Following on from the amazing lineups of the past two years, the Mencap Little Noise sessions are back again this November to raise more money for the mental disability charity.

The lineup is almost complete, with a string of pretty amazing performances scheduled. Personally, I’m most excited about Editors day, along with the pop-tastic Alexandra Burke, Mika and Newton Faulkner days – all of the shows have great talent and with the promise of special guests, I say you should hop on down to Union Chapel to check out some great music. Head on over to the Little Noise Sessions website for more answers to your questions.

The artists so far announced include:

Monday 16th November
Editors
The Maccabees
Bombay Bicycle Club
Everything Everything

Tuesday 17th November
Alexandra Burke
Alphabeat
Marina and the Diamonds
VV Brown

Wednesday 18th November
Mika
Paloma Faith
Alex Gardner
Daisy Dares You

Thursday 19th November
Richard Hawley
I Blame Coco

Friday 20th November
Lostprophets
The Blackout
Egyptian Hip Hop

Saturday 21st November
Taio Cruz
Tinchy Stryder
Chipmunk

Sunday 22nd November
Florence and the Machine
Golden Silvers
Erik Hassle
Ellie Goulding

Monday 23rd November
David Gray
The Low Anthem
Lisa Mitchell

Tuesday 24th November
Newton Faulkner
Scouting for Girls
Little Comets
Stornoway

“Everyone is being so quintessentially English and not sitting next to each other” grumbled one woman as she and her boyfriend tried to find a place to sit before the gig started. How true it was – what’s more English that sitting in a 134 year old church, on wooden pews that make your bum go numb?

However who we’d gone to see wasn’t English – oh no. He was Ben Kweller,Texas’ finest singer songwriter to hit these shores for a while. But we’ll get to that in a couple of moments.

Once we’d navigated our way to the gorgeous chapel (with some of the nicest venue staff I’ve yet to see – take note, Academy venues), we took to our pews, complete with hot-dog and settled in for half an hour of Carrick, lead singer from “Everybody Else“, an LA three piece. After being amazed and awed by how skinny his legs were (seriously, they bewildered us for a good few minutes), we slowly fell for his wistful tunes, strong voice, and interesting bow-tie.

However, we were really there for Ben, and a couple of minutes after 9 he ambled on stage, joined by Kitt Kitterman, the sort of guy you don’t want to meet down a dark alleyway. Plowing through a set full of material both from his previous albums and his forthcoming “Changing Horses”, it seemed that whilst he worked incredibly hard the crowd were a bit subdued… whether that was due to the nature of it being a church, or just the collection of people is hard to guess, but either way there was no doubting Ben’s efforts.

Throughout his 90 minutes on stage we had such gems as a cover of Neil Young’s “From Hank To Hendrix” and “Different But The Same”, which was dedicated to Kitt as “he quite likes playing it and we don’t play it that much…”. To be honest, the 90 minutes flew by a bit too quickly – I would have been quite happy to sit there for a few more hours, hearing a whole back-catalogue, however I have a feeling everyone’s bums would have been completely numb by then.

My highlight of the evening wasn’t one of the established songs that everyone knew. Nope, it was one of the new ones, “Homeward Bound”, the closing track to “Changing Horses” and written by Willie Nelson’s parents in the 1950s and one little gem that has sat around for 50-odd years before Ben recorded it. It fitted the chapel perfectly, just needing a little choir and it would have been complete.

Shortly before closing out with “Penny on the Train Track”, Ben announced that he’ll be back in London on May 15th at Koko as part of a proper tour for “Changing Horses” – definitely a date to add to your diary.

A big thanks to Megan @ C3 Management for sorting out tickets.

Pictures after the jump.

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