Johnny Flynn @ Rough Trade East = Enraptivating

First of all, please don't not read this because I hybridised two words to make a new word

I went to Rough Trade East the other day. Monday if we're insisting on specifics. Monday, 8th June 2010 (around 6:25pm) if you're a cock. I went on the Waterloo and City line to Bank and then walked the rest of the way. Now enough with the questions... If you want, email me and I will happily talk about tube routes and walking throughout London.

I bought Johnny Flynn's new album (two copies, one for me and one for a friend) along with Sleigh Bells - Treats, Surfer Blood - Astro Coast and Noah and the Whales - First Days of Spring. I was fortunate enough to be presented with two 'wristbands' which entitled me to return the following day (I came via the same route and arrived slightly later and met a friend on the way, and went for a drink at The Water Poet - awesome pub).

We wondered in to the venue - which, I would like to iterate, was a record shop, still with rows of records and stuff on the shelves... to the wonderful noise of Johnny Flynn and his guitar. Just that. Nothing else.

The standouts for me were The Wrote and The Writ... easily one of my favourites from his first album - A Larum - alongside Ghost of Donnaghue and Hong Kong Cemetry. If you want to read an excellent biog for this fine young man then go ----------->

"When he was a boy, Johnny Flynn used to poach trout. If this sounds like a scene from Roald Dahl's Danny The Champion Of The World, it's because Johnny Flynn's life would make for a great Dahl adventure.... Ever since discovering a copy of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in a junk shop aged 13, he has known what he wants to do with his life: to take off on a path of discovery, and write poetic, lyrical songs that document the journey." - Rough Trade East

I shall now cite myself from my own notes (a trick I learned all those years when i had to write essays but wasn't so hot on the research). As usual I shall quote word for word and letter for letter.

"Wrote an the writ descended the group(not) crowd into a melacholic mesmerisation- emanated that feeling in your stomach that 'everything is good"

"Churlish may- no trumpets? Were they missed? Na. Fraid not"

"Surprisngly - been listening was the riches, most apitvating and self explanatory (if you were using his music and not common words to explain what Mr Flynn sounds like and epitomises."

I think that says it all really. Spend a little bit of time with this be it on your morning commute (it'll take the edge of things) or the evening commute (it'll add to the serenity of leaving work) or just listen to the wonderfully slow, rhapsodies that this boyishly handsome and similarly boy-ish humility. His comparability to his name sake (Johnny Cash) is well earned through the richness of his story telling and the dialect/vocabulary he chooses to use.

A few words on the crowd. Like I said before, it was more of a group or a gathering than it was a crowd. There was a warmth and a comfort in each others company. Maybe I am just being wanky BUT the silence was rare and golden; the complete stillness created by and pure concentration on the our protagonist for the hour was something i had not seen in a long time.

Bravo.