The neverending list of bands I adore.

Yes, it's another band that has its very own little story. Another one, yes.

Two years ago, for a reason I cannot remember, I decided to listen to Punk Goes 90s 2. Usually, when I listen to those compilations, I listen to the bands I know, and then, to the songs I know. And Hands Like Houses had covered Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, and the nineties kid in me loves that song.

And I listened to the cover.

And this is how I fell in love with Hands Like Houses.

From then on, I was hooked, listening to Unimagine all the time - as soon as it was finished, I would press play again and get caught in the Australians' little universe once again, allowing them to uplift my mood. Because that's what they have been to me from the start - the most uplifting band I had come across in a long time.

And heaven knows I needed it.

Their sold out Islington gig started with Brighton based The Gospel Youth, but yours truly was stuck in a train, ironically, from Brighton, and I completely missed out. Soz, boys.

Next up were Dead!, whom I have, as I think I have previously mentioned, followed for a very long time - since their second ever gig, actually. It's been four years and they now have a thousand million gigs under their belt, they are set to appear at pretty much every festival under the sun this year and they even have a record deal. What a long way it's been. And it's easy to see why they are getting where they are. Their music and its hints of My Chemical Romance thrown here and there is, pardon my French, catchy as fuck, and they easily get the London crowd going - a crowd who, for the most part, has no bloody clue who the Londoners are. The band is charismatic, energetic and good at interacting with the audience and the evening has, without a doubt, been nothing short of a success for them.

Third up and main support of the evening is California outfit I The Mighty (who were also scheduled to appear on the original tour in late 2015 - shout out to them for actually making it to the postponed dates, this is all too rare). I have heard of them but never listened to their music and I am hooked in a matter of seconds, thanks to Brent Walsh's stunning voice. I am a sucker for a good voice, and I The Mighty's frontman has a very strong set of pipes to his names, let me tell you. The music is atmospheric and hard hitting at the same time, nuanced yet heavy, and that's all I ever ask for. Hi, I The Mighty, you have a new fan.

And then Hands Like Houses. My bubble of happiness. Everything that is good and pure and perfect and beautiful in the world. Yes. That is where I am going.
I am easily moved. Tell me a sad story, tell me a happy story, have a beautiful voice, play a sad song, bring me a puppy and you will find me in fits of sobs with half of the crowd asking if I need medical assistance. 

However, I am not easily overwhelmed after half a song. I can be convinced, moved, hooked, but very rarely completely overwhelmed. 

And that's what happened.

The Australians opened with I Am  and the energy was so powerful it felt like the last song, the encore, the last hurrah. And that's what every song felt like. The moment everyone had been waiting for their whole life.

And maybe it was.

Maybe it was for me, yeah.

I love Hands Like Houses with a passion that I can hardly comprehend, and maybe that Islington gig was something I had yearned for for a very long time. I think it was. I think I desperately wanted to leave the world behind and dance and sing loudly and let the lyrics hit me harder than ever and that is what Hands Like Houses have given to me tonight.

They have also offered me one of the best gigs I have ever been to, hands down. I was there, listening to song after song, taking it all in, the older material and the songs extracted from Dissonants, and I could not comprehend how a single group of human beings, not very different from myself, could produce something that flawless. As frontman Trenton Woodley eloquently put, they are just creating vibrations to share between them and us. And boy, those vibrations are special. They have that quality of sounding like a studio recording, but bolder, which I adore because it means I have not been lied to when I have listened to the album in the first place. They have that quality of taking the emotions conveyed in the original songs and making them appear ten times stronger when played live. They have that quality of being genuine and true. And they have all those musical qualities I don't know the right words to describe, the cool riffs and the great drums and the super intense breakdowns and Trenton's vocals linking everything in perfect harmony.

Dissonants will probably find itself in my top releases of the year, a fact I have been sure of as soon as I listened to it for the first time. I just knew. And hearing it live, I knew it even more. Opening with I Am, Colourblind and New Romantics showed it to me under a different light - Dissonants stands the test of the live performance, as easy as 1, 2, 3.

The older songs do too. There will always be something special in No Parallels, in Wisteria, in A Tale of Outer Suburbia, in Introduced Species. There will always be all the memories and the good times linked to Lion Skin. As soon as the intro kicked in, I found myself in tears, and I don't even know why. I am not emotionally attached to that song specifically, as in it doesn't have its little story of its own. It's just that song I adore and which reminds me of Bury Tomorrow's Runes tour Hands Like Houses and Slaves were a part of, of hearing it performed live with Jonny Craig, of one of the happiest weeks of my entire life. And that may be why I found myself in tears by that point, maybe that's its little story, come to think of it. And it may just be because the live rendition was so pure and perfect and beautiful and good that my body required to let a whole lot of water out to express appreciation (yes, I am aware of how weird that sounds).

I think, all in all, the reason why I love Hands Like Houses as much as I do is because they do everything with such grace and sincerity that it draws me in. It's all too rare in this world and in this scene, isn't it? This scene which allows humans to pay to meet other humans, in which bands releasing half arsed albums to make sure they are not forgotten instead of producing material they are proud of and happy with, in which big egos or gossip are common currency, this scene, it needs more bands like Hands Like Houses - bands that are sincere, genuine, who don't make a fuss about what they do and just do music the way they want to and the way feels right for them, bands who don't think they are anything special because they have the privilege to be on a stage, humble bands. And I love that. I love musicians who use their space to be something special, something meaningful, something genuine. And that something Hands Like Houses does brings a smile on my face, inevitably, brings tears to my eyes, most of the time, and uplifts my soul, even when I didn't know I needed it.