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Review: Yonaka, The Fleece – ‘Beautiful, captivating, and on the edge of a dramatic explosion’
The Fleece has always been home to one of Bristol’s most supportive music-loving communities, and Yonaka’s gig is no exception.
The crowd, a patchwork of band patches and leather, welcome every performer with head-banging and hollering.
First to grace the stage is Mimi Barks, their vocals zipping across the audience like static. They’re accompanied by backing tracks of horror-movie synth and distortion that warps the spoken word aspects of their tracks around the blunt beats and dizzying verses. It’s a proper start, to a proper punk-rock gig.
is needed now More than ever
Following on are Noisy who leap onto the stage brandishing a huge happy-sad-face flag. Their music is clearly inspired by the rave scene, a messy drum and bass beat bouncing under all of their tracks.
Much of their set is spent waving glow sticks around in a mosh pit and chatting to audience members between the odd bits of swirly electronica.
They’re ‘laddish’ in the best possible way, checking if people are having fun, encouraging dancing and uniting Bristol’s community in a cocktail of hair-swinging and arm-waving.
By nine o’clock, the anticipation was almost tangible between the dingy lights and sticky floors. Yonaka swiftly release this by the pop-punk By The Time That You’re Reading This from their latest album Welcome to My House, an experimentation with the boundaries of punk.
It has power-pop vocals strung over fuzzy layers of shoegaze inspired guitars and thrashing metal drum beats. It unveils the new direction of punk that they are exploring; a blend of genres, an exciting opening to the night.
The set then leads into their 2019 album album with Punchbag which seems almost dangerous, like creating a bonfire on the stage; beautiful, captivating, and on the edge of a dramatic explosion.
Each verse reverberates through the room, building up to an eruption of gritty guitar and screaming choruses that everyone knows. Word for word. Which is ever so slightly magical.
Theresa Jarvis, front person of the group, takes a moment before the next song to check on the audience, making sure that everyone is having a good time both inside the walls of The Fleece and out.
The next song Call Me A Saint is dedicated to “anyone struggling”, a slower ballad of power, praising everyone who managed to get up, get out and keep moving.
For some, its power lies in the hazy guitar riffs and crescendos but for most, you can see that the haunting lyricism is what they came for, treating the song almost like a therapy session, as Jarvis says it was written for.
Towards the middle comes a run of songs off of Welcome To My house.
Hands Off My Money is a daring feminist, anti-capitalist anthem, heavy in terms of content and beats, inspiring a mosh pit to start swirling in the middle of the venue, fueled by anger at the system and empowerment from being in Yonaka’s presence.
Panic brings to light Jarvis’ mental health struggles but with overwhelmingly hopeful overtones, bright chords cutting through any fear or melancholy that may have collected amongst the audience.
Welcome To My House, the title track is perhaps the rawest song they play, vocals taking more of a centre stage, often almost completely unaccompanied and the message of love and understanding is allowed to shine on its own.
To calm the audience before their grand finale, Give Me My Halo is played acoustically. Despite this, it is enormous, and watching the chords unfurl from the stage is like watching the sea roll in, thunderous, peaceful, and so much bigger than just one person.
The finale consists of three colossal songs. Predator, their latest single and the most ‘metal’ song of the night, thrashes through the air, spitting out shredded guitar riffs and relentless energy.
Again, it is an experimentation with what punk could be, and another reason to be excited about the direction that Yonaka is taking.
Rockstar and Seize the Power close the night. They manage to sound both chaotic and measured, a cumulation of the intensity of the night, releasing any final ounce of energy left in either audience or band, capturing the final screams and applauds and sending them spinning way beyond the sticky floors of the gig.
Coming home, you can spot the people who have seen Yonaka, not just from the DIY punk patches that identified them when coming in, but by the bubble of joy that has collected around them from the dancing, the energy, and the power.
Main photo: Hazel Eastham
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