After buying the singles and watching from afar as Nadia Dahlawi and Sara Jade used their musical crystal ball over the past five years to hand pick some of the best talent from these shores, I was gald to finally be able to make one of their events. Both their club nights and label as Young & Lost Club have been massive successes over the last five years, to celebrate this they released a rather impressive compilation and had a birthday party at XOYO a couple of weeks ago (yes I know this is late).

In true personal style and spending too long in the pub I only managed to catch the end Othello Woolf, but from all accounts he was on form. Planet earth certainly were, with their own brand of anti-folk, with the volume up just that little bit higher for the more electric sound, and engaged the young, beautiful and smiling crowd. Ex Lovers brought their boy-girl twee indie-pop sounds, and except from a brief battle with the sound desk, their tales of indie-love were well received.

There is little doubt, however, that much of the crowd were there to hear Noah and the Whale, who were the band that helped me rediscover my love for softer song-writing and folk. The First Days of Spring was simply beautiful, and I certainly misted up a little during their rendition, but true to form and with this being Y&L’s 5th anniversary the ever-popular Five Years Time was the song that marked the hype. Here was probably the most famous band out of the Y&L stable and they are still loyal, still happy, still independent – and most importantly still fucking fantastic live.

Happy birthday girls.

YALC Compilation Disc 1 by Young And Lost Club

YALC Compilation Disc 2 by Young And Lost Club

Photos courtesy of the Y&L Flickr stream