Cocos at the Astor

23/05/15
The Astor Theatre, Deal

This was Cocos Lovers raising funds to release their (now completed) new fourth album, Twisted Moon. Support was from ex-Cocos member Poggy Hatton and her band (including Phil and Billy from Cocos, her husband James on drums and new recruit Adam Whitaker on unfortunately not-very-audible grand piano). She played a lot of new stuff, all sounding great.

We were treated to a nice mix of old and new stuff from Cocos (all four albums represented). Many of the new songs were already familiar to me, having heard Matt Tweed's premixes some months ago, and from the woodland residency I hosted last year where they were working on some of them. "Bitterness Gone" is now called "Listening Ear", to be the first single, and the title track is sung by Bill. James Hatton was back behind tje drums as Stewy was away drumming with a gnawa collective in London, and Pog joined for last song, the gorgeous "Door of the Andes" — I never thought I'd hear that played again. Everyone was looking very happy on stage. The eight-piece version of the band from about 2010 returned for a double encore of "Howling Wind" and "Moonlit Sky". We all left feeling very satisfied, like having eaten a healthy, delicious meal, just the right amount of everything. The mix was perfect (apart from a few seconds of feedback during the first encore). Lovely crowd too. Nice to be back in East Kent...