Skinny Lister are opening their new tour with a home town show, a new hometown as it happens as they are  now based in Bristol. Having been making their way west from a start in Greenwich, through Hastings, before being Bristol bound. Hometown Penzance gig in 10 years maybe, if they keep heading west? Although, they feel like a band that are naturally Bristol based, with their shanty like sounds reverberating around the city built on it’s on port; and tonight the gig is even on a boat.

The Thekla being that venue, moored in Bristol’s ‘floating harbour’ (as ships could float all the time not dependant on the tides, but we’ll leave the history lesson for another day). This also being the first night of storm Bert that could sound quite daunting, but unlike in the olden days or pirate and galleons, this ships is firmly anchored down. So no motion of the ocean while your enjoying your scrumpy and dancing to the music tonight.

They are now into their sixth album and we get at least one track from each, they have a devoted fan base that seem to know their whole back catalogue pretty much singing every word back to them in the hull of this old ship. New track ‘Set Us Straight’ is even roared along to as if it has been their staple song for the last decade, despite only having come out that week.  There’s even a song documenting their move west too in ‘Bristol Bound’ and being down the front for the Bristol bands.

It certainly feels like everyone wants to be down the front here, the venue’s shape makes it quite squeezed at the front, as at the back you can’t see the stage well due to the overhang of the deck above. But all that adds to the party atmosphere, and who better than to start a party than “Party George” aka Lorna’s dad, who comes on for a couple of numbers. They admit this is quite the family band with Lorna being married to Dan, the singer and her brother, Max, is the double bass player.

Their signature tune is a stomp/ roar along to  ‘John Kanaka’ a traditional sea shanty with “too rye aye” filling the room from all present. Keeping with the Bristol based boating theme is ‘Damn The Amsterdam’ about a ship wreck, they often perform this with Bristol based The Longest Johns who they co-released it with, but they are off on tour with Bellowhead at the moment.

The set seems to fly by, there is barely time for breath with a flagon of booze having been passed around and Lorna disappearing into the crowd for a bit. We reach the final two, equally exhilarating numbers of ‘Company of the Bar’ and ‘Trouble on Oxford Street’ both of which go down a storm, which fortunately the boat didn’t. We then leave, back into a literal storm having had quite the musical experience. Skinny Lister give all they can every time on stage and you leave feeling you really experienced something wonderful, you really should check them out if you haven’t yet.