It's strange to start writing about a band by talking about their most recent release, especially when I've been listening to their other albums for quite a while now, but this album captures the moment the band went from being a band I thought were OK to a band I thought were incredible, and that's a good place to start.
On the morning of the 24th of May, 2014 I woke up late at my wife's parent's house. She was on a course that day and I didn't really know what I was going to with the day at all. I figured at very least I'd pop down the road to Banquet Records and buy some music. After a shower I had a browse of Twitter and saw that someone had a spare ticket for the show La Dispute were doing that afternoon in the All Saint's Church in Kingston. I knew they were playing a show there but also knew that, like the other shows they'd done that week in London, it was crazy-sold-out.
A lot of people had seen them that week and were raving endlessly about them. I'd seen the band twice before and kinda enjoyed them, but never to the extent that I checked out any of their records (I had a song on a Top Shelf Records sampler, but that was it). The first time had been with Touche Amore in the Fighting Cocks (I hadn't planned to go but, again, found a spare near the time - for some reason the house-lights were on during Touche which really ruined the show for me) and the second time in the Garage with Make Do and Mend and Title Fight (because Sarah bought tickets and I figured it'd be fun). I had a feeling there was more to this band than I had become aware of, but before that Saturday in May I hadn't seen what it was.
I sat on the bed for a few minutes and decided to tweet back at this guy to see if the ticket was still available, which it was. I had some lunch and headed over for the early afternoon, acoustic, church show. By a fairly strange turn of events, I never actually met the guy who had the spare ticket. He was running late but I explained the situation to Max at the door and he let me in (it's useful knowing people). The show was for charity and the guy just wanted the buyer to put some money in the charity pot, so I put in a tenner.
The show was incredible. It probably says a lot about me that it takes a post-hardcore band playing acoustic in a church for me to finally get them, but it really worked. I know now that a lot of the songs on their most recent album, Rooms of the House, lend themselves to being acoustic more than others and those make up the bulk recorded here. They played for a good while longer than the six songs recorded here and had a couple of Q&A sessions between songs (the first one got off to a painful start, but it got better once everyone got used to the idea). It was certainly a very special show and I'm beyond glad I saw it - without that spare afternoon/tweet/spare ticket/show I might never had quite cracked the surface of a band that I've since got a great deal out of.
I was very glad to see that these songs got released eventually. I knew the show was being recorded and was looking forward to hearing it again - there aren't many shows that I've been to that ended up on vinyl, so it's nice to have; it certainly brings back memories each time I hear it. The first side consists of a few mostly instrumental songs that feature on the soundtrack to their dvd, Tiny Dots. I've not seen the dvd yet, but I'd like to at some point. They're interesting songs, but side two is the real gem here.
Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £19 new
Bought: Truck Store
When: 16/04/16
Colour: Clear with blue splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
