It’s been somewhat a case of misfortune for myself to catch Jay McAllister aka Beans On Toast away from the much loved Bearded Theory festival of late, last winter I was struck down with the flu while he was playing the wonderful Grayson Unity in Halifax and the weather made it a no go prior to that when he last played The Golden Lion in Todmorden (a venue he loves so much he wrote a song about it) but 3rd time lucky.
The weather has been glorious and even the traffic gods took pity on me and I drove uninterrupted from Skipton to the legendary Brudenell Social in Leeds.
For the unfamiliar, Beans is a British Folk singer along the lines of Billy Bragg and Frank Carter with a happy hippy/socialist attitude to life that’s reflected in his work, it’s ideal stuff for a sunny afternoon in the Woodlands area of Bearded where he’s become an absolute must see over the years but as previously mentioned I’ve never managed to catch him in a club until tonight.
There’s as much of an eclectic mix of folk in the main room tonight as I would expect in the crowd at Bearded too it’s just minus the festival trolleys full of young children (the children are still here so I guess they had to park the trolleys in the car park outside) to welcome the support act, Aussie William Crighton who recently toured Australia with Beans.
Now I’m very much an advocate for getting in early to see the support and it’s moments like this as the reason why. I had no idea who the support was prior to clocking the stage times on the way in through the doors, so no prior research or listening and, well to say I was blown away in the following 40 or so minutes was an understatement!
Crighton is a fairly imposing bloke to look at but the warmth of his character is far bigger, indeed the more people that arrived during his set the quieter the crowd became as he talked about his songs (something he constantly keeps telling himself to stop doing, don’t William if you’re reading this – it draws people in!) the magic of the voice and songs got people engaged in a way that is very rare for a support act to do and the likes of 2000 clicks.
Jesus Blues (with the crowd joining in singing “I want my money back!” and for not just myself but clearly the majority of folk tonight, the simply outstanding Killara, a song about his forefather coming from Scotland (not by choice) and finding a home in Australia, the power of his bluesy type vocals backed up by an acoustic guitar filling the room with passion and force.
Beans and the Brudenell go together nearly as much as the fantastic Piemister pies they serve, the venue is pretty much a permanent fixture on one of his tours every year and it’s rapidly approaching the tenth year of doing so.
Opening solo, Matt Millership starts off the gig playing the piano for the instrumental Away With Words off the wonderfully beautiful new album Wild Goose Chasers before Beans joins on stage with Faith In The Moon off the very same, it’s 3 songs in before the talking begins and anyone who knows Beans knows he can talk a really good story and he is clearly on a mission tonight…
Telling the crowd its the Equinox today and how his last album was written on a full moon to be spiritual but in hindsight to avoid all the geo political bollocks going on, he continues telling the story of how he wanted to write hymns and how one of his school teachers used to get his guitar out after the class sang some in the morning to sing a couple of songs he’d written.
Streets Of London and Bread And Fishes, lying to a bunch of 6 year olds that he wrote them which they all believed until one day he was with his mum and heard Streets Of London, I won’t divulge any more as it will spoil the story of he tells it again but it got the crowd laughing.
The stories continue in-between songs about listening to classic albums with his daughter, Losing yourself at a festival through MDMA (M.D.M.Amazing), randoms claiming his songs as they wrote them in order to get laid and even about Taylor Swift for US president!
Nothing is off the cards at a Beans gig, People laugh and sing along, hug each other and cry and spend the rest of the time with big grins as Jay taps into everyone’s emotions through the 100+ mins set which included a return to the stage for William Crighton to cover Randy Travis’s Send Me Home On A Freight Train with him as they found out they both grew up on 90’s country music and how there’s a few of his songs that they can’t really cover in 2025 as well as yet another story of how Will tried to kill Jay…
Finishing up the set in the crowd with Money For War Jay returns to the stage telling people prior to the final song to see it as the encore as he has never liked doing it since he once heard someone say they’re like “Peek-A-Boo for Adults” and hasn’t been able to fully commit since he ends the set fittingly on Life, even somehow managing to forget the lyrics for a second and telling the crowd jokingly to fuck off after Matt’s amazing piano solo in it.
So, another special night at the Brudenell to lift everyone’s hearts in a currently depressing world, honestly Beans should be prescribed by the NHS to help combat depression as his gigs are so mood lifting and not only that but a new act to me that I’m going to rant on about to my friends till they’re sick of hearing about him as once I got into the car.
I fired up William Crighton on Spotify and oh my fucking god, I absolutely have to now see him perform with a full band, congrats fella – you have just become my new obsession!
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