Tales of wearing cheap underwear in fashionable Paris, raw blues rock, Bee stamps, this was a night to remember. It's always a thing when you've admired a band from afar and that moment finally arrives. It did for me on Sunday night in London's East End. I've been keen to catch up with She Keeps Bees and their live thing since the first moment I heard them on some dusty corner of the internet. They were very nearly enough reason to drag me to a muddy festival last year, but in the end life got in the way, so it had been a long time coming. Oh, the waiting makes it sweeter.

First up, praise be for 'The Local' for organising this night. They run regular gig nights but what with me being a London newbie it was the first one I've got to. I've got big admiration for the dedicated few promoters and organisers who keep the likes of me fulfilled with the live experience. On the other hand that pales compared to the respect I have for the bands themselves who build their lives around doing just whatever it takes to get out on the road and connect with their people. It seems like She Keeps Bees must love the road, the amount of gigging they've got on the go. There were two other bands on the bill, 'Dag for Dag' and 'Something Beginning With L', who were both bloody brilliant if truth be told, but it was lo-fi blues that was going to itch my scratch the most tonight.

She Keeps Bees are a simple set up - Andy LaPlant on drums and Jess Larrabee on guitar. Not much in the way of effects. Just one pedal, and even that had Jess cursing at one point. It had an indicator LED which caught the girl's eye - "Red light bad, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh the green's come on, that's OK!". That sort of guile-less interaction really marked them out, that total lack of pretence, just being a guy and a girl playing in a room and appearing to enjoy it hugely. I was kind of glad that my first experience of them wasn't in a muddy field, much better in the upstairs of a pub, leaning on a monitor with my sleeve soaked in beer.

Maybe despite the simple set-up, maybe because of it, but there was just so much blues power coming out of these two people. Blues in a lo-fi, garage, sort of way. Mighty powerful but casual yet comforting at the same time. Comfort in sound, this is what it means. Sure they shout, whoop and holler, but in a friendly way and man alive, they get some noise out of that guitar and those drums.


Jess was in chatty mood, she started off telling us that she'd had to buy new jeans but she couldn't leave it there. The old ones had worn a hole in the crotch, and what use was that to anyone, she wondered? So she'd bought some new ones and then there was the underwear. She doesn't see why she should be made to buy girly underwear when she can, y'know, but a ten pack for five dollars from Uniqlo! But playing in fashionable Paris, some random dude had come up behind her and tucked back in the label that was sticking out the top of her pants and said he did that to everyone he saw, wanted them all to be neat. Pervy if you ask me. And then Jess said that she was doing better than her Mom, that she (Jess) actually wears underwear! At which point she wondered why she'd told us all that. What the heck, I think we all found it educational, and it just added to the charm of a charming noisy night.

In a set drawn heavily from recent album "Nests", highlight song of the night for me was 'Ribbon' but in truth it's hard to choose. ‘Gimmie’ was great as well. Oh alright, there wasn't a duffer in there. There was plenty of variety from more or less a cappella to downright thrash. They played so hard Jess thought she'd broken a string, dumped the guitar on the ground for a song asked Andy if she'd broken it, decided she hadn't and then drove into the final song.

It was all over too quick, way too quick. I was a bit mystified about someone mentioning 'Bee Stamps' until I asked the band to sign a CD cover for me after the show and Jess ceremoniously produced one of those John Bull printing things with an ink pad and put a lovely stamped bee imprint on the cover, signed it and drew a bee as well. Aww.

Their second album "Nests" is out now, but if you like gutsy blues played by real nice people, go and see them now. And get yourself a Bee Stamp.