The Clientele 

Live reviews

• I recently had the opportunity to see The Clientele at The Bell House in New York where they played with Withered Hand, Jim Ruiz Set and Kurt Heasley. If you are not familiar with this UK band, they are a very soft folky pop rock with a gentle, melodic sound to their music, and a lot of steel guitar.

  They came out in almost business casual dress that was reminiscent of the Beetles era shows to a fairly simple stage with a velvet curtain, microphones and their amps and instruments, nothing more. But they don't need all the bells and whistles of fantastical light shows and smoke screens to keep the crowd engaged. These things would have merely been distractions from the fantastic, melodic sound.

  From the first chord, you could literally feel the emotion they pour into their gentle music permeating the audience. Soon the crowd fell into a near hypnotized silence, softly cheering in the natural pauses then quieting so as not to miss a single note. Between the songs was when you could hear the pent up energy let loose in cheers and claps before giving way again to more perfectly in tune, timed, harmonious music.

  I would love to have the opportunity to see The Clientele perform again when they return to the East Coast and strongly recommend their shows to anyone seeking a good, gentle, straightforward show with music that is every bit as good live as in the studio.

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  By Anonymous