The Commoners at the 100 Club, London 2025

My last MJB gig of the year took me back to the warmth of the 100 Club, as Christmas cheer and frenzied shopping raged outside its unassuming doors. Not for nothing we call places like these “oasis”.

Candar

Aglitter and alight, the Candar duo seem to hail from an earlier era of female-fronted hard rock bands, circa Paramore times. While Ella Crossland sparkled in sequins, wonderfully controlled voice and breath and looks fit for a Twilight soundtrack feature, drummer man Finn McAuley was having all the fun a drummer should, when your body is the sound is the beat is the thing that makes the crowd move no matter what language they speak or how close they stand. Off their latest EP “Wallflower“, I particularly loved “Opera“, with its playful dynamics (giving our leading lady a chance to show off her range) and “Do You See Me?“. To hear the unironic old school coolness of their sound in the year of our cynicism 2025 showcases that, for all our disillusionment and world-weariness, we crave the belief into what a sound like this promises: the resolution at the end of a long drive, the peaceful calm after a long cigarette. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The Commoners

Any gig that starts off with a belly full yell of “OH YEAAAAAAAAAH” wins in my books. Playing the rock’n’roll blues in a venue as iconic as the 100 Club, Toronto’s The Commoners step into its logbook with a bootkick and a bottle of whiskey (metaphorically speaking).

With a relentless touring schedule ahead and behind them, they nonetheless had much and more to share with the Sunday crowd. Two songs in, they’re jamming, a rare move so early in a London set, but of course setting the parameters of this interaction with alacrity: this is how we do it in a real dive bar, where talent comes through in the moment of improvisation and collaboration, more so than a studio could ever contain. One listen to Ross Hayes Citrullo sliding on his Les Paul with all the grace of a natural-born horseman on a pure-bred Arabian stallion is enough to impress that. There’s no way to predict where he’ll take the melodic line, but you can hope it will soar and vanquish and land you safe to Earth again. I’ve heard what they play down in the bars and clubs of Austin and Nashville and New Orleans. This took me right back.

Off touring their latest album “Restless“, the set had it all: sweat-dripping swagger with the likes of “The Way I Am” and “”, and the ballad softness of “See You Again” (a wonderful piece meditating on loss and grief and moving in and with those emotions) and the yet-unreleased “Searchin'”, which the whole crowd agreed should make the cut and be on the album.

I’ve become a Grinch of late. Not even my favourite niche Bulgarian carols or Norwegian folk songs can cut through the grime a year leaves behind. Dancing to The Commoners under the hustle of London in December felt like the final shakedown, one last chance to shiver the whole night through and get some of that weight off. It felt a bit preordained that they should finish on “Shake You Off”. The year is closing. Shake it out and off ya. You’ve carried it long enough.