I live in a pretty uninteresting town. We have quite an impressing shopping centre but not much else. As night life goes we have a Wetherspoons, Yates and a depressingly terrible nightclub. However Birmingham, the U.Ks second city; is massive, seething with nightlife, and only about 18 miles away, but I am ashamed to say I know very little about it. To kill boredom I rounded up a few equally frustrated friends to explore a venue in the city. Being strapped for cash however our options were considerably narrowed; even if we found a cheap venue we needed to catch the last train home as we couldn’t afford the £35 taxi.

After searching the net, we came across the Sunflower Lounge, a bar literally a stone’s throw from the train station, which hosts bands on a Wednesday evening. This was ideal as two of us work in busy pubs and have no chance of getting weekends off, and moreover the bands finished at around 11, giving us enough time to make the last train home.

Oxfam Glamour

Between us we have a pretty diverse taste in music and are open to anything, so the fact we had never heard of any of the bands listed for the coming Wednesday didn’t bother us at all, and is understandable for a relatively unknown venue. There were four bands playing, which we considered a fairly good variety. One of them called, ‘The Oxfam Glamour Dolls particularly made an impression. After reading that we decided we were probably in for a weird and hopefully wonderful night.

 My first impression of the bar as we approached was surprise; the Sunflower Lounge is absolutely tiny. There is a small bar and a few tables and chairs grouped around it, spilling out into the street. The front of the bar is completely open letting in the cool night air. There is a raised area almost like a balcony at the back of the room but it is literally only big enough for two tables.

 The size however was not at all disappointing; in fact it really gave the Sunflower Lounge its character, and its buzzing atmosphere. The place was already heaving with people, and because of its size you couldn’t take a step without having to say, ‘excuse me.’ The air was also full of anticipation for the bands as the musicians ploughed back and forwards through the crowd carrying instruments for their sets.

After a while we realised a queue was forming down a narrow flight of stairs, and guessing rightly it was for the gig we joined it as it crawled slowly downwards, all the while the lights getting dingier and dingier. When we eventually got to the bottom and paid our £3.00 entrance fee, I was surprised yet again to find an even smaller room.

James Ray

Considering the queue that had formed upstairs and was flowing steadily into it, the room was hardly spacious. It had the feeling of a youth club or school hall, decorated for a play. It’s a little worse for ware, and smells musty, but the walls are covered in rainbows, like a hippy’s paradise. Thankfully the gig room has its own small bar, as to push your way back upstairs against the wall of queuing people would be an impossible feat, and the gig itself lasted about 3 hours which is a long time without a drink. We didn’t have to wait long before a solo act kicked off the night, making a light hearted beginning with quirky songs accompanied by an acoustic guitar. The artist, James Ray managed to make the crowd laugh and produced some truly sing along tunes from under his large blonde afro.

The next band had brilliant energy and much more volume. They were obviously very popular locally as they didn’t bother to introduce themselves and the crowd swelled for their act and dwindled considerably after they’d finished. They sounded very much like the Editors and performed to perfection. The third band, The Oxfam Glamour Dolls were even weirder than their name. To be honest they sounded like plain old noise to me. The lead singer was completely drowned by the guitars, and when his voice occasionally did rise above the noise it was a terrible screeching, and not worth straining to hear. They were however entertaining, leaping all over the stage with a crazy energy and climbing up the railings of the fire escape staircase. One of the guitarists dived into the crowd frequently and enjoyed playing his guitar lying on his back.

The Yell

The final band was my personal favourite. Entitled The Yell; they were very similar to the Arctic Monkeys, having that same prominent Sheffield accent, and catchy, lively sound. However they produced their own individual twist through a female pianist who banged out jazzy interludes on her electric piano. On top of their brilliant performance they also had a lot of character and stage presence. The lead singer had the working class image down to a ‘T’ with a fag hanging off his lip and a beer in his hand, telling jokes between every song. Two of the male guitarists kept leaning in as if to kiss then pulling back at the last minute. I think they felt the need to redirect some of the attention away from their charismatically dressed singer who wore a three piece suit.

After a the last band finished the stragglers that had stayed to the very end either shuffled upstairs to enjoy a couple of pints or filtered out the fire escape to the street above. Unlike the others though, we had to leg it up the stairs and round the corner to the train station just making the last train, that’s of course with a slight detour to MacDonald’s first. Traveling back on the train we all felt tired from being on our feet since the gig started at 8, but contented with a night well spent, and determined to go again. Our exploration had gone well and gave us the encouragement to try other new places. Ears buzzing, and humming The Yell’s final tune under our breath we discussed the performances and looked forward to next week’s exploration.