Every few years someone declares guitar bands finished, and every few years a loud room proves otherwise. The format keeps surviving because it does something very direct: it turns physical movement into sound. A drummer lifts the room, a bass player locks the centre, and guitars create pressure, colour and release in a way that still feels immediate.
The appeal is physical
Rock gigs work because the audience can read the performance almost instantly. You can see where the sound is coming from. You can feel when the band is pushing ahead of itself or pulling back into control. That visible effort matters. It gives the songs a body.
Modern rock bands do not need to pretend nothing has changed. The most interesting ones borrow from pop structure, electronic texture and post-punk repetition without losing the core appeal of a band on a stage. The point is not purity. The point is impact.
Small rooms keep the format honest
In a small venue, a guitar band cannot rely on distance. The sound either connects or it does not. Riffs need weight, choruses need shape, and slower songs need enough tension to stop the room drifting. When it works, the result is still one of the most reliable live music experiences available.
The reason guitar bands still make sense is not nostalgia. It is utility. They remain one of the simplest ways to convert shared attention into shared energy, and that still counts for a lot.
After releasing the best album of their careers last year, the Beths are reaping their rewards with bigger venues and an ever more affectionate fanbase. Improved on all fronts since their visit to Leeds last year, all that this gig needed was a bit of extra bite.
The ceiling lights in Manchester’s swish New Century Hall are so remarkable it wasn’t long before they were a topic of extensive onstage conversation from four-piece Kiwi rock outfit the Beths. Each of the perfectly uniform bulbs were framed by thousands of geometric slabs of smooth matte metal, creating an impressive array of shapes and shadows that could pass as one of the less noteworthy works in a spacious gallery of Tate Modern. “Does anybody know how many there are?” bassist Benjamin Sinclair wondered, to which an overly lubricated man beside me shouted “at least 12!”. But authoritative guitarist Jonathan Pearce – who radiates the musical expertise of a man who knows his vintage Fender Stratocasters from his Gibson Firebirds – had done the maths. 1,250 according to his assessment, having divided the ceiling into smaller, countable subsections. When he cued a “special message” written in the lights for one night only I’m convinced I wasn’t the only one that looked up with complete faith in his abilities.
Liz Stokes and Benjamin Sinclair of the Beths, with Tristan Deck behind on drums
The Beths can be forgiven for getting a little carried away with a venue as glitzy and capacious as New Century Hall. It’s been little over a year since frontwoman Liz Stokes was getting self-conscious over a poorly angled mirror above the bar at Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club, a decidedly more intimate venue that seemed to underplay the quality of her songwriting. Tonight they’ve graduated Leeds and are now filling out one of the trendiest venues in the city’s big brother to the west, an expensively refurbished hall that once played host to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the Bee Gees in its heyday. 2022’s exemplary third album Expert In A Dying Field is surely driving the surge in support; an album that more than makes up for a lack of the cutting-edge with a glut of indelible chorus hooks and some of the most brilliantly crafted guitar solos of the year. As the crowds gathered ahead of the Beths’ entrance in Manchester, it was reassuring to see that good music can simply propel good bands onwards; for all the complaints about modern music’s “industry plants” and stadium-filling megastars pumping out one lazy album after another, a feeble musical meritocracy still stands firm.
A Passing Rain followed the hard rock formula to a tee: four good chords, played loud and fast, over and over.
Filling out the heart of the band’s set this evening, it was that batch of fresh material that provided many of the gig’s highlights. Head In the Clouds‘ wonderfully choppy bridge gave way to an anthemic chorus that had the crowds pointing to the ceiling bulbs in euphoria; lilting delight When You Know You Know had Stokes dusting off her acoustic guitar for the most exquisite chorus melody she’s ever penned. Given deserved late billing in the set list, all-rounder Expert In A Dying Field was greeted by the audience like an old friend.
Of course, this performance necessarily extended beyond all the great new songs, and the old essence of what first made the Beths worth listening to remained. It was telling that Future Me Hates Me – the title track from their debut album – was chosen to open the show ahead of recent, more obvious options. It worked well as the band’s introductory theme song, those four words in the title nicely encapsulating Stokes’ relatable lyrical style of half-serious self-deprecation. An endearing routine with the band members introducing one another in turn also remained, giving a sense of their individual personalities and providing a golden opportunity for Sinclair to plug his travel blog, which he sheepishly took.
At other times the Beths were perhaps a little too sheepish. More a musician than a performer, Stokes was not the sort of frontwoman to dictate any crowd participation beyond a knowing smile at any organic audience-clapping and moshing was out of the question. Sure, jumping around like a maniac has a time and a place, but there were a few songs that were heavy enough to deserve the full monty, not least A Passing Rain, which follows the hard rock formula for success to a tee: four good chords, played loud and fast, over and over. It didn’t help that Sinclair’s bass – used judiciously in this song to make its eventual impact in the second chorus all the more earth-shattering – felt weedy and undercooked, and the crowd seemed indifferent to the track as a result. It was this mixing issue that held back the Beths when delving into the punkier corners of their discography, with killer single Not Getting Excited also lacking crucial bite.
