Words: Jerry (62) and Lauren Thackray (12) 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to write this with you, Dad. I have heavy bias.” 

But that’s why I want you to help me. Tell me about Lovejoy, how they came to be your favourite band in the world and who all their members are. “They came to be my favourite band as soon as I discovered they were a thing. That style of music hadn’t been introduced to me before. I just vibed with it. I discovered them when Wilbur Soot did an acoustic cover of ‘You’ll Understand When You’re Older’ for his egg daughter on the Minecraft server Qsmp. I liked how it was complicated it was, not just basic rhythms or four basic chords. It had progress. In year six, I knew about Wilbur [Dad note – singer with Lovejoy], his solo music, the ‘Egirl Trilogy’ – which is three songs all linked to one another. That is very different to Lovejoy, though. It’s slower and sadder.” 

So, wait. When we saw Lovejoy play live at the Dome last Friday, it must have been quite a thrill to realise we were sitting two rows directly behind Wilbur’s mum. “It wasn’t completely a thrill. It was more like, wow – he spent over half of his life with this person who’s two rows in front of me. I’ll tell you who all the members are now… the singer and backing guitarist is Wilbur Gold (his actual last name), the lead guitarist and backing vocalist is Joe Goldsmith…” 

Is he the one the audience were all chanting ”chug chug chug” at? “Yeah, it was. The drummer is Mark Boardman, who is probably the one I look most up to especially as he’s… [gesticulates]… up there. I aspire to be like him as a drummer, as I do drum, and that’s what I want to do for my main instrument at GCSE.” 

Wait. He was the guy who came on at the end of the first support band’s set, Dave Grohl style, and drummed on their final song, hence all the cheering down the front (and elsewhere). “Yes, he was. The bassist is Ash Kabosu. He doesn’t talk. That’s his main gimmick; if that’s a gimmick. He doesn’t talk in front of the public. He talks to friends and family, I guess, but not in front of cameras. And that’s all the members.” 

Wait. There were five people on stage. “There’s also the person who does the keyboards and the trumpet, I don’t know her name. She’s not like an official part of the main band, she’s a person who goes on tour with them.” I believe her name is Leandra Badruza (Dad research). So let’s backtrack a little. When you say “that style of music”, what are you talking about here? 

“I’m talking about indie as a genre of music, not the whole spectrum. Indie music is not the mainstream. It’s different somehow. It’s barely ever got big in the mainstream like pop is. Pop was my favourite genre until March, but it was getting a bit boring.” 

What are some of the other bands you like? “I like James Marriott, Arctic Monkeys, Good Kid, Beach Bunny, Chloe Moriondo. The genre shift came about because when I got the Spotify app I saw all these indie playlists – and these playlists formed what is my taste today.” 

Good Kid, huh? You didn’t even know they were playing until we were driving to the venue. “Yeah, I was so happy when I found that out. I didn’t realise there was going to be a support band, and then I realised there was, and I was going to know some of their songs.” 

Yeah, I enjoyed them too. [Dad note: they reminded me greatly of a sparkier, less cynical version of the first Strokes album, or a band like The Vaccines. Maybe not quite up to the first, but certainly preferable to the second. Lots of bouncing, lots of energy, lots of crowd shouting along and mobiles being held up during the ‘slower’ moments. See also: Lovejoy. What became core NME territory in the 2000s. See also: Lovejoy. Not necessarily music I’d put on to listen to, but Jeez! I am really old, right? I know it.] 

“I thought Good Kid was really cool. The singer sounded exactly like he does in the recordings, which I found cool, especially with all the auto-tuning around. I liked the fact the guitarist was so high energy, the way he was jumping around the stage during the songs. I was quite shocked at the way he could do that. I also found them very funny.  I liked the little conversations between them – one of them said their uncle had played at the exact same venue as them in London 50 years before, so he got the band to video the audience saying ‘Hi Richard’ to him… and then he realised not only had he got the venue wrong, but the town as well! And it was really in Brighton at the Dome. At which point, the guitarist said he tells this exact story every night, just changes the location… just kidding!” 

What about the first band, Loupe? 

“I think they were cool. I listened to some of their stuff on Spotify and I’m not going to lie. I thought they were better live. I like how she was able to sing really well, and dance. She was doing the thing of taking the mic out of the mic stand and dancing round the stage, but her voice wasn’t faltering at all.” 

[Dad note: I loved watching the way the audience was interacting with the bands: shouting and screaming along with every word, often dancing frantically, reaching up to the rafters, but most often doing all this while watching through a lens – literally, the lens of their mobile devices, which has become part of the whole experience, inseparable, as natural as… being there. It was a major privilege seeing so many people enjoying themselves, so much good-natured energy and relish for music.] 

“For Lovejoy, in the first couple of songs, I didn’t know what to do. For ‘Perfume’, their first song, I couldn’t figure out whether to scream it or sing it. Basically, I was screaming higher than the other people around me. It was awkward because I was still trying to keep in touch with the melody and I was losing my voice by doing so. About three songs in, I started to get the hang of it. I think the best part of the show for me was during ‘It’s Golden Hour Somewhere’… can I swear during this… and it was everyone screaming ‘Holy fuck/There will be signs’ and it goes into the really cool part of the song where the drums become really heavy and the guitar comes in. It was epic. That is probably my favourite song of theirs, or ‘The Fall’ [dad note: final encore] and everyone was just like, in their moment and they were all as one. Everyone was singing back to them, and I felt that in that moment everyone felt like they belonged in that space.” 

Thank you. That is amazing. Anything else? 

“When Will came on the stage, that was probably the best moment of my life. For me to see him in  person, a person who I had only ever seen on a screen in front of me before, and who has given me thousands of hours of enjoyment and who I feel like I know better than I know my best friend, who didn’t realise I existed till this moment, but he’s there in front of me and I’m there in front of him… it’s just really nice knowing they aren’t just figments of my imagination.”