Athlete are an indie-rock band from London, made up of Joel Pott, Carey Willetts, Tim Wanstall and Stephen Roberts. They had a lot of success in the mid 2000s at the same time as bands like Snow Patrol and the Kaiser Chiefs, when music like this was becoming "cool" again. You've probably heard of them for singles "Vehicles and Animals and "Superhuman Touch" - a song I first heard in 2009, then lost for a while. Literally, I lost it, I could hum the chorus but didn't know the name or who it was by. A few months ago, I rediscovered it and I'm so happy I did.
I found out they were playing here about a month ago and was surprised to say the least. Nantwich is where I live, a small, kind of dreary town in the flattest county in England. It's full of Tudor buildings and independent shops, places full of trinket type gifts and old-style sweet shops, a tourist town, and apart from a few local folk bands, I'm sure you can imagine it definitely isn't the sort of place live music is abundantly alive.
This week, the Words and Music Festival has challenged this lingering sense of absolutely nothing that the town holds, though the only show I managed to get down to was Athlete at The Crown Hotel Ballroom on Sunday night, the last night of the festival. And as I normally go to Manchester, Liverpool or London to get to shows it was really nice to just walk about fifteen minutes from my house.
The opening act was Fran Smith, a piano playing singer-songwriter who's about to support folk musician Thea Gilmore on tour. She was young and nervous and smiley, but completely relaxed as she played and sang lovely compositions in a vague Yorkshire accent, dawdling between what sounded sometimes like Gaelic folk music ("We Will Have No More Marriages" in particular) and what was closer to pop music (a song I think was called "1013 Days"). Fran finished her set with "Orion", a beautiful song about two lovers, one who sleeps through the day and at night is the stars, the other goddess of the morning.
During the break, organiser Nigel Stonier came out to talk to the crowd about turning phones off. A raffle was drawn. It felt very close to home but also I knew I was at a concert, a strange juxtaposition.
And then they came on stage.
It was only Joel and Carey tonight, a stripped back acoustic set to fit the venue, a small ballroom with a bar at the back where people were drinking and talking a little too loudly during the support act.
Their music, normally entwined with a lot of keyboard effects, was just as lovely in a stripped back setting. Joel Pott switched between acoustic and electric guitars, whilst Carey Willetts did a little of everything; he played guitar, he played keyboards, sang backing vocals and used a laptop during a few songs for drum noises.
It was, I suppose, a pretty "tough crowd" - well-dressed people in their forties dawdling around getting drinks, kind of acting like they were at a bar instead of a concert and I hadn't wanted to go with the very teenage attitude of expecting people in the town I live in to be that way, but that was just how it was. Until Athlete came on stage, during which I was really pleasantly surprised. It was during "We Got the Style" that at one point Joel stopped singing and the whole crowd echoed the chorus:
"Woah, it's getting hot in here, must be something in the atmousphere."
And it made me laugh and smile so so much.
The whole show was so relaxed and the two of them clearly so comfortable on stage after all these years of doing it. There were a couple who requested a song for their wedding anniversary, stories about how recently Carey "nearly died" after epiglottitis, jokes about Westlife and much more audience interaction that I'd have expected from these weird conservative avoid-your-eyes-in-the-street people I have grown up around.
Highlights included "El Salvador", which with just a keyboard and guitar sounded so different to the album version, "Half Light", and gorgeous "Superhuman Touch", completely acoustic and so pure-sounding.
They finished with "Wires", a song about the first night of a child's life spent in hospital, "Running down corridors through, automatic doors" and it's incredible. The whole room were singing and seeing as I was there on my own and sat next to strangers it was easy to be unashamed about the fact that tears were streaming down my face, until the woman next to me turned and looked at me a little awkwardly once the song was over, all was out. But she didn't frown or look disapproving, there was no "Kids, these days." She just sort of smiled and nodded like she understood. And for once I didn't have to take a train a long way to find music and people that could restore my faith in humanity.
After ten years, a lot of hits and an Ivor Novello award, Athlete are finally winding down now, so catch them while you can - they're playing a few shows around London at the start of next month I think, then supporting Alanis Morissette on her tour in November.
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