odd experience. Today has been a cold and miserable day down South, and the warm Student’s Union provides welcome respite to those that waited in the snaking queue on this bitter evening. The gig is a sell-out, and though most people are in to see main act Athlete, there is a chance for Alfie to shine up their woozy folk-pop and convert the big crowd, but instead it seems that the band - or at least lead singer Lee Gorton -has succumbed to the winter blues.
Proclaiming his illness and apparently overdosed on Benylin (although one suspects the use of some more ‘herbal’ remedies) Gorton is lacklustre at best, and this sets the rather weary tone that permeates all of tonight’s short set. The band attempt to pick things up, and aside from the quirky lighting arrangements, the constant change of personnel on stage adds some bizarre interest, with trumpets, harmonica and cello among the instruments sporadically added to the mix. Now departed from Badly Drawn Boy’s Twisted Nerve Label, Alfie are now pushing their latest release “Do You Imagine Things” which, if based on this evening’s display, offers dreamy and experimental pieces that are still listenable, and warmly inviting. Ironically it seems it would the perfect music for a cold winter’s night in, and yet everyone has come here for a night out.
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Though it’s a lazy comparison, Alfie are reminiscent of the Stone Roses and the Charlatans (albeit more mellow), not least frontman Gorton who even looks like a cross between Tim Burgess and Ian Brown. At times they verge too heavily towards shoe-gazing indie and though the band’s bearded look is coming back into fashion, it doesn’t seem like a musical genre to hedge your bets on being revived. The problems tonight though are not solely musical- because Alfie have some truly endearing qualities - but as we are told, “It has been a bad day” for the band, and it shows: it wasn't long before Athlete put them to shame. Unfortunately for all concerned, it was not their best of gigs and I’m afraid the band would have to agree.
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