A very Canadian evening awaited an expectant crowd, many of them familiar with The Commoners last visit. But a late start gave the audience a chance to enjoy a drink or two. Indeed, the crowd didn’t really seem to mind!

First up was fellow Canadian Madison Galloway, here to promote her latest eponymous album, and pretty good it seems too. Opening with 'Freedom', rootsy Blues kicked in from the start, with Madison clearly showing off her origins with some serious big guitar riffs and a seriously hooky chorus! 'Hate Birds' and 'Love Like Yours' then followed in much the same vein.

Next up was 'The River' (not the Boss’s song!), with some swampy guitar holding the whole track together. 'Devil In Her Eye', was followed by 'She Talks To Angels', albeit older songs that I was not familiar with, but none the worse for it. Madison then closed the set with the powerful, 'Open Your Eyes', also off the latest album, with some nice interplay between organ and guitar! A great way to start the evening!

The Commoners were out pretty quickly afterwards, obviously keen to get the promotion of their latest album 'Restless' in gear! Suffice to say they opened with a track from their latest offering, 'Shake You Off', a straight out, guitar driven rocker, setting the tone for the evening! With singer Chris Medhurst nailing the vocals and showing why he runs the show, they kept with the latest album, as the band stormed into 'Who Are You?'. Heavier on the keyboards, but rockin’ all the same, with a great solo here!

Sticking with the new album, we were then treated to 'Devil Teasing Me', where we got to enjoy lead guitarist Ross Hayes Citrullo stretching himself (and he’s pretty damned good too!). Bringing the tempo down, 'Body And Soul' followed with Medhurst showing off his vocal prowess yet again! Next was 'Too Soon To Know You', yet another track off the latest album, that I would personally pop in to the category of maybe a little too serious to fit in with everything else, but it does feature a great slide guitar solo at the end! That said, the following number, 'See You Again', has a serious side to it and somehow it doesn’t quite distract, if anything, it works very well!

Next we dropped back to 2022 and their debut album with 'Deadlines', before returning to 'Restless' in the shape of 'The Way I Am'. A strong vocal on this song really makes it work along with a great guitar solo in the middle. Magic! Then the quartet let themselves go with some straight out Rock and Roll, in the form of 'Gone Without Warning'. Great fun! It was then time to mine the archives with a cover of The Beatles 'Yer Blues', and it went down a storm (it’s not everyday you hear that particular song)!

'Fill My Cup' rounded off the evening with a hark back to the new album. The band then deservedly found their way back on to the stage for a rousing rendition of 'Find A Better Way', politely reminding us with the title track, if we needed to, that they have already got a very good first album out there! A great evening out in North London. Indeed, The Commoners are a Canadian band to be reckoned with and are well worth a listen!

Tim Russell