Each of Pearce’s guitar solos was a phenomenon, the crowd hooked on every twang and twiddle.
Even Pearce’s countless guitar solos felt a little restrained as a result of their conciseness, but wisely so. A majority of tracks were graced with his solos, each one its own phenomenon teased out one by one to a crowd hooked on every twang and twiddle. A lesser guitarist might be tempted towards directionless improvised shredding over such a juicy bounty of solid rock tracks, but Pearce’s guitar solos were meticulous and intelligently crafted, each one neatly wrapped up the moment before Stokes’ vocals rejoined. A refreshingly ingenious yet humble lead guitarist, it was Pearce that shone as this band’s outstanding talent.
Backed by a giant inflatable fish head, Jonathan Pearce’s guitar solos were consistently remarkable.
By far the evening’s most memorable moment came late on with Dying to Believe, which saw audience member Abi supplant Sinclair after the band spotted her banner requesting to play bass for a song. She performed it with complete conviction, and the audience erupted. There was something joyful about witnessing a person seize the moment with such aplomb, and a confidently delivered bass solo towards the end had the crowd rightly giving one of the biggest roars of the night. Sinclair somewhat amusingly became a spare part, microphone still in hand as he watched on. “I discovered quickly that I don’t know any cool ways to hold a microphone,” he would later write on that blog.
By the end of the night, it seemed confirmed that the Beths will never be the sort of rock band gunning for stadium-sized gigs as a result of their relatively lowkey and conservative approach to indie rock. And nor should they be: Stokes’ introspective lyricism doesn’t deserve to be lost to a melee of chucked beers and wayward limbs. The utterly heartbreaking acoustic encore track You Are a Beam of Light provoked a dumbfounded silence and stillness from the audience that was as emotionally potent an experience as any mosh pit. There is evidently still a space for subtler displays of emotion in today’s indie music, and the Beth’s trajectory remains upward; it was a symptom of their success that their latest album necessitated a cutting of some fine material from their live set (Whatever, Uptown Girl and River Run: Lvl 1, all highlights of last year’s gig in Leeds, have since been culled). Still, there’s work to be done. “They’re Australian, right?” I overheard one concertgoer ask a friend as we left the venue and almost tutted. These New Zealanders have come so improbably far already, but you get the sense there’s still a little more room to grow.
Every song was a showstopper for a celebratory final night of Couch’s debut international tour in an ambitious show packed with unrelenting funk-pop grooves, countless glorious solos and the best Harry Styles cover money can buy.
Tema Siegel stands centre stage, clad in a leather jacket with her microphone aloft in one hand, mug of coffee in the other. She’s reached the crux of Saturday, and slowly tilts her head back and shuts her eyes as she lets out an authoritative long note above a whirl of funky synths and guitars. A moment later and the entire song disintegrates when the band simply stop playing and Siegel switches from that momentary bliss to the neutral stance of everyday life in a moment. The song’s ending is met by an almost comic ripple of applause from the half dozen audience members, all of whom are loitering in a dark corner of Band On The Wall. For a song like Saturday clearly designed to whip up audiences into a frenzied party, it all feels shockingly flat.
The good news is the party hasn’t started yet. In fact, the six audience members are myself and the group of friends I’d travelled to Manchester with plus a sound guy. Through something like the dark arts (or, more specifically, some smooth direct messaging with Couch’s Instagram account), my friend Thomas had scored us ‘VIP’ access to the soundcheck, as well as a chance to personally meet some of the eight band members. We stood there at the back like sheepish starstruck superfans doting on the musicians’ every word as they ironed out fiddly issues with in-ear monitors and song transitions before hopping off stage and closely listening back to a recording just in case any mixing decisions needed tweaking.
Constant movement injected Couch’s set with fun.
Cut to three hours later and that careful, diligent preparation was invisible to the crowd as the eight excited musicians promptly kicked into their opening number. Since the low-key soundcheck, Band On The Wall – an impressively decked out and fresh-feeling venue in Manchester’s fashionable Northern Quarter – had transformed from a dark, empty void to the place to be in the city, with the most intense buzz of pre-gig anticipation I’ve felt since Sam Fender. The big draw of Thomas’ arrangements turned out not to be the soundcheck or even chats with the band but the early access itself, which meant we could snag an ideal spot at the front of the crowd, close enough to examine Siegel’s choice of trainers and directly hear the harsh parp of Jeffrey Pinsker-Smith’s trumpet before it was routed through the venue’s sound system. The thrill of such close contact with the stars, with the possibility of catching brief eye contact with a restless Siegel as she delivered her unwavering lead vocals, never wore off.
Almost every song featured a face-scrunching solo worthy of spontaneous yelps of support from the crowd and bandmates alike.
