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GAVIN MART & THE SATURDAY VANDALS - Greenbelt Festival - Performance Café - 7pm
 

I'd made a special effort to get to the Performance Café to get to see Jim Jones whose 'Daylight & Stars' is a stunner. But there at the entrance was a hastily chalked notice. Jim Jones wasn't playing, his place being taken by a new-to-me aggregation from Leeds. So it's tribute to them that long before their set closed I was making plans to meet up with this gutsy-voiced songsmith and his expert accompanists. They made a fascinatingly fresh sound. Gavin Mart calls himself a "protest singer" and I wouldn't argue as he spat out ripostes at he delusions of "Progress" ("What about your lifestyle/Whatever that means/I'm caught up in your ignorance, affluence, reticence/Your fascist regime") though a song about an educationally challenged boy Mart once knew who committed suicide, "Heriwood", is achingly poignant. Gavin's voice is bluesily passionate throughout while the lack of the band's second guitarist here put particularly emphasis on bassist Daniel Norton (a fine muso who used to play with Bodixa) who responded with some stunning solos and percussionist Robert Hall (whose expertise belied the fact that he was a mere 16 years of age!). The towering set closes with an extremely powerful "Patiently" with its searing climax "Does anybody listen?/Does anybody care?/That every time I speak out/It's just like you're not there." Unforgettable stuff.
Tony Cummings

Greenbelt_09_The_Music_Reviews

The life and times of one Gavin Mart will not yet be repeated here...  Suffice it to say a musical biography will be suitable, easily.  Having studied music and drums throughout his teens and through college, Gavin one day found an old battered acoustic guitar in a church hall cupboard.  After much due repair, care and attention to the axe, and ten or so years self teaching and study Gavin would proudly call himself a singer-songwriter, first and foremost.  Nothing else for him will do, well some other stuff he does is pretty good fun too (try googling Gavin Mart) but without his song writing routines and stunningly passionate performances, Gavin's life would simply not be the same. 

Gavin mart's music is without doubt politically driven through its core, with a hint of dreamy wistfulness and idealism to set the scene, there's a wry sense of displacement and a longing for justice in most of his writing.  Dramatic yearnings such as ‘Patiently’ may one day find themselves re-inspiring a  generation to vote for change, whilst the gentle simplicities of ‘Spanish Eyes’ acoustically demonstrate a courageous confidence in the power of the honest love song.

Musically able and culturally aware, Gavin Mart and his team of cut throat muso’s, ‘The Saturday Vandals’, avidly gig regularly throughout the year.  The local haunts of the Leeds acoustic scene are amongst regular pit stops, whilst a flare for festival invitations and garden party appearances seems to have become quite the norm.  With a challenging stage presence and call to duty, Gavin Mart and The Saturday Vandals are quite a match for an unsuspecting audience and heavy hitting headliners alike.

His debut EP ‘Progress’ proves his capabilities and stands bravely for the communities he respectfully represents.  Songs of the inner city perils and poverty traps balance calmly with the education his extensive travels to developing worlds have gained him.  There’s a depth of character lying just under the surface, which comes only from a life of adventure and mischievous longing for equality...