A sunny July in 2018 and I’m in Hillworth Park for a Fantasy Radio live session, finally witnessing a Devizes based band I’d been adding the gigs of onto our calendar. With an especial distinctiveness People Like Us complimented Coldplay, nailed as Oasis, and breezed through Crowded House, but it was when they covered Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, and gifted us with their timeless rendition of Mr Blue Sky, sparks flew. It is sad to see them announce today that “People Like Us” is now in past tense. “People Liked Us”, because they sure did….
More appropriately, “People Loved Us,” twas to have observed a typical night in the Three Crowns in Devizes, where, if ecstatic frenzies of table top dancing amidst a crammed beer garden became something of a cliché (which had to be culled for health and safety regulations,) I do declare the originators who evoked such wild party vibes with such an accomplished and respected homegrown sound, was People Like Us; I might be wrong on this, but if so, well, there’s a first for everything!
Okay, I may’ve compared the then four-piece visually to Scooby-Doo’s gang, at the time, then worried afterwards they might take offense to it as they didn’t tend to wear bell-bottoms and cravats, but it was the first time I’d seen a band use a cajon drum, and the effect came across with a decidedly Californian sixties pop panache, though with contemporary cover choices. Yet it will go down in the history of the local music circuit, that People Like Us bucked any deliberations folk may have against cover bands by stamping their unique take on classic pop songs, and thrilled every audience.
Only a couple of years after they formed, they seemed to crop everywhere, from pub gig to fete, and wherever they did they brought the party with them, compulsively. All vocalising harmoniously, People Like Us was made up of prolific keyboardist Nicky Davis, Claire Gilchrist on kick drums, who would depart from the band a year later, Andy “Pip” Phillips on cajón and guitarist Dean Ellicock. Since leaving the band Claire embarked on a solo career, performed with six-piece function band LiveWired, and has created local music promotional Facebook page Bird is the Word. The remaining three, Nicky, Dean and Pip carried on People Like Us, clocking up nine years of service to the local music scene.
But in a shock Facebook announcement today, they said “we’ve decided it’s time to bring People Like Us to a close. We’ve had an incredible time over the last nine years and want to thank each and every one of you who came to a gig, booked us for an event, danced and sang for us and genuinely reminded us how lucky we were to be able to entertain you. It’s been a pretty awesome run for a project that was just meant to be a bit of fun here and there!”
While it certainly has, the group gave the cloud a silver lining, reminding fans Pip is still part of Finley Trusler’s The Unpredictables, and Nicky continues the even longer running band, The Reason, and they’ll no doubt join again for the annual The Female of the Species fundraiser.
If this is buttering up a sad situation, it’s a good and acceptable one, still, we will miss you all as People Like Us, wish you all the best for your existing and future projects, and declare your honourable and thoroughly deserved place in our local music hall of fame, with a big gold framed portrait…..if, erm, I was a portrait artist, which I’m not, and if I attempted it you’d really look like Scooby’s gang then, so maybe it’s best I don’t. I’ll just quote Abba instead, (which is not as rare a thing as you might imagine it to be) and say, “thank you for the music!”
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