Stealing Sheep / All We Are / Prides @ East Village Arts Club, 17 July

It’s hot. Everyone in this sweltering Victorian loft knows it’s hot. Right now, a gig is a tiring proposition, but we soldier on because it’s free and it beats lying in an ice bath praying for rain. Prides begin proceedings with a set as workaday indie and vague as their name suggests, but a chance to see All We Are in the flesh – they've been on many a radar for a while now thanks to their rightly successful debut single Utmost Good, but the rest of their catalogue is mysterious and hard to find – has the audience on tenterhooks. 

They begin concealed in deep green lights and smoke, with murky bass rumbles and wispy strands of guitar, and all three of them stand pillar-like throughout the gig, dipping in and out of harmonies. By the end of the set – Utmost Good, of course – we’re completely enthralled.

As is now traditional with Stealing Sheep gigs, the group are introduced by the Harlequin Dynamite Marching Band, who periodically drift on and off stage, consistently reinvigorating the set. Stealing Sheep’s hazy summer vibe fits the mood of the night, but their woozy tones and tendency to drift mean that most of the audience sink into somnambulant zombie dancing – before an energetic wake-up call from Shut Eye. [James Hampson]