The proximity no doubt intensified the experience for me and my friends, but everyone in the room seemed blown away by the breathless opening set piece from the Bostonian band, who are riding high on the wake left behind by Vulfpeck, a funk band so spectacularly successful they’ve inspired renewed interesting in retro, jazz-informed pop amongst the young generation the world over. A brief rendition of the Wii Sports theme song set the tone for a light-hearted evening (and took a leaf out of Cory Wong’s playbook) before a sublime transition into the tumbling first chords of Fall Into Place, a song that instantly had the band – and therefore, the crowd – bobbing along to the groove enthusiastically. It was sounding surprisingly tight despite all the passionate moving and shaking onstage, ending with the first of many spine-tingling belted vocal moments of the night, aided by more than one flashy organ glissando. Immediate follow-up I’m Leavin’ (The Na-Na Song) continued the momentum with a masterclass in how to transform a lazy, grating chorus into an instant crowd pleaser on the night by way of punchier crescendos, noisier solos and a healthy helping of light choreography.
The best aspect of Couch’s performance, and also arguably the only weakness, was the fact that the high energy pop bangers started with Fall Into Place and virtually didn’t stop for the next 100 exhilarating (and exhausting) minutes. Almost every song featured a face-scrunching solo worthy of spontaneous yelps of support from the crowd and bandmates alike, and even the seemingly quiet tracks invariably wound up with a gobsmacking finale led by the indefatigable Siegel, her long notes often bridging dramatic stops in the accompaniment. The best songs were often simply the ones with the most ambitious climaxes. Earwormy Poems tailed off into the stratosphere even more than most, propelled onwards by a key change at an opportune moment. Still Feeling You, a perfectly crafted pop song and head and shoulders Couch’s best recorded track, was always destined to be a highlight, even if the knotty horns-led instrumental bridge inevitably frayed at the edges now played outside the comfortable surroundings of a recording studio.
Every band member got their moment in the spotlight.
An interesting selection of covers filled out a marathon 21-song set, all of which were Couch-ified with immaculately rehearsed details of group synchronicity, plus the trademark barnstorming final chorus. A zestful rendition of With A Little Help From My Friends was well received, and a smooth transition into Something milked the Beatles patriotism in the room for all it was worth. Billy Joel’s Vienna provided the sort of robust blues melody that Siegel eats for breakfast, and Pinsker-Smith was not one to pass off on an opportunity for a squawking muted trumpet solo. A less purposeful rendition of Sex On Fire, by contrast, felt surplus to requirement. It may seem like a cruel backhanded compliment for me to list the cover of Harry Styles’ somewhat bland, radio-primed filler Late Night Talking as the evening’s biggest highlight, but Couch’s reimagination of the track is so brilliant it’s already earning its own reputation in the States as one of the group’s niftiest showstoppers. Every corner of the song was masterfully slick and self-assured, from the chorus’ finely tuned vocal harmonies to the delightful yet well-restrained fresh flashes of trumpet and saxophone. It culminated in Danny Silverston’s breathtakingly funky Stevie Wonder-style clavinet breakdown (a surefire way to Undertone‘s heart), before Siegel reintroduced each instrument with a joyful campness (“Willy, where’s that bass at!?”). This was the sort of cover that will forever render the original a disappointment.
Chants of “we want more!” were instant after Couch left the stage; Siegel could only manage a few seconds hidden backstage before bursting back out to her adoring fans with a smile.
Couch proved themselves to be great musicians, but they were even better performers. From song one, movement onstage was constant and engaging, and rarely did all band members start and end a song in the same spot. Leading the pack, Siegel was particularly bubbly, often crouching down a few feet in front of us and looking into the phone cameras of the rapt front row fans, my friends amongst them. Wireless microphones and transmitters were an essential piece of tech for Couch, allowing almost every band member to wander the stage freely, resulting in the sort of dynamic and authentically spontaneous performance you’re unlikely to see in your traditional four-man rock band. Eric Tarlin on saxophone was the band member that seemed to most relish this freedom, initiating games of rock-paper-scissors or handshakes with bandmates before particularly magnificent solos. He travelled so much that his hijinks found him playing keyboard at one point, as well as an entertaining stint as lead vocalist. His solos were equally playful and cheeky, his face tight with a smile behind the mouthpiece.
In fact, every band member had plenty of time alone in the limelight – Still Feeling You was followed by several minutes of solos on the same chord progression. It could have been tiresome had each solo not been somehow more spectacular than the last. Jared Gozinsky’s long drum break into standout Saturday was thunderous and bassist Will Griffin was Dart-like in his enthralling few minutes at the front of stage, but it was keyboardist Danny Silverston who produced the finest solo of the night with his otherworldly synth adventures on Let Me Hold You, the more promising of two unreleased songs.
Tema Siegel was an engaging frontwoman.
