Music Day 3: Jail Guitar Doors Showcase

Jail Guitar Doors is an organization that seeks to provide instruments to anyone using music as part of prisoner rehabilitation. As far as their showcase went, it was both an enjoyable and frustrating night. The frustration came from a super-chatty Friday night crowd, who completely drowned out Howard Elliott Payne and an admittedly tired Ed Harcourt. Others fared better. Otis Gibbs‘s strong voice always projects, so he had no trouble. Neither did Hey Negrita!, who were fantastic fun with their blend of traditional- and skiffle-touched songs. Beans on Toast will stay in people’s memories as well. Short, standing on a chair, and playing a child-size guitar, the gravel-voiced Beans on Toast led the crowd through several riotous songs of questionable taste about things like cocaine addiction. Frank Turner closed out the show, but ran up against the show’s time limit. His solution? Take it outside. With the crowd following, he and Beans on Toast finished up the show as a crowd of curious passersby joined the throng.