Tuesday 27/06/06 Kid Harpoon @ Marino’s Restaurant, Rathbone Place, London

Without a doubt the weirdest and nicest smelling gig venue this year, the fresh panini’s on the counter replacing the usual sweat, beer and fags aroma. The crowd that are attempting to squeeze in transform the little café from its daytime guise and create the sense of a mini-‘happening’, that and the presence of Fearne Cotton.

The young Geo-Physician looking Kid Harpoon, in waistcoat, badges and beads, belies the crowd with their skinny jeans and cut off sleeves. One suspects that in this hippy singer songwriter they see ‘authenticity’ whereas the edgy, posey new wave set might be losing their charm.  However, just because you write simple folky songs, does not mean you’re going to pierce Gigwises’ stony heart. The Kid is very effective at that bootleg Woodstock vibe- like the flock of singer/songwriters that sprung up around Dylan, they managed to ape his style but not his essence. We tick off: shouty sounding protest songs, strummy little silly songs and stompy, hoe-down songs. He’s a competent  guitarist and he can sing but lyrically he can be a little trite- his oyster/pearl analogy is seemingly designed to annoy. At the end of the day he’s an eminently likeable Kid and it’s clear that this crowd adore the little fella, however, to these ears he’s a bit 2 by 4, a bit MDF - he’s not real oak.