GIG REVIEW: HOUNDING REUNION - EDFEST 2024

Edfest is the Kent DIY scenes best kept secret. A festival in a back garden (albeit a large back garden with bands split across 3 stages) in the small scenic village of Etchinghill near Folkestone.

The fest is celebrating its 10th year this year and as part of the festivities has gone with an Alice in Wonderland theme (the queen of hearts palace stage, the mad hatters tea party stage, chesire cat stage plus decorations and family friendly activities earlier in the day). I've made the trek (or peaceful bus journey looking out at the charming rural kent landscape) mostly to catch the hotly anticipated come back/reunion (for one night and one night only) of Emo-Hardcore-Poppunkers, Hounding.

The band is, or was,  vocalist and guitarist El Hudson (who is by now accustomed to me shoving a camera in their face when they have played in both this band and more recent project Amorist) , bassist Stuart Palmer, guitarist Josh Smith, and Tom Smith...on drums; and they are playing their 2022 album Better Days in full for the first and last and only time.

To set the scene: a large rural garden littered with gazebos, make shift stages and Alice in Wonderland-esque set pieces. Music fans and local DIY punks tripping over each other in the dark. Four friends get ready to play music together for the first time in years. I've had two seperate conversations about how i'm usually in bed with a book by this time.

It's 9:45pm and Hounding take to the stage for what is almost definitely the last time...

And it's just over 30 minutes of pure joy both for the band and audience. A strong crowd of fans, friends and family have filled this gazebo-stage-area and spill out into the moonlight as the band get things going. As the set progresses, an excited energy beams from every band member. Thanks first to Covid and then to the band going their seperate ways, they never got the chance to play much of this material live the first time around and you can tell how much they're all enjoying finally playing this album; and the sense of catharsis and closure is palpable.

In the middle of the set there are some fun surprises like Sam from the band Fox Strikes getting up to join in on vocal duties for Icebreaker, followed by the inclusion of non-album tracks Peach Fuzz and Anxiety (the former from E.P. Bad Days and the latter from the bands debut, Mutt)

And this breaks the set up nicely before diving in to the heavier half of the album.

The shifts in genre throughout Better Days are as much thematic as they are stylistic choices. Hounding vocalist/songwriter El has told me as much, They talk about the cyclical nature of the album and the emotional depths of the work, but even without the insider info you can hear this in the music. The album ends back on a softer note with closing track Today, but these guys aren't finshed just yet, the crowd are crying out

for more, no one is ready to stop having fun just yet; the band launch in to a second run of fan favourite Spew/Spew II.

The audience take the opportunity for one last dance and give it as much energy as the band still are, which is heaps. El, Stuart, Josh, and Tom are all grinning ear to ear like chesire cats as they soak up the atmosphere, one last time.

If this gig wasn't a one off i'd say you could bet on it that this band would go on to big, big things...  or maybe just another local DIY festival in another few years? You CAN bet on it that there will still be those who remember Hounding that will be there to enjoy good music and good company.

Also pictured are Folk-punk band We Found the Wreck (or half of them) who's set I arrived during the end of (sorry Laurence!)

And experimental electronic outfit Pleistoscene Megaforna, who 'create ambient soundscapes and euphoric dance journeys' - and you can already listen to their set from Edfest 2024 on Spotify or Bandcamp; where you can find Hounding's Better Days album and music by all the bands mentioned above.

Review by: Jim Jam