Esteban – The Old Brown Jug, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 15/10/08

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Pretty much the undisputed musical capital of small Staffordshire town Newcastle-under-Lyme, The Old Brown Jug clearly has an immense social responsibility. In fact the pub is quite well-known for its jazz performances, and the walls are adorned with pictures of jazz heroes like Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Tonight though, they played host to Derby outfit Esteban, pioneers of self-described “desert funk” as well as New Education, a support band from hailing from nearby Stoke. To your correspondent in the area, the event was one approached with amixture of excitement and anxiousness – Esteban were an exciting prospect, especially given that I’d awarded their rather nice EP Santiago a not-unrepectable 84% recently – but New Education were a completely unknown quantity and this was my first oppurtunity to provide a little local live coverage for TLOBF. Would I find the pub in time? Would the bands actually be on? Would I take decent pictures, or leave our readers with horrendous excuses for visual journalism? With the exception of the third question, everything went well, and an enjoyable night was had by all…

The Old Brown Jug is not a huge establishment and by the time New Education got round to playing at about 10pm, the area around them with clogged with a mixture of music fans and random people who’d stumbled in with pints in their hands. Nevertheless, the band’s arsenal of anthemic, riff-heavy indie rock soon got everyone fired up. It was a confident and accomplished display in a confined space.

When the main event Esteban appeared, things had thinned out substantially for some reason – the band played a relatively short but hugely energetic 8-song set, including the entirety of the Santiago EP. Frontman Steve Wright displayed a Mick Jagger-esque inability to stay still, displaying an array of dance moves and air-drumming that fit the band’s funk-tinged rock style perfectly. All the way through, the band really seemed to be enjoying themselves, despite the modesty of the venue’s size and audience. Esteban decided to leave their fun singalong song “Say It Loud” until last, which was a wise move as it turned out to be the highlight, drummer Muel Gonzalez’s drum build-ups after the huge chorus sounding even better and move aggressive live than they do on record.

All in all, it was an exciting, energetic evening, with two talented bands back to back. These guys all deserve to go far, on the evidence of this display – if they do, we’ll all be able to look back on it say “Ah, I saw Esteban back before they were huge… in The Old Brown Jug I think it was, that place that’s thirty foot square, if that.”

New Education on MySpace
Esteban on MySpace