Countless more solos came and went by the time Siegel started saying her goodbyes. It had been a set admittedly lacking in versatility. The band’s formula of throwing the kitchen sink at the end of every song became a little too apparent after a dozen iterations and Siegel’s vocal performances, whilst commanding, lacked nuance. Fortunately, all the kitchen sink throwing was so passionately delivered there were few signs of tiredness amongst the celebratory crowd. Chants of “we want more!” were instant after Couch left the stage, and Siegel could only manage a few seconds hidden backstage before bursting back out to her adoring fans with a smile. Encore song Conjunction Junction gave the fans exactly what they wanted: unadulterated funk, complete with squelchy rhythm guitar, a sticky horns hook and lyrics that made good use of the word “funk”. To say the ensuing sax vs trumpet solo battle at the song’s climax tore the roof off would be inaccurate; Couch had metaphorically deroofed Band On The Wall several times already that evening.
The five of us left promptly and strode briskly back to Victoria station to catch the last train home, already eagerly throwing around “best gig ever” suggestions after our successful VIP experience. It was perhaps telling that whilst my friends exchanged video clips of the night’s highlights on the train, my first action was to find a row to myself, lie down and throw a coat over my head to block out the overhead lights. Couch’s show had been inconcise but potent, an adrenaline shot of high-octane pop destined to leave sore heads in the morning. Several band members had fittingly finished collapsed on the floor in the immediate aftermath of Conjunction Junction, and in many ways Couch were right not to hold back on their final night in the UK before flying back to the States. They had given it all, and it wasn’t just my friends’ special treatment that had made it a night to remember. That said, if Couch can be accused of bribery – giving away freebies in the hopes of praise from the esteemed tastemaker at Undertone blog – this time it worked magnificently.
Arriving at one of the grandest venues of her career to date, Self Esteem threw the kitchen sink at this performance at the Sage with snappy choreography and slick costume changes. Rarely was the show anything but utterly spectacular.
Something extraordinary happened about halfway through Self Esteem’s enthralling recent performance at Sage Gateshead. Amidst a chaotic screech of rising synths, Rebecca Lucy Taylor had snuck off stage, leaving us to gawp wide-eyed at the rest of the band, who were in the process of morphing out of their monochrome tuxedos and into blazing red head-to-toe body suits before our very eyes. Once her alien-like minions had fully materialised, Taylor returned in a blood red playsuit, an uneasy mix of playful and dominant with her huge, feather-brimmed cowboy hat. “I am not your mother,” she chanted with venom amongst the swirling clouds of smoke, storming around the stage during a particularly strenuous stretch of choreo. For several gripping minutes the room was awash with a chest-rattling kick drum and siren-like synths, before Taylor eventually climbed up the centre-stage plinth to have a bash of – or more accurately, abuse – a drum of her own. Cue a magnificent transition into the no less venomous How Can I Help You?, and the chaos continued unabated. As an artistic sequence, this was Taylor operating at the peak of her powers, providing a visceral, compellingly ugly spectacle. It set the tone for an evening of bold, inventive and ultimately uplifting pop.
It’s songs like How Can I Help You? – a no nonsense alt-pop monster – that had critics’ ears pricking up in the wake of Self Esteem’s latest studio album Prioritise Pleasure, which got a deserved Mercury Prize nomination and recognition as the Guardian’s Album of the Year in 2021. Since then, her live shows have only been getting bigger and bolder, and the imposing arena of Sage Gateshead’s main auditorium was a new high water mark that seemed to shock even the popstar herself. “A lot of Taskmaster fans in Newcastle,” she tried to jokingly justify to herself at one point, although it was obvious no one was here simply because they had spotted her on the New Year’s special episode of the TV show.
You Forever had the rowdiest fans below me almost jumping on their seats in ecstasy
It’s not just the sheer size of the Sage that makes it a difficult place to perform (it’s big but, admittedly, UK concert venues can get much bigger). With its many rows of seats and elegant wooden sound boards, the Sage is less of a venue, more a temple of listening, and performers have little hope of painting over unsatisfactory music with crowd pleasing visual flourishes in the same way they might do in less formal surroundings. Support act Tom Rasmussen battled admirably to make an impact with flashy dance music, but even their most dynamic tracks struggled when confronted with 1,600 people settling down in their padded seats with a freshly baked scone from the foyer cafe. Subsequent performer Mega got similarly swallowed up by the room, unwisely pitching up with just a guitar and cajon to support her.
Staging and lighting added potency to exhilarating How Can I Help You?
For Self Esteem, however, there was hope. Not over reliant on dance grooves or shock factor, her distinctive pop provides plenty for the attentive concertgoer to listen for. Her lyrics and not just frequently witty but fierce and unwaveringly earnest, and sonically her songs match abrasive pop trailblazing with a pained tenderness; on the night, How Can I Help You?‘s uncompromising stomp was balanced by achingly bare piano ballad John Elton. If the seating arrangements limited dancing, Taylor was at least sure to provide plenty of reasons to cry. In fact, in the end all the seats didn’t matter at all – the wealth of pop bangers on parade had the entire ground floor seating area on their feet for virtually the whole gig, not to mention the overenthusiastic group of tipsy women booked in the seats next to me.
