Becky Glass

It’s hard to charm a selfconscious crowd, let alone one the size of a modest birthday party. But the Guillemots cast a spell every time they appear live, and their performance for the Hard Rock Café’s 40^th anniversary was no different.
This was no exceptional venue – it was a little too staged and sincere – but the band radiate talent, from frontman Fyfe Dangerfield, a vortex of charisma, to the button-clad Aristazabal Hawkes, the six-instrument-playing bassist; somehow they made it intense rather than awkward.
New songs earned impressed murmurs, and classics bristled with life like the first time they’d ever been played. A run of new and old tunes ended in a rip-roaring pop belter and a sultry, intense finale; the crowd, all prepared to play cynical spectators, were grinning from ear to ear.
From the primary-colour piping on Fyfe’s jacket to the in-jokes going back and forth on stage, the Guillemots are so fun because they are so into what they do. They very clearly, very passionately, believe in music. It’s a (surprisingly rare) quality, which seems to make everything fall, beautifully, into place.