After the fireworks lit up Weymouth beach, live music carried on into the night at the Nook cocktail club as local acoustic duo Fleur and Toby performed into the early hours.

The cosy little cocktail bar is located on the esplanade, providing live entertainment every night of the week and Monday’s see Fleur Lindsay and Toby Burley perform their weekly set, starting at 10.30pm.

I headed down to the Nook for an evening of live music and delicious cocktails, catching up with the Dorset duo during their break to ask them a few questions.

On stage chemistry

The act is relatively fresh as the pair haven’t been performing together for long which you wouldn’t be able to tell as the pair have a great on-stage chemistry.

Both of them have musical backgrounds with Toby, 17, also being a member of Weymouth band ‘The Undecided’ since he was 13 and Fleur, 18, has been singing on her own for 6 years, even releasing eleven of her own songs – all of which have been played on BBC music introducing.

Not just a couple on stage, but a couple in real life as the pair got together last year, which is when they decided to start performing together, “since we were together and we both did music, it was the next step really.”

Fleur recalled her favourite thing about performing with Toby is: “When we’re performing, we look at each other and we just smile and it’s so nice to do it together, because I’ve been performing on my own for so long.

“It’s so much less scary being up there with Toby, especially because we’re together as well, you just feel a lot more comfortable and if there’s people in the audience that are being a bit rowdy or coming a bit too closer, I feel safer because I know that he’s there.”

Whilst Toby revealed that his favourite thing was “hearing Fleur sing,” he added “and if I’m up playing then I’m even closer to it.”

The set list was full of popular hits that saw everyone in the bar bopping along, whether it was to Daniel Caesar’s ‘Best Part (feat. H.E.R.),’ which Fleur described as one of their favourite songs to perform, a beautiful rendition which saw the pair duetting, or Alicia Key’s, ‘If I Ain’t Got You,’ and even an original song thrown into the mix.

Fleur released her latest song ‘Breathe’ earlier this year, whilst her second single ‘Crutches’ has had over 56,000 streams on Spotify.

Live music after the pandemic

Gareth Burton, owner of The Nook, said: “Toby and Fleur are brilliant, and we are over the moon to have them on Mondays.

“Live music came to a screeching halt during the pandemic and we've been working hard to resume normal service with our full Après Sea programme this summer - Live music every night of the week.

“Live music is so important. It's a completely shared experience which lifts the spirits and feeds the soul in a way that recorded music just can't compare.

"We share a space when live music is going on that allows us to connect with those around us and I think we have all missed that.

"We have some incredible artists on the music scene in Weymouth and it's makes us very happy that we have been able to play a small part in getting the live music scene going again post the pandemic.”

The duo will be performing at Weymouth’s Quayside festival this year on their very own one-year anniversary, following Toby’s recent performance closing ‘Tea on the Quay’ at the same location, with ‘The Undecided.’

Guaranteed to be in the audience are their number one supporters – their parents. The pair agreed that their parents couldn’t be any more supportive, with Toby’s dad building them a studio in his garden.

Fleur added: “they come to every single gig, they even came to London with me when I gigged in London, they will literally come anywhere.”

Ambition

Although the pair are just starting their musical careers, they are both very promising, up and coming young artists and full of ambition; whilst speaking about their future in music Fleur said: “For me I want to make a living out of music, like I don’t want to be super famous like Harry Styles, but as long as I’m happy and I’m living off of music, that’s my goal.”

Toby added: “At the moment realistically it’s to get more gigs, at the moment we’ve done like twenty, so it’s still relatively fresh and where we were instantly so busy it feels like we’ve been doing it for ages.

“It’s just keep building, getting a reputation and gaining more experience and then going up to London.”

You can catch the duo every Monday from 10:30pm at the Nook Cocktail Club during the summer.