With such an unusually interesting catalog at her disposal, Taylor could be forgiven for simply doling out the hits in Gateshead. Instead, this was a deeply intentional, meticulously detailed performance. Beyond the three costumes and their effortlessly slick transitions, razor sharp choreography from Taylor’s three hard-working backing singers offered a fresh visual dimension to the songs. In stormier sections the group often served shocking moments of synchronicity, their aggressive punches and kicks adding even more heft to Mike Park’s hulking drum beats. In other times, when Taylor’s mellow vibrato floated over subtler backings, the group produced heart-rending tableaux, linking arms or physically supporting not just Taylor but one another. Sonically, Self Esteem offered the full package, too. Bassist and purveyor of keyboards Sophie Galpin seemed at risk of being overworked, but she managed every room-filling synth hit and wild, sudden change of musical direction with miraculous ease. Taylor herself delivered with her powerful, hearty vocals, sounding just as comfortable belting out the apex of a beautiful ballad as she was snarling about misogynistic men in no uncertain terms.
Most musicians will spend an entire career reaching for artistry as exquisite as I Do This All The Time
It was a set packed with almost too many winning set pieces to mention. Punchy funk number Moody came repurposed as a glorious Y.M.C.A.-style dance-along, and sparkling You Forever was even more joyfully energetic, leaving the rowdiest fans below me almost jumping on their seats in ecstasy. Stirring slow burner The 345 was rightly billed as the big singalong tear-jerker at the business end of proceedings, but an earlier performance of Just Kids was even more emotionally penetrating. “Remember we had it all when we were just kids?” the gospel vocals soared as melting, bracingly artificial strings pierced through the track. It was The 345 that marked the start of the descent into hell by way of red mist and a cowboy hat, with the most fiery corners of Self Esteem’s released (and unreleased) material condensed into a blistering 15 minutes that hit like a shot of vodka. The conviction in which Taylor spluttered out her lyrics, utterly incandescent, was almost frightening. “I’m a truly hideous person but I’m very charming on telly,” she told us in her endearing Sheffield drawl after the dust had settled, briefly relishing in her own villainy before digging in once more with a propulsive performance of standout Girl Crush.
Rebecca Taylor performed closely with her hard-working backing singers
From the outset, we all knew this gig was only heading in one direction, namely I Do This All The Time, Taylor’s career-defining moment of genius, part determined hymn to healing, part poignant piece of heartbroken slam poetry. It may take some of its cues from Baz Luhrman’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen), but Taylor’s song is much more than just vague life advice in pretty packaging. Instead, everything in this song cuts straight through to the soul – the empowering group vocals, the devastating strings melody, Taylor’s endlessly quotable nuggets of wisdom, which are delivered with the crushing nonchalance of an artist on the verge of giving up. Most musicians will spend an entire career reaching for artistry as exquisite as I Do This All The Time. In Gateshead, Taylor forgetting the bulk of the first verse (“please don’t ask for a refund!”) was a fly in the ointment, but as that final gospel rush arrived, with Taylor earnestly linking arms with her backing singers in genuine camaraderie, the sheer amount of humanity on the stage made it difficult to hold back the tears.
It had been an evening of such variety for both eyes and ears it seemed unfair to ask for any more from Taylor, who no doubt will end this tour both physically and emotionally exhausted. That said, a live strings section was the one thing that could have elevated I Do This All The Time (and several other songs) even higher, and the two person backing band ended up feeling inevitably lacking for all Galpin’s multitasking heroics. Relatively unremarkable Still Reigning also marked a peculiar comedown after the aforementioned showstopper, and there was a sense that the audience was simply too exhausted by the previous emotional bulldozer to sing along with much volume. Make no mistake, though, Taylor’s live show is an artistic triumph, and by the sounds of the new material aired at the Sage, she may still be yet to hit her creative peak.
Like many others around me, I felt emotionally battered by the time the house lights came up. Shirley Bassey’s terrific disco hit This Is My Life was an inspired choice of exit music, her powerful refrain perfectly mirroring the intense joy left behind by Taylor’s art yet with a distinct undercurrent of melancholy. As I left the still dancing crowds below, I felt as I do after all the best gigs: deeply satisfied but heavy with sadness from the knowledge that experiences like these can never truly be re-lived. The one-time-only thrill is of course exactly what makes live music so special, exciting and often transcendent, but I have a habit of realising how precious the moment is just as it ends. Some of Taylor’s final words were still ringing in my ears as I made my way back over the Tyne Bridge and looked across to the beautiful light show on the rest of the city’s great bridges. “I will never forget this,” she had told us, voice wavering as the crowd’s standing ovation grew ever louder. Plenty of artists have said similar things at dozens of gigs I’ve seen across the country in the last few years, but this insistence of Gateshead’s specialness felt different. This time I could sense she really meant it.
Critically acclaimed punk rocker Jeff Rosenstock marked his return to the UK with an explosive, sweat-drenched performance in Leeds, packed with clever changes of pace, raucous singalongs and underlying anti-capitalist rage.
