The Liverpool band saw support from Sounds Mint and Tough Cookie.

Oh, the leap year, an extra day. This year it fell on a Thursday and The Garage was host to the self-professed ‘voice for the lost youth’, STONE. With support from Sounds Mint and Tough Cookie, it was a night of rock, punk and grunge. 

Sounds Mint were up first, and their pop-punk tracks had the crowd dancing from the get-go. The up-and-coming London band supported Blur on their Wembley warm-up shows last year and are clearly hungry for more live action with a set full of attitude, riffs and catchy lyrics.

Their tracks have a very distinct ‘Britishness’ to them and What’s Good (In the Hood) had the room singing the two-word chorus of the quick march tempo tune in no time. The effortlessly cool set was rounded out by the band encouraging the room to split into two and start a mosh pit. They did so obligingly and soon had a pit on each side, the left jumping up and down in competition with the right. 

Tough Cookie formed last year from the members’ previous project Daisy Brain. They are yet to release a song on a streaming service and instead opt for linking all assets on their own website. In a time where others fear to stray from the path, this is an injection of creativity that has allowed them to build a carefully curated image.

Frontman Will Tse introduced almost every song throughout the set by its theme instead of name. These ranged from money to happiness and all had a similar surf rock, grunge feel with his vocals cutting through the noise. Amongst the new tracks, they found room for their previous Daisy Brain hit Boring. The lyrics are about someone Will used to be friends with and include the humorous line, “He’s as cool as his mum but she’s more fun”. 

The venue filled up throughout the set and by the time the last track Something Punk, So Poetic played it was almost full with fun mosh pits all around. The four-piece seem to have found their sound and character under this new name and identity with fun, relatable tracks that don’t fit into any genre and are full of punk and poetry.

STONE have built a solid live reputation among those in the scene. Tonight was no different as Finley Power (Vocals), Sarah Surrage (Bass), Elliot Gill (Guitar) and Alex Smith (Drums) used every inch of the stage to immerse the crowd in the STONE experience. 

I Let Go kicked things off and Fin quickly got down to the barrier to sing I Gotta Feeling from the new EP punkadonk2. Released last October, it is STONE’s final step before joining the album ranks and, with some great tracks, expectations are high for what’s to come. 

A perfectly crafted setlist that weaved old classics with new — and even unreleased tracks — received all the admiration you would expect for a band with as solid a fan base as STONE. Fists soon punched the air for another punkadonk2 track, If You Wanna, while bassist Sarah looked cool as ever as she swayed side to side and bounced up and down to the beat.

Finley announced the debut album’s release would come later this year and treated the crowd to a few songs from it. My Thoughts Go had everyone trying to learn the lyrics to sing back while the love song Queen was an unexpected change from the angst associated with the Merseyside band. 

STONE classic Money (Hope Ain’t Gone) was sung word for word by the crowd as Alex drummed the urgent beat. The band walked off stage to an uproar of appreciation and an encore was demanded as “One more tune” and stomping reverberated around the room. Waste set the spark alight and saw the first crowd surfer of the night take to arms. Fin soon got in on the action, Superman-ing his way through the crowd for what was an impressively long amount of time. 

Back on stage he sentimentally gushed, “This has been one of the most beautiful shows of my life. STONE has always been about building community and look at you!” It was clear what he meant: the venue was packed and brimming with life. The night drew to a close with Leave It Out, as Fin stared the crowd down looking ready to pounce at any moment. 

STONE are an incredibly entertaining live band who seem to bring out the best in one another. With the upcoming release of album number one, they are definitely a group to keep an eye on.

All photos by Isla Kerr.

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