Having seen The Skints perform an incredible set at this year’s Boomtown festival the SOURCE was more than a little excited to see them again, especially in a much more personal venue – The Haunt.

As we arrive, Samsara have just started and we are thrilled to hear that they’re setting the mood perfectly with some soulful reggae and ska sounds. They create a fantastic atmosphere as they end with a fun, lively ska song that gets everyone around us skanking and smiling.

Before long The Skints are cheered onto the stage and we are impressed that the crowd can make so much noise. There are clearly some very enthusiastic fans here – us included. They open with the chilled and melodic ‘Mindless’ which gets everyone singing along with a grin on their face, before building up the tempo by mixing old crowd favourites ‘Rise Up’ and ‘Ratatat’ with newer songs like their cover of Katy B’s ‘On A Mission’.

Regardless of the song, the whole crowd seems to know every word and the even when the tempo slows back down the excitement is palpable: the crowd loves it, the band loves it and the elation is almost too much to handle. The guitarist-cum-singer takes a quick break to tell us about the band’s first time in Brighton – how they played a tiny venue and their car broke down and how everything just went wrong. Well, tonight things couldn’t be going more right.

With such high expectations we’re not disappointed as we leave the venue. The Haunt is a great venue to see bands, it’s personal and the acoustics are fantastic. The Skints blew our minds. The only improvement we could possibly think of for tonight was that it is the perfect music to be listening to in the sunshine. Hopefully they will be at all of next year’s festivals. If they are, it would be worth going to one just to see them – we really could not be leaving this gig feeling any happier.

Haunt, Friday 30th November 2012
Words and photos by Esme Yules