16 Undertone gig reviews deep, no act I’ve seen thus far has taken to a stage quite like Jeff Rosenstock did at Leeds’ Belgrave Music Hall. For most acts, their grand entrance onto the stage is hammed up as one of the most thrilling moments of the night. Be it dodie‘s gentle organ hum, Sam Fender‘s static fuzz or Jungle‘s interminable sirens, some sort of lavish musical fanfare usually marks the end of the hours-long wait for the artist on our tickets. Even less well-known artists like Larkins or The Beths dimmed the lights and donned facemasks to remain anonymous as they set up their own equipment onstage, attempting to save the big reveal for the giddy few seconds before the start of their first song. The Beths even had their own hoodies with words like “guitar tech” written on their backs in an attempt to fool the audience (stood right at the front and with prior knowledge of just how unusually tall guitarist Jonathan Pearce was, I wasn’t buying it).
It was a surprise, then, when Rosenstock and his band practically stumbled onto stage minutes after the phenomenal Fresh had wrapped up their supporting set. I once again found myself right at the front and within touching distance of the great man as he taped a scrawled set list to the monitor in front of me and wrestled with a mic stand that had become entangled in cables. When one of Rosenstock’s songs happened to come on as background music, him and his band even started briefly jamming along to the disbelieving delight of the crowd.
The lowkey start was indicative of punk music’s general lack of self-importance, and Rosenstock’s humility in particular. Before digging into furious thrash metal of opener NO TIME, Rosenstock announced that he was here just to play some songs. For a pop gig this might have sound like an admittance of creative laziness, but for Rosenstock’s endearingly homegrown brand of rock, “some songs” was all the performance we needed.
Rosenstock performing on his replacement guitar
It helped, of course, that Jeff Rosenstock happens to have one of the most lauded discographies in rock today. Since his solo debut in 2012, he’s released one outstanding project after another, peaking with 2016’s immaculately-paced WORRY., which gladly took up a significant chunk of the set list in Leeds. His latest effort, 2020’s bitter and cathartic NO DREAM, came to define the pandemic summer for me and close friend Ewan, who, just like me, was hardly able to contain his excitement as we waited near the front of the queue outside Belgrave Music Hall. I had donned my NO DREAM t-shirt whilst Ewan’s giant Rosenstock flag remained proudly hung up in his bedroom at home.
Despite the night being Rosenstock’s first UK performance in many years, he was in no mood for gentle reintroduction. Choppy Nikes (Alt) had fans pogoing early on, as we screamed about “staring down the barrel of our shitty future” and “looking for a dream that won’t morph into a nightmare”. Scram! – the finest single on NO DREAM – was just as thrilling, and there was something vaguely touching about a group of (mostly) millennial men coming together in a room to sing about how desperate they are to run away from all the myriad personal problems in their lives. Musically, the climax of Scram! is extraordinary, with a barrage of kick drum hits that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Slipknot track, before eventually giving way to a rollicking garage rock payoff.
Rosenstock held nothing back in his performance of every last song, convulsing and twitching towards the microphone during his most pointed lyrics, turning around and keeling over his guitar in the ecstatic pain typical of loud rock music during many vocal breaks. It was scarcely more than 15 minutes in by the time he started to get visibly sweaty, and another 15 minutes later I could feel the occasional speck of lukewarm sweat splatter onto me whenever Rosenstock got overly energetic in his dancing; such is the visceral experience of being at the very front of a Jeff Rosenstock gig. His poor guitar got so drenched that he had to swap to his ‘backup’ guitar halfway through, telling us a story about how he apparently sweats much more than the average person. We all believed him.
Fun and goofy-sounding up-tempo numbers like Hey Allison! and Monday at the Beach were even faster in the flesh, almost to a fault, although seeing Kevin Higuchi smack the snare drum at such a rapid tempo never got old. Festival Song was a clearer highlight of the night, with its bounty of singalong riffs and propulsive final chorus, elevated by the screech of Mike Huguenor’s guitar. Majestic You, In Weird Cities should really have closed the entire night, but it was still rapturously received much earlier in the set. Rosenstock’s saxophone antics of the song’s live version had Ewan and I excited, not least because keyboardist and guitarist Dan Potthast had been occasionally playing a tenor throughout the night. In the end we didn’t quite get the saxophone solo we had been hoping for, but an a capella singalong of the song’s awe-inspiring final hook nonetheless felt pretty special. f a m e, NO DREAM‘s grandest moment, was the only significant set list casualty of the night.
The hits continued with the restless N O D R E A M, which was a good excuse for Ewan’s first stagedive of the night to the ire of the Belgrave security guards and general approval of fellow revellers, although no one quite had the boldness to do any crowdsurfing of their own for the entire night. The absurd sight of my friend’s limbs coming in and out of view in the melee beside me enhanced the giddy excitement of Rosenstock’s noisiest tracks. After that first stagedive I wasn’t to see him for a good 30 minutes whilst I clung on to my spot at the very front, wary of crush injuries from the occasional mosh pit surge. I was close enough to Rosenstock for him to confer with me in bafflement when the inevitable “Yorkshire” chants arrived before the encore.
