Remember 2007, a time before iPhones and Instagram and Manchester City were owned by Abu Dhabi? The Hoosiers do, and they’ve got the hits to prove it. There’s a tranche of acts like them who came through in the era that music writer Janine Warren has called The Last Indie Music Scene: Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, Bloc Party and, of course, The Libertines can still play the hits and remind people of those halcyon, pre-Twitter days. The Hoosiers, whose star burned brightly then faded away, are now independent and put out their latest album ‘Compassion’ in May.
The Hoosiers are now a duo, Irwin Sparkes and Alan Sharland, accompanied by two touring members. Their ten-date tour comes to Brighton Chalk on Friday 16th October, so their London show on the Tuesday was a mere warm-up. They’ll actually play the AO Arena Manchester and Wembley Arena in February 2027 in support of Scouting For Girls, another quirky, poppy act celebrating 20 years of hits. A condensed version of this 80-minute show will be a fine warm-up for ‘She’s So Lovely’ and other hits from 20 years ago. Tonight’s support act, Bristolian band Hunny Buzz, were notable for being a four-piece in an environment which is financially very unkind to anyone who isn’t playing solo.
Songs from ‘Compassion’ included pulsating set opener ‘Sleeping With The Light On’, album opener ‘Multiply’ and melancholy ‘Permission To Rest’, which were politely received along with the bouncy album highlight ‘Jigsaw Heart’. Props go to the man stage right who played trumpet and keytar throughout the night, adding some colour to the bounce.
The age range of the audience, as you’d expect for a band who were A-listed on national radio between 2007 and 2008, was mostly millennial. The Hoosiers were signed to a major label in the rush to make money from anything quirky, poppy but also independent in spirit; aptly, Maximo Park’s ‘Our Velocity’ was on the tape that played in between opener and headliner. Given that their compilation ‘Greatest Hit(s)’ boasted “all the hit and MORE”, the Hoosiers knew their audience had paid to bellow along to songs from their debut ‘The Trick To Life’. Accordingly, Sparkes turned his microphone to allow the paying public to shout that they were “starting to worry about Ray”.
Before that number, Sparkes had ventured into the audience, singing ‘Choices’ from the floor before clambering back up to the stage for a cover of ‘Pink Pony Club’ by Chappell Roan, complete with a blistering solo. In spite of his boast that they had six albums of “fillerless kill”, they follow the new tendency to add other people’s songs; call it the Live Lounge Effect, or the Karaoke Section. They bookended ‘Cops And Robbers’ with a blast of ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley and ended their main set with an austere, abbreviated version of ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’.
Naturally, before closing their set with ‘All Night Long (All Night)’, the band encored with ‘Goodbye Mr A’: “If life is subtraction your number is up” is still a mysterious line, but attached to some woahs it sounds deep and meaningful. Pop music Hoosiers-style remains frivolous, although their new record will surprise the listener with its depth, but there’s a place for that in today’s live circuit; after all, Hear’Say and Liberty X are back on the road soon to party like it’s 2001, both playing their greatest hit(s).
The Hoosiers, Islington Assembly Hall, Tuesday 13th October 2026
Words by Jonny Brick
Photo by Bridie Cumming
