The Sherlocks @ The Sugarmill

This week at The Sugarmill The Sherlocks came to entertain us for the night. We have three acts from Stoke to talk about before headliners The Sherlocks come to take their beloved Stoke crowd by storm.

The Sugarmill regulars The Gurus kicked off the night playing their indie rock with catchy melodies and repetitive beats. Their sound feel like if Jamie T and Jake Bugg had a band it would sound a bit like this – and it works magically. The band’s image is perfectly indie. They seemed to have some regular friends and fans along again with some making sarcastic boos and screaming and shouting after every song.

Another local group Exowaves, a rock and roll quartet have a very similar style to Oasis but with the added rock ‘n’ roll edge. The lead singer was going mental on stage, jumping all over the place and knocking over his cups of water and then amazingly sitting in it during the guitar and drum solo. Once the last song was almost finished for Exowaves, the front man jumped off the side of the stage and walked off backstage whilst the three middle-aged men were left to carry on the guitar and drum solo once again getting up on the boxes to show their skill on the guitar to the crowd, with one foot heavily planted onto the crowd barrier.

Third and final local support act April, five young lads with a passion and enthusiasm for indie music showed Monday night. Their well-defined sound had a very catchy and upbeat tone which complimented Exowaves and The Gurus which was aesthetically pleasing. With another supporting performance with The Rifles in a couple of weeks, we are really looking forward to hearing them again.

The Sherlocks come bursting out onto the stage to their genius intro chant with the fans clapping and jumping in the air whilst they go straight into new track ‘Last Night’ and instantaneously creating one of the best atmospheres I have seen at the Sugarmill. With only four officially released songs

With only four officially released songs you would think how have they got a 40-minute set? But that’s where they have quite a few songs hiding in the locker (suggesting a debut album might be in the process) to entertain us with. Two of them being ‘Was It Really Worth It’ and ‘Motions’ have a slick drum beat and twangy guitar flicks the crowd really enjoyed the tunes and were getting in with the action.

Hit singles ‘Live For The Moment’ and ‘Heart Of Gold’ got the biggest reaction from the crowd with everyone involved in the mini mosh pit, all dripping in sweat including, frontman Kiaran Crook standing on top of the box that covers the speaker plucking the strings of his rhythm guitar.

Once the set finished the friendly band came over to the merch tent to sign posters and sell t-shirts before packing up ready to go to their next show in Newcastle.