Rosenstock connected with the fans on the closing tracks
And what an encore. To the delight of Ewan and I, it was mostly devoted to the final five songs of WORRY., which are woven together beautifully into one remarkable ten-minute long rock opus. Every chorus set the mosh pit on fire, and in quieter moments Rosenstock was almost entirely drowned out by a crowd intent on screaming every last lyric. Exhausted, Rosenstock lay down on stage towards the end of the segment, dozens of hands pouring at his shoulders and willing him to push himself out above the heads of the audience.
It had been a show with little fanfare and little space for sentimentality, but at the very end Rosenstock gave us a morsel with the calming cooldown of We Begged 2 Explode. “All these magic moments are forgotten,” we all chanted as Rosenstock waved goodnight. If we had bothered to listen to the words we were screaming, we may have realised how fleeting emotional highs like these really are.
On a memorable warm summer’s night in Vienne, Herbie Hancock found himself a spectacular venue to deliver one remarkable rendition of his famous compositions after another. Jazz’s answer to Paul McCartney, the 82-year-old remains the unparalleled titan of his genre.
There was little to see onstage after Thomas de Pourquery wrapped up an impressive (if overly long) support slot, but the roar through Vienne’s magnificent Roman ampitheatre was as if a gladiator had just landed a fatal blow. An outlier in the multitude of paper airplanes had just been chucked stageward by the crowd from the upper reaches of the stands and was miraculously floating closer and closer to the stage, eventually plonking itself in front of a giant speaker stack before being scuttled away by a busy stagehand a few seconds later. It was a moment that ignited the match-ready buzz of anticipation in the crowd minutes before the great Herbie Hancock took to the stage, a man who can now quite reasonably claim to be the great living jazz musician on the planet. I had travelled to Vienne, near Lyon, with three friends and had already enjoyed one night of the festival (an improved, well-contained Cory Wong; a somewhat tired, cheese-laden George Benson). Tonight, however, was clearly the apex of the whole holiday – a reason for Fionn and I to crack out fresh, specially-bought shirts and douse ourselves in cologne for no particular reason other than “it’s for Herbie”. Now well informed about the dangers of sitting for two hours of more on unforgiving stone steps, I made my way uphill through Vienne carrying a pillow from our Airbnb, itself dressed in a fading Rex Orange County t-shirt to avoid stains. As we got comfortable in a spot high up in the ampitheatre – hardly a detraction as the view of the sunset over Vienne was remarkable – there was already a sense that nothing could ruin this night.
The sky had turned sapphire blue by the time Hancock strolled onto stage. “This place feels like home, I’ve been here so many times,” he told us as another paper airplane rudely made its way towards Hancock’s feet. It’s a phrase that may have sound like a boast from any other artist – the sheer number of people perched on the steep, curved stone steps around him was staggering – but from the mouth of Hancock it felt natural. Why should a man with such harmonic genius and jazz history (he was a crucial component of the Miles Davis Quintet, of course) ever feel overwhelmed by the occasion? A long opening medley – a bewildering tour of Hancock’s extensive discography including a journey through Textures performed with impressive attack and physicality considering Hancock’s old age – cemented the idea that Hancock has the ample experience required to play at the very highest standard in any venue he likes.
The nightly scene at Vienne’s Théâtre Antique during the festival
It helped that Hancock had populated his band with a cast of esteemed unsung heroes of the American jazz world. Guitarist Lionel Loueke was the easy standout performer, almost stealing the show on several occasions with dazzling solo works of wizardry, switching from gritty roar to silky smooth cantabile seemingly with the flick of a plectrum. His technically dazzling introduction to a somewhat disappointingly lightfooted Chameleon early on in the set was masterful. Trumpeter Terrence Blanchard, another extraordinary musician who could quite easily produce his very own sellout show of hits, took the spotlight for his own arrangement of the popular standard Footprints. Choppier than the original yet retaining the sense of nuanced constraint and control, the rendition was one of the many exquisite highlights of the night, not least thanks to Blanchard’s trumpet solo that soared up towards the highest ramparts of the Théâtre Antique like glorious morning birdsong.
It was hard to take in the occasion as, one by one, favourite tunes that me and my friends had played time and time again in youth jazz bands throughout our childhood were checked off. Cantaloupe Island, a song about as crowd pleasing as jazz gets, was one such moment with Hancock’s unforgettable chugging blues riff providing the first reason to those around me to get off their feet and get dancing. The rapid fusion of Actual Proof felt even more piercing when positioned directly after the relatively serene Footprints. The agitated basslines of James Genus found the perfect match in Justin Tyson’s dazzlingly busy and precise drumming, although the spontaneous harmonic whirlwind flowing out of Hancock’s Fender Rhodes inevitably, and deservedly, dominated proceedings. Oftentimes Hancock’s soloing felt like the stuff of legend, deserving to be plastered across YouTube as a viral video clip with a breathless, all-caps video title extolling Hancock’s general godliness. The extended, often wildly adventurous solos seemed to come and go distressingly quickly. It wasn’t that Hancock’s set was too short, but that his live, unrepeatable pianistic feats were simply too remarkable to hear once.
