Sylvette @ Glastonbury Calling 2019

Review by Chris Watson and Sara Vian

The review in the Glastonbury Calling festival brochure was impressive – “Art Rock” taking influences from Jeff Buckley and Radiohead; supported the Crazy World of Arthur Brown; single featured in Q Magazine” so we headed down to the Hawthorns Inn where you can also choose from an array of homemade curries to go with your live music, but “unfortunately” we’d just had a delicious homemade pizza up at the Riflemans Arms.

Sylvette are a five-piece band hailing from Manchester, who good-naturedly took the MC’s jibe of being “whipper snappers” because they do look very young but are certainly very aware, cultured, and skilled at their craft.

With a New Romantic look faintly reminiscent of Roxy Music, we sensed their “je ne sais quoi” and squeezed on to a small stage with no sound check apparently; the force was with them as they cohesively kicked off with their opening track, effortlessly fronted by Charlie Sinclair who has true rock-star refinement and exquisitely soaring vocals, which we’d describe as Muse meets Jeff Buckley.

"A dramatic performance in a sparkling space"

Obviously well-rehearsed, Ashley Garrod (bass), Dan Macfarlane (guitar), Philippos Rousiamanis (violin) and Pete Leaver (drummer), intuitively connected with Sinclair as one entity, creating masterfully-controlled soundscapes which moved from subtlety to psychedelic rock, and sounded brilliant for such a low key set up.

A dramatic performance in a sparkling space which should be headlining the other Glastonbury Festival! And we’ve also since discovered that the image on their album was painted by THE 83-year-old Sylvette Lydia David (Picasso’s famous muse) who also inspired the band name, they’ve been featured in the Daily Express, played by Tom Robinson and released their debut album, ‘Waiting in the Bliss’ in Spring 2018 as well as another single and a video.

Find out more at: www.sylvette.co.uk