Skye Harbour

In all my years of gigging, I don’t think I have ever seen the Evelyn in such a state of...slouch. The couches that usually line the walls are placed in the smack-bang middle of the floor, looking more like a rather sizeable lounge room. But, on this strangely quiet- considering the beautiful weather- Thursday night, it gives the Skye Harbour fans a much-needed sit, for when their poor feet can dance no more. Because, dear reader, Skye Harbour will make you do just that.

I first found Skye Harbour in the tangled web of MySpace; their tunes sounded polished, fun, catchy, energetic. Falling instantly and deeply in love with single Further Away, I realised this could be my new band to love. But, if there’s one thing I have learned in this business of show, it’s to check them out live first, before pledging utter devotion. So, off to the Evelyn we go. With a two-dollar-fifty pot in hand, I sprawled on the couch and waited patiently to be potentially heartbroken.

But the music gods smile on your friend Lisa, as Skye Harbour kicked into Paying Debts, I knew I was right in my assumption that, yes, Skye Harbour could very well be brilliant. Paying Debts is a softie by Skye standards, with a beautiful classical backdrop; this is what those Grey’s Anatomy types should be buying instead of blasted Snow Patrol.

One driving factor in attraction to Skye Harbour’s tunes is frontman Joshua Hardy’s vocal stylings; a part of me hears something of the dulcet tones of Paul Dempsey within Hardy’s smooth, affecting tenor. Berlin begins with jolly handclaps and “oh, ha, ha, ha, HEY”s and only continues, freight-train-like, from there, amid a flurry of sharp riffage and dramatic keys.

The boys harmonise well together; vocally and instrumentally. The members of Skye Harbour also don’t peacock about; their passion for creation and performance is clear as an unmuddied lake (as an azure sky of deepest summer...) and there is nothing disingenuous about their candour, as I have often seen in my travels.

Playing what felt like a cruelly short set, the band finished with one of my top five tracks of this year- Further Away. The manic keys, kicky snare, that heaving beat at 2:59, Hardy’s flying, pitch-divine vocals (“I started to feel that it all amounts, to a random sequence of sounds...”); it just works. The ten or so punters that were bopping and kicking front of stage were presumably thinking the same thing I was; “Fuck, I love this song”, as they danced the band off stage, and John Mayer came back on the Evelyn stereo, and I miss Skye Harbour already.

Get your Skye Harbour on at http://www.myspace.com/skyeharbour and download Further Away here.

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