Almost a year ago exactly, I took my dad to a Peter Doherty concert in Lancaster. There was considerable buzz around the event: it was the second year that Doherty decided to grace the city with his presence, a city where the most exciting event is usually a Christmas tree’s lights being turned on, or a fight outside Wetherspoons. Sometimes, to the disappointment of the populace, that happens on the same night.

The pit of the warehouse-turned-venue was full of Doherty loyalists, mainly 30–50-year-olds in flat caps or Babyshambles t-shirts. You always know what to expect with one of his solo gigs, a collection of songs from across his many bands played acoustically. His support acts tend to follow a similar pattern, too, being either some raggedly looking, guitar-strumming teenager in suspenders, or a punk poet reading from scraps of paper, or, as happened the first year he came, just some bloke he picked up a couple of shows ago.

So, when you’re settled in for a comfortable night of shoop-di-langalangs and dreams of Albion, you aren’t sure quite how to react when two moustachioed topless Bristolians hop on stage to sing about crisps and Jamie Oliver to some homemade dance tracks. The disbelief is only compounded when they eventually manage to win over the room of indie-heads and pigmen.

That’s what Getdown Services (Josh Law and Ben Sadler) do best. The duo’s live shows are an exhibition of charm and uninhibited personality, a foundation from which they fling their bizarre brand of lyrical irreverence (a few of my favourites include ‘Harry Styles called, he’s asking for a merger’ and ‘it’s Ken Dodd’s dad’s dog’s death on the telly’). I had the pleasure of seeing the two perform at Wide Awake festival earlier this year, and I am now confident in the assessment of their gigs as a cross between an illegal rave in a field and a magic show at Pontins.

A year on from my first encounter with Getdown Services, and they have amassed half-a-million monthly Spotify listeners as well as tour dates lined up across Europe and the US. Part of their appeal is their unfettered authenticity, an endearing trait capable of transforming them into a cross-continental phenomenon (I wouldn’t want to limit their potential to cult status quite yet). Their onstage chatter is as zany as their songwriting, and their audiences soon realise that they’re the real deal. That’s before the duo start getting the audience properly involved, making them dance in silence, or scream for as long as they can, or jump with one finger in the air like a schoolchild desperate for the loo.

This authenticity extends to how the duo act beyond the stage. Their Instagram is a personal highlight, as they consistently update their fans with their tour dates and shenanigans, showing clear support for grassroots venues through their relentless touring schedule. They even subsidise tickets for fans who don’t have the financial means to afford their shows, a far cry from the diabolical dynamic pricing used by money-hungry, soulless ghouls who see their fans as nothing more than a mine to be exhausted. On a completely unrelated note, did you know that Noel Gallagher lost £20million in his divorce settlement?

All this mention of personality isn’t to suggest that their music can be brushed over. Their instrumentals oscillate between glam, soul, dance and blues, often topped by deep-voiced monologues in the vein of Baxter Dury or Aidan Moffat. Their latest offering, Primordial Slot Machine, has a massive hike in production value compared to their debut LP, Crisps, as well as clearer concepts and execution (see the frustration of ‘I Wish It Didn’t Bother Me’ evolve into the more introspective, self-sabotaging isolationism of ‘Chrysalis’).

They’re becoming such a beloved act that I’ve seen a marriage proposal at one of their gigs. It seems that, amongst the humour and cheekiness of their music, Getdown Services manage to actually capture a significant essence of modern life, be it either through their navigation of pop culture to home in on specific emotions or their ability to create palpable, communal joy for any group of people, for fans or first-time listeners, festival goers or acoustic lovers, a two-night sold-out Electric Ballroom or, even, my dad.

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