By Alex Pearson
Hertfordshire-based indie rock quartet The Hunna have been travelling across Europe the past few days, being in Paris on Sunday and Great Escape Festival, Brighton before that. Now it was time for a beautiful, sunny spring evening in Stoke-on-Trent, which was their first ever time.
A Sugarmill regular, Dom Morgan come to the stage once again to kick the night off with his n acoustic with his band. He has grown a lot in confidence since the last time we saw them perform before High Tyde. The crowd really got behind him, especially in Dom Morgan’s very upbeat final track ‘Addicted’. The debut EP, to be called Pyrite has now been released!
Arcadia frontman, Jake
Stoke-based indie rock five-piece, Arcadia were next up for the night. Jake, Sam, Jacob, James and Seb have been creating music since November 2015 and have already released their first EP. Frontman, Jake came onto the stage wearing no shoes, which is a first in all of my gigging experience. To see a young band with a great sound is good to see for the industry and they have a lot of potential ahead of them for college kids.
Support act, Airways are an indie rock quartet from Peterborough. They have had a very successful 2016 with the release of their debut single ‘Ghost Town’. Airways have a great stage presence, even if lead singer Jake seemed slightly drunk. They really got the crowd cheering and dancing away. They also performed new song ‘One Foot’ (which is due to be released in a few weeks’ time) an upbeat indie rock banger that got everyone closer to the stage for a more intimate and sweaty gig.
Airways frontman, Jake
Airways did a superb cover of The Strokes well-known song Reptilla, they covered it perfectly, and you couldn’t really tell the difference. Jake’s voice projected throughout the room. The song got a good reception all round, I think even The Hunna enjoyed listening to it from the balcony.
Now time for the main attraction, a band that has been writing songs for four years but have only officially been a band for no more than 9 months yet has more like on Facebook than Everything Everything and Wolf Alice!
Just after 9:50 on come the four lads come pumped onto the stage joined by a huge cheer and screams as the band start the intro to ‘You & Me’, which the crowd instantly recognise the beat and start to scream and shout even more.
But hits Bonfire and She’s Casual created the most noise with the crowd going absolutely crazy. Even had time to take a photo with the crowd. Their tracks have been crafted to perfection. Drenched in anthemic nature, it immediately insights the need to start singing or even shouting along to.
Hunna Frontman, Ryan
‘We Could Be’ starts with irate drumming, it then builds up throughout the song, to a chorus that is heavy and pleasing, in an Indie Rock way.
The Hunna have recently announced the date for their debut album ‘100’, hence the use of the term ‘Hunna100’. The 16 track album will be released on 26th August, which you can pre-order on iTunes.
If you have not heard any of the bands that played, check out their singles below!
[…] that the Hertfordshire group were taking to the stage at Stoke-on-Trent’s intimate music venue, The Sugarmill. And in as little as over a year, the band have played at a number of huge festivals including […]