Malcolm Middleton entraps his audiences

Bush Hall is a little venue on Shepherd's Bush High Street; an old Edwardian dance hall, it’s a hidden gem. Arriving just in time, I walked through the bar and pushed open the double doors to see a beautiful, ornate room, chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, rich red draping everywhere. In a terribly civilized manner, I took to my seat in the packed venue. The anticipation was electric, everyone here to see one man: the fabled Malcolm Middleton.

He gingerly stepped onto stage to rapturous applause. Murmuring some incomprehensibly Scottish words into the mic, he settles down with his acoustic guitar and scrawled set list. He then began his self-damning and tortured tale, belting out the most honest of lyrics and strumming his guitar as if his life depended on it - to the audience’s absolute delight.

Looking around this room, one can really begin to understand how his fans feel about this man; from the bloke at the back who shouted “wwahhhheeyyy” at any opportune moment, to the kid with the biggest afro I’d ever seen dancing so hard he fell off his chair, every person in that room looked at Middleton like he was singing the story of their own lives.

The ex-Arab Strap member seemed unbelievably powerful in an environment so concerned with pomp and ceremony. Joking with the audience, he seemed amongst friends; indeed, most of the audience had grown up with him. He soon did away with his set list and took requests, cooly denying them if he didn’t feel like playing that particular song. There’s a strange pull in the dark rabble of Middleton, who insists that "if you won’t break my heart I’ll do it myself". Hailing himself as a destroyer of hope, he does, in fact, as a kind of obtuse superhero, do the opposite. He gives hope to his fans that no matter how bad it gets, you can always rely on Malcolm Middleton to be far more depressed than you.

Words by Zoe Edwards