Joy To The World!

On Halloween, we launched the Kerrang! Basement Party series in association with Rizla+ by asking Woking noise crew Employed To Serve to spin some terrifying tunes to a number of lucky competition winners. A few weeks later, we were back in the basement of legendary North London hostlery, The Hope And Anchor, enjoying ourselves all over again, this time in the company of Deaf Havana.

The alt-rock heroes were still recovering from the after-effects of playing their biggest London show at the O2 Brixton Academy on the Friday night when, three days later on December 10, their frontman James Veck-Gilodi and bass player Lee Wilson bravely donned their miniature Santa hats and took to the stage at the 70-capacity pub basement.

Messrs Veck-Gilodi and Wilson’s varied set ranged from raging metal, rock bangers and on to pure pop cheese, stopping at a few irregular points in-between.

The result was a joyous evening that saw shapes being thrown, drinks being drunk (and, indeed, split) and, er, antlers being locked as the entire Kerrang! crew and assorted friends also joined in the proceedings. Gifts – including a set of rather fetching umbrellas kindly produced by Rizla and emblazoned with the Basement Party logo – were also exchanged as the festive spirit flowed. Come to think of it, all that was missing were the mince pies…

In the meantime, Deaf Havana have now gone for lie down but they’re back on the road in Europe in February with UK dates due in March.

Check out K! photographer Andy Ford's gallery from the evening below and stay tuned for the next Kerrang! Basement Party in association with Rizla+ which we’ll be announcing in early January. It really will be a cracker!