What a night! One Iota’s debut album was launched in great style on Friday 21st January at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York. With support from special guests Mostly Autumn, appearing in their acoustic line-up, this was a show that for many in the audience was a first step out into the resurging live music scene after such a long lay-off.
And what a way to do it. From the very start with the haunting stripped-back acoustic set from Mostly Autumn, through to the One Iota finale with, yes, fourteen musicians on stage, this was an experience not to be missed.
The best way to describe the evening is from an audience member’s point of view, so here’s a full review kindly written by David Webb. Thanks for taking the time to do this David, the band really appreciate it.
A twenty minute rather chilly walk to the venue, but at least it was straight forward, not much chance of getting lost, saw me inside The Joseph Rowntree Theatre in York at about 5 to 7, in plenty of time for tonight’s One Iota album launch show. It’s a very nice small theatre, nice comfortable seats too, and at least where I was sat, excellent sound, so what’s not to like? I had a seat in the fourth row, beside the centre aisle so a very good view indeed as well. At 7.15pm the lights went down and the first absolute treat of the evening commenced. Mostly Autumn (Stripped back and acoustic) substituting for Odin Dragonfly who were originally also going to launch their album but sickness intervened. It was as good an appropriate substitution as you could possibly hope for, and something I’d never seen before, Mostly Autumn as a three piece!
Bryan Josh on acoustic guitar and vocals, Olivia Sparnenn-Josh on lead vocals and Angela Gordon on flutes and vocals. If that sounds good to you then you’d be right, it was something rather special. The songs had space to breathe with only acoustic guitar and some flute at times, but there was no hiding place in that situation. Just as well those three are the best! Starting with a beautiful version of ‘Evergreen’, that worked very well in this form, followed by a song I can’t place, called ‘The house on the hill’, which was absolutely beautiful. Then something quite a bit more up tempo, ‘Into the stars’? (I can’t read my faint scrawlings….lol) The combined vocals of Olivia and Angela just magical, sending shivers down the spine! Then one from ‘Graveyard Star’, the latest album, written about their experiences of Lockdown, ‘The harder you hurt’. To finish a much too short, but truly magical set, ‘Heroes never die’, a song that is always appropriate and completely timeless, and impossible not to sing along to. The three voices sounding wonderful together. Judging by the applause, the crowd loved that half hour of magical music, and I most certainly did. I just hope I got all the song titles right, my memory is hopeless and my pencil scrawl in the dark is barely legible, something that was equally a problem for One Iota’s set. A nice half hour break to get refreshments etc., in my case a tub of chocolate chip ice cream, well, ice cream in the interval was always a gig tradition in the old days, though I hate to think how many calories I consumed, but it tasted wonderful. The first ice cream of the year, I wonder if there will be another, I rarely have them normally.
Everyone was back settled in their seats for 8.15pm as dramatic music played and coloured lights cut through the dry ice and a string quartet slipped into their seats on stage before the place erupted in applause as One Iota came on stage, all five of them! Plus two backing singers! That makes 11 people on stage then, so the sound was going to be full! I’ve played the album a three times so far but have absolutely no memory of the track names with one exception, so, as they went into the first track I couldn’t make out what it was, yet I found myself singing along, something that became a bit of a feature for the rest of the evening. Luckily for me most songs were introduced, so it’s only my dodgy scrawls that mean I get them wrong in most cases! The applause after the first song must have made them feel things were going well, apart from a technical problem with one monitor, and you could already see smiles breaking out on the faces of the string quartet and the two backing singers. The next song was introduced, and it has also been released as a single, it’s a very bouncing track called ‘Summer Daze’, and it certainly had a very Beatle-ish feel. One Iota started out as Beatles tribute act, The Threetles, as in their normal form there were only three of them, no Ringo character, and they started writing their own songs with very much of a Beatles vibe and sound, mainly concentrating on the earlier years when The Beatles were a ‘Live’ act and their music was easier to play live. The electric guitar on ‘Summer Daze’ is particularly reminiscent of George Harrison. Then they played an early composition called ‘Lazy Susan’ that dates back about 12 years, and is not on the album, but fitted in perfectly with everything else. This was followed by ‘One thing is certain’, which, on the album, is very Beatle-ish, but live reminded me very much of The Hollies, something that happened with a few other songs too.
Next came a song which, unless I misunderstood what Adam Dawson said completely, is not on the album, but if that’s really the case, how come I could sing along to it more or less throughout. Without the album to look at I can’t check but It’s called ‘One in a million’ and it is hugely catchy. It originally started as ‘One in a Minion’ (Is that the right spelling?) because Adam’s children liked ‘Minions’ if I understood what he said? Once again it reminded me of The Hollies, as did the next song, ‘If I were you’. This was followed by ‘Another day’ very Beatle like though perhaps reminding me of The Rutles. Next was a ballad that I couldn’t pick up the title of, but it certainly was like Paul McCartney songs, with Adam’s keyboards taking centre stage. Then something really rather special to me, a song that was written and performed in Stolen Earth days, with Heidi on vocals of course, and became on of the absolute faves of their songs even though they never recorded it so I loved it purely from their live performances. It made me proud to be wearing my Stolen Earth tee shirt tonight! This is ‘Harlequin’ and Adam came out from behind his keyboard and sat on the edge of the stage as near as possible to the crowd, and the place erupted in applause at the end! Just wonderful! What could follow that?
Well, The Threetles do Beatles songs so why not do one? A stunningly good version of ‘A day in the life’ once again brought the house down, with the string quartet, drummer and backing singers really coming into their own to make this song work so well. Next up was ‘Tidal Waves’ which kept up the high standard before a song written about the Covid world called ‘The Other Side’ which reminded me of Big Big Train’s song from their current album on the same subject, ‘Extraordinary Times’ especially lyrically. The guitar work on this song especially stood out but there were many songs where you felt George was in the room in spirit at least. ‘Stories’ followed which is about those characters that always used to entertain with unlimited talk stories that have largely died out these days in the world of social media. It seems almost incongruous singing about posting on Instagram in a very early Beatles sort of way! This song actually sounded like it was out of the rock and roll era that came before Beatlemania but that they cut their teeth on.
Then the 11 people on stage were joined by three more! Three ukulele players all dressed the same to add to the sound of ‘Never let a fool kiss you’ introduced as a ‘Ringo song’, one Adam was most proud yet at the same time most ashamed to have written. To be honest he should be 100% proud, Ringo songs are unjustifiably maligned, he had his style and he wrote good songs, and this song is pure brilliance, completely irresistible to sing along to yet a tongue twister at the same time. One of several times there was audience participation clapping along and I suspect many others were singing like I was ( most likely much better actually). The set then came to a storming end with ‘Raise a glass’ which we did metaphorically with tremendous applause and calls for an encore.
Well, we didn’t have to wait long before the band returned for an extended version of a song I don’t know the title of which contained the lyric ‘give more than you take’ so hopefully someone will tell me, as Adam thanked all those that put on this absolutely joyful and stupendous show! I had no real idea what to expect when coming to this but it so far exceeded anything I could have hoped for, it was an absolute triumph and the happy faces of the band and all those on stage suggest they know it. I waited around a while hoping to chat to Adam but didn’t see him so headed for the exit only to find him chatting to the happy people leaving the theatre there. I did manage to get a short chat with him but I’m not quite sure what he made of this very long haired old man talking gibberish at him and showing him my tee shirts! What an absolutely brilliant evening, well done to everyone involved in this.
David Webb