Many years ago, this author found himself attending a performance of 16th an 17th century English drinking songs, all of which were funny and dealt with many universally humorous elements of the human condition. Warmwater’s live tour promoting their new EP InExperience: A Concept EP was very much in this style of timeless and universal humour (minus the songs about alcohol).

The humour relied on a combination of clever and bawdy puns and lampooning folk acts – which was well received by the audience. Aesthetically and musically they managed to spoof the hippie-folk-duo style very well (and even did some interesting renditions of famous ’60’s and ’70’s songs), including the “spacey” style of performing which looked and felt like that was purely their personalities but was something that was clearly well rehearsed and thought out. The songs themselves were catchy faux-folk tunes that were in equal part catchy and humorous, and generally kept the night interesting. The themes were mostly bawdy for their songs, which are always a good place to start an evening with a laugh, although they covered a variety of typical folk topics and then subverted them in an amusing fashion – something which was further assisted by their onstage personas.

They also had some very interesting approaches to potential interruptions, but it is important not to give too much away in that regard.

One measure of how accomplished a performer is is how the handle the pressure of things going wrong onstage. When a microphone just collapsed (through no fault of anyone onstage), the initial shock was very quickly overcome, and while one person called the tech person onstage to fix the issue, the other (without breaking character) talked to the audience to ensure they were kept entertained. Despite the setback from this, they got on very quickly with the show once the microphone stand was fixed, and the incident was quickly forgotten.

In conclusion, a fun show with plenty of laughs to be had at the hands of talented and clever performers – all one needs from a good night out. We can only hope that they manage to draw more crowds going forward, and their faux-folk schtick takes off as it deserves.