His Lordship deliver pure rock ‘n’ roll at the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham

Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, 27 May 2024

For some reason, there is a steady, ongoing stream of country music coming out of the speakers. It feels like a strange choice of music to play just before His Lordship, a rock ‘n’ roll band whose audience is wearing vintage flannel, leather jackets, and chains. Maybe there’s a sense of irony to it that they intend, maybe it’s a way of preparing the audience for what is to follow, or maybe they just wanted to play it because they like the music. It’s not a question they answer but part of the wider tapestry that makes up the show. Are the suits they’re wearing a homage to a bygone era, almost reminiscent of 2-tone music, a satire of rock bands who dress like that similar to the satirical outfits worn on the recent The 1975’s recent Still… At Their Very Best tour, or maybe they just like the suits? Are the comical pauses that extend just a bit too long in the middle of songs put there intentionally or are they just something that came up in the middle of the song?

His Lordship is a band who are at a stage where they no longer need to talk to each other to really perform; the music they have created does that for them

However, once the band are on stage the question of whether or not there’s a level of irony attached to their performance is quickly discarded as they launch into an onslaught of insanely fast rock music. His Lordship breeze through gritty, booming tracks built around these electrifying guitar and bass lines, it’s almost impossible for them to take a moment to stop. The light sweat droplets that appear on their brows by the third or fourth song eventually drench them by the end of the set, decorating the set list that is slotted underneath a mass of amps and pedals. At one point they acknowledge the profuse sweating with lead singer and guitarist James Walborne joking that “our suits smell really bad” only for the drummer Kristoffer Sonne to retort that “I was concentrating on the music”. To be fair, Sonne had spent the previous song balancing on top of one of the drums spinning a microphone around like a lasso before sticking it in his mouth so it is likely that doing that is more of a focus than the sweat bleeding into his clothes.

The songs themselves are driving powerful rock ‘n’ roll. The minimal amount of people on stage, simply Walborne, Sonne, and their bassist Dave Page, allow them to explode. The songs flow into each other rapidly, with minimal interruption, almost making it seem like an updated version of The White Stripes – a band who used to perform without a setlist, simply allowing the music to speak for them. His Lordship is a band who are at a stage where they no longer need to talk to each other to really perform; the music they have created does that for them. Even when there are falters in the performance, such as when a sweat-drenched pedal starts to falter halfway through during the song ‘The Repenter,’ the band are quick to resolve themselves, simply switching one of the cables mid-song with Walborne joking that they’ve stolen a bunch of cables from different bands and it was almost inevitable for one of them to fail.

Their powerful songs move from the light-hearted to an earnest instrumental memorial to The Pogues’ Shane McGowan

His Lordship uses their concert as a way to provide a sharp, contained, nostalgia-fueled rock gig as they power through sixteen songs within an hour. They make occasional comments to introduce songs, like stating “fuck the Tories” before performing their song ‘Jackie Works For The NHS’, a statement that receives large cheers from the audience, or joking that the song ‘I Am In Amsterdam’ is about “an ill-advised mushroom trip when I was about twelve.” Their powerful songs move from the light-hearted to an earnest instrumental memorial to The Pogues’ Shane McGowan, all of which are delivered to full intensity as Walborne scrunches up his face to sing and falls onto his back at the end of the final guitar solo.

By the end of the set, it feels like everything in their performance, from the suits to the dynamic between the band members, to the insanely fast-paced nature of the show are all in service of, as Walborne says himself, achieving “that rock and roll shit”.

★★★★