Witter turns joker as Shed Seven shrink to duo at Pocklington's Handpick'd Festival

THE Howl And The Hum have created a buzz around York with their artful approach to rock.

Describing themselves as a "miserable disco", the young four-piece play guitar-heavy songs that feed off Franz Ferdinand, Radiohead and Talking Heads. For this set at Pocklington Arts Centre’s Handpick’ed Festival, they were well drilled, and their music has an ominous intensity to it.

For all their artfulness, however, this set was often dull. They don’t (yet) have the hooks they need to turn into something bigger. Even Thom Yorke’s band of miserablists know the power of strong melodies.

As singer Sam Griffith said at one point: "We don’t have the singalong hits of Shed Seven". If The Howl And The Hum can marry their artfulness with something more commercial, they could be big. They are young; perhaps time will bring the change required to build on their talent.

Within seconds of entering the stage, Shed Seven’s Rick Witter had shredded the vague pomposity of The Howl And The Hum, utterly changing the atmosphere with banter and his engagements with the audience. Witter is now 45 but looks fantastic, slender and exotic. He stood alongside his mostly silent companion, guitarist Paul Banks, and belted out a selection of Shed Seven tunes.

What made the evening, though, was his brilliant interactions with the audience, inviting participation at every turn. "Marry me," shouted a female fan. "I can’t marry you," deadpanned Witter. "My wife’s here." He signed a fan’s T-shirt during the set (the man had travelled up from Nottingham); he invited parents with children to have a dance during Disco Down and asked if anybody had any questions.

He doesn’t take himself, or the music, too seriously. I enjoyed his between-songs patter enormously. He could be a stand-up; I hope he has a go. Witter has the charisma and the wit, pardon the pun.

Shorn of the Sheds' rhythm section, the songs made less sense than when I saw them 25 years ago on a summer’s evening in York (they were a compelling live act). The songs aren’t particularly subtle: "I’ll fight you to the death," runs the refrain in Bully Boy. The audience, though, loved it, singing along loudly.

When the set closed with Chasing Rainbows , Witter invited audience members on stage and was mobbed with the musical equivalent of a pitch invasion. It was a chaotic, cathartic, raucous moment, testimony to music’s power to unify and lift. I’ve seen some great gigs at Pocklington over the years (Michelle Shocked, Tom Russell, Justin Currie etc) and most were more musically refined than this, but this one was the most fun.

Miles Salter