Reviewed on 3rd October 2005.

Ali Whitton

Live at Faversham on Sunday, 2nd October 2005

Noisy bloody students eh? The Faversham's packed full of them tonight. This is no bad thing though, and as free acoustic gigs go, this is a great opportunity to be heard by and impress a lot of people that wouldn't normally be there. I only catch the last song of The Nervous Shakedown's DanMofo, but instantly recognise that great big dirty voice of his, and it's a welcome change to hear it with just an acoustic guitar and bass behind it.

Five-piece band Hush The Money start off slow and quiet, which isn't good as the crowd seem to be paying more attention to themselves and their drinks. But the songs get better and better as they go along, creating some fantastic 'acoustic angst' in their well built-up instrumental sections. So far so good. Sadly a few of the quieter songs are difficult to hear as it's really quite noisy in the Fav tonight, but the singer takes it all very well, and the crowd still seem to enjoy it all. Good on them I say, and I'm looking forward to seeing them in a more 'chilled out' atmosphere sometime.

Hmmm. Can it really be over a year since Ali Whitton seemed to be playing in Leeds practically every week? Well all that hard work looks to have paid off, as this performance kicks off another hectic schedule of gigging and touring for the young man, and also marks his triumphant return to Leeds since his slot at the Leeds Carling Festival a month ago.

My initial worries that Ali would struggle to be heard above the large number of drunkards were thankfully proven unfounded, as the entire crowd seemed to pipe down and watch and marvel at the songwriting talent they were witnessing in front of them. Crowd favourites from Ali's recently released "Kisses" and "Curses" EPs are met with rapturous applause, and the new songs that were trialed go down just as well, proving that the boy hasn't lost his knack for writing great songs whilst lounging around at home for the last few months.

With a new addition to the group, Ali may claim to be unrehearsed for tonight, but the performance is tight and looks to have been finely polished by the umpteen thousand gigs they must have played in the last year. Good luck to Ali and co on their tour over the next couple of months, but judging by the way that the crowd loved them tonight, they really won't need it.