Hungry and The Hunted @ The Bird

A tired looking public house on the Gosport Road may not appear, at first glance, to be Fareham's premier live venue but The Bird In Hand, with its fading paintwork out front and inside walls held firm with load-bearing dust, has over the years gained a reputation for regularly hosting an eclectic selection of live music.

The pub itself is much-loved, dog-eared even, with a grubby charm that's found all too rarely these days; visiting is not like stepping into a generic chained pub, no Wetherspoon or Hungry Horse this and, if those are the kind of hostelries you prefer, The Bird won't be for you. 

There's no stage to speak of, the Pool table is shunted to aside to make room for a band to set up in a corner of the main bar, and bands regularly find themselves coming into very close contact with the music-loving regulars, and that's what makes a gig at The Bird such an experience. 

The venue has an open booking policy, welcoming cover acts, new bands who want to gain live experience and artists from further afield, and all forthcoming attractions are chalked on the wall so everyone knows who's playing and when (there's also a well subscribed Facebook group too). 

Blues-rock trio Hungry and The Hunted bill themselves as "the last Rock & Roll band", describing their sound as "an unholy product of Joe Strummer and Lemmy gatecrashing a Deep Purple rehearsal, armed with a pile of STAX & CHESS records", and a listen to songs from either of their two albums shows that this is not immodest chest-beating. There's a rawness, there's groove, there's honesty, and the band are not shy about who they've been influenced by.



Hungry and The Hunted play The Bird this Sunday, 7th April, and I can think of few better ways of seeing out the weekend then with two hours of "demolition Blues and outlaw Rock & Roll". Entry is FREE, music from 1800.