Jake Longhurst
The Hara are an alternative indie band who visited Nottingham on 2nd April 2022, to perform at The Bodega. Jake Longhurst was an attendee of the concert, and reviews.
Walking through town with my friend Kerenza (Kez), it wasn’t immediately obvious that a gig was going on. It was quite a quiet night, not many people about, and no one dressed as you’d expect for a band who are as heavily emo influenced as The Hara. However, stepping through the doors at the top of the stairs in The Bodega changed that abruptly. We made it a little after the first band, Black Cats & Magpies, had started playing, and the crowd looked the part. The band were very good, mixing an excellent blend of post punk with indie, to provide a shimmering atmospheric sound. The last song of their set, Out With The Old was excellent, and they reminded me of Catfish and the Bottlemen in a very good way.
During the break, Kez and I chatted briefly about them, before talking about more mundane things such as the next time we were going to catch up with each other, but were abruptly cut off by the main support act, Jason Allan. It was a bit of a surprise to see only a singer walk out, as we did expect a band to be playing, but Jason turned on a backing track for his first song Heal, which wasn’t bad; the lyrics were pretty good and he was a very good singer. The next song however was a cover of Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender, and his stage presence started to wilt during this, and I don’t think it ever recovered. The backing track also dropped halfway through, which wasn’t helpful for him either.
Next was an unreleased acoustic track, followed by a cover of Glad You Came dedicated to the memory of Tom Parker from The Wanted, who tragically passed away due to cancer earlier in the week. He did two more originals, an unreleased called Same and then finished with Skin. Afterwards, Kez and I both agreed we were both slightly relieved that it was over, as we hadn’t particularly enjoyed his set at all.
Their stage presence was far superior to that of Jason Allan
After he left, we took a short break, and then caught each other at the bar for a drink, just before The Hara walked on. Mercifully, their stage presence was far superior to that of Jason Allan, and they brought a brilliant amount of energy and atmosphere to the top floor of The Bodega. They did an excellent 12 song main set, highlights of which included the singer jumping onto the main speaker stack on two distinct occasions, and climbing through the bar to stand on it.
Sent the crowd into fits
My personal favourite songs that they did during the main set, were the one-two punch of Fool & The Thief into We All Wear Black. For those of you who are avid TikTok users, you may well have seen The Hara on TikTok as We All Wear Black has really blown up as a trend on the app, and has massively increased the bands listener base as a result. After the main set, they ran off-stage briefly, presumably for a drink of water, then came on to finish off with a two song encore of Friends, and Animals, which sent the crowd into fits, lighting the place up until they finished off and waved a goodbye to Nottingham.
Overall, the night was a great display for both The Hara and Black Cats & Magpies, albeit a bit disappointing for Jason Allan, but a thoroughly enjoyable night in retrospect.
Jake Longhurst
Featured image courtesy of Alex Watkin. Permission to use granted to Impact. No changes were made to this image.
In-article image courtesy of @theharaband via @instagram.com. No changes were made to this image.
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