It was like old times standing half-cut and alone in the throng, scratching illegibly into a notebook in the near pitch dark and trying not to spill beer from a plastic cup onto the backpack clasped between my ankles. It was like old times – and it felt good.

It was also my birthday, and after work I had quickly changed, sunk a pint and dashed to the Trinity centre in my native Easton, Bristol, to review the first gig of a UK tour from brooding US songstress Banks.

I can’t remember ever having drunk tequila on my own before – come to think of it I can but it makes for a long story that ends with myself and two flatmates in a shared garden, wrestling in our pants and socks – or why I was doing it now, but I found it put me in a fine frame of mind for Eclair Fifi’s trap-wise warm up set.

By reaching for the underground Banks has landed just left of middle and there was a fair mix in attendance for what proved a sell-out event. I must confess I knew little if anything of her oeuvre before the requisite journalistic soundcloud immersion.

After the lights had gone up I went to purchase a CD to atone for my press pass only to be met by a selection of phone cases. A sign of the times I guess.

Click on for the review:

BANKS live @ Trinity // Thursday 20th March 2014

Me.