You may not recognise their name immediately, but the band who wrote ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ took to The Joiners’ stage on the evening of the 24th October.
The four-piece band arrived on the south coast to play The Joiners as part of their UK tour, which concludes in Sheffield on the 19th November. In the compact confines of this establishment The Ordinary Boys were joined by two warm-up acts who helped to bring the crowd in and energise the audience before the band came on to perform. There was a mixed crowd that ranged from young adults to parent-like figures. It would be fair to say that The Ordinary Boys produce music that can appeal to all generations from the outlook of this demographic.
At the beginning of the set the energy in the crowd was slightly lacking as the band performed some of their lesser well known songs. There was a split between the die-hard fans who were dancing and singing along to all of the band’s music and those who knew the band from their hit single ‘Boys Will Be Boys’, which was released back in 2005 and topped the UK singles chart in 2006 after the lead singer, Samuel Preston, appeared on Big Brother. The atmosphere began to pick up when the band played their newest song ‘Awkward’, which was released in October 2014, as the lead singer lowered his mic into the crowd and got the audience to sing the chorus with him.
Towards the end of the band’s set Preston shrugged off the idea of walking off stage to only come back on and do an encore, so instead the group decided to stay on and perform another three songs. Within their last few songs the audience were dancing around a lot more than at the beginning, and after Preston had seemed to have consumed a few too many drinks, the lead singer decided to swing from the lighting rig in a rockstar-esque fashion; an act that looked to be more dangerous than fun!
As an obvious crowd pleaser, the penultimate song was the anticipated ‘Boys Will Be Boys’. Whilst this song was being performed a mini mosh pit was formed next to the stage that, oddly, mainly included the parent sector of the audience. At this point the band had most of the audience bopping their heads and singing along to their classic tune. To conclude their set The Ordinary Boys covered The Beach Boys‘ 1965 song ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’ in a fairly successful last attempt to get everyone in the crowd dancing along to their music.
In general, The Ordinary Boys were able to pull off a fairly entertaining and amusing performance at The Joiners despite not being able to get the audience dancing and singing along from beginning to end. The band were able to showcase their new material whilst exciting the audience with their classic hit. Hopefully the band will go on to regaining their previous success soon.