Dusk falls behind Herbie Hancock and his band
Hancock did well to resist the tempation to pack the setlist with somewhat overplayed greatest hits. Sublimely soulful deep cut Come Running to Me was an inspired song choice as dusk became nighttime and an excellent excuse for Hancock to take to the vocoder, an instrument he popularised singlehandedly during his period of technological boundary-pushing in the 1970s. A detour late on saw Hancock left entirely alone with his vocoder, repeating the crushing line “I’m not happy without you” through a cloud of dense, shape-shifting cluster chords. In a night of predictable, well-worn hits, it was a moment of striking sincerity and without doubt the evening’s emotive crux. Quite what emotion Hancock was unleashing was up to interpretation; an enlightening epiphany that could pave the way to happiness, or a grief-stricken realisation of love’s darkest consequences? The beauty of it all was the effortlessness in which Hancock moved from despair to hope and back again, each carefully chosen chord moving the piece forward in unexpected ways.
The absence of a proper, funky Chameleon aside, it had been a flawless evening. Thousands of raised hands clapped and cheered below us as the band took their bows, the time fast approaching midnight. The giddy feeling of being within eyeshot of such an indisputable living legend had not left me all night and 82-year-old Hancock was still triumphant and energetic as he made a final wave to the crowd following a blistering two hour set.
The roar continued right through to the encore, only stopping as Hancock arrived at the mic to speak. “Oh, one more thing,” he told us with a grin and faux nonchalence. Cue Chameleon once more, now with keytar and that stonking, immortal bassline. Hancock’s playing was stupendous: crunchy and risky synth slaps squashed up against virtuosic runs before fading almost to nothing in preparation for one last, showstopping buildup. With the pretty orange glow of the Rhône valley in view behind the stage and twinkling constellations now clearly in view, it felt like there was surely no better place in the world to be for those five minutes. If there was any doubt that Hancock could produce a set of music to live up to his staggering career in jazz, it had been well and truly put to bed. Who could possibly ask for more?
Stuck in an under capacity students’ union and struggling to whip up excitement in the crowd, Cassia’s catalogue of uplifting indie pop tracks will have more successful airings than their trip to Newcastle. Patches of effervescent Mancunian calypso gave a taste of just how brilliant the trio could be.
Showing up to Newcastle University’s gloomy students’ union buildings an hour after doors opened for Cassia’s gig, the near silence on campus was a cause for concern. I had seen online earlier that there hadn’t even been enough ticket sales for the stocks to be marked as ‘low’ on the band’s website, and frontman Rob Ellis had taken to Instagram to remind any last fans in the city that there would indeed be plenty of tickets available on the door. After meeting friend Lily – who I hadn’t been to a gig with since the time we foolishly missed Wet Leg play as support act mere weeks before they became one of the biggest bands in the country – there were so few people we struggled to even find out where the actual venue was. Finding ourselves in an abandoned Co-op, I had to resort to asking a security guard for help.
Of course, there was little queueing when we did locate the venue, which turned out to be a rather uninspiring black box two storeys underground, with a barrier two metres in front of the stage ensuring there would be none of the can-practically-touch-them intimacy I love with small venues. A bar was plonked at the back and a large empty space out of view of the stage occupied one half of the room. There wasn’t even a glitterball. In fairness, the audience steadily grew as the night wore on, although not before two support acts had been and gone. For a relatively small band, you begin to hope that this tour will be financially worthwhile for the musicians.
It was a shame because Cassia produce the sort of joyful music that comes alive in front of a large, receptive audience. The band started out as a curiosity, selling themselves as a unique Mancunian calypso-pop band, bringing the carefree, sun-kissed sounds of the Caribbean home to the drizzly northwest. Since their easy-going debut Replica they’ve morphed into a more traditional indie pop boyband, delving into a trendy if somewhat overpopulated genre currently led by the likes of Foals and easy life. It’s true that in the process the band has lost a lot of their original flair and uniqueness, but the good news is that Cassia’s pop songs are often very solid with their litany of watertight hooks and lyrics that invariably look on the brighter side of life.
The current state of Cassia was well captured in set opener Drifting, a track that gently hummed away with its relaxed clean guitars and unobtrusive bass, plus a chorus good enough to get the handful of Cassia superfans at the front singing early. Do Right, with the typically heartening Cassia-esque lyric “do right and let the rest follow” at its centre, was even better but struggled to inspire much in a largely static crowd. Perhaps the fans were waiting for tracks from the latest album, but with Do Right‘s effortless vocalised hook and clattering cowbell, I found little to dislike in the song. Powerlines was less contentious thanks to Lou Cotteril’s muscular bassline that, amplified to concert volumes, resulted in a song one falsetto flourish from unadulterated funk. Ellis seemed to feel the funk too, launching into a quick guitar solo at the end and perhaps getting a little excited, tangling himself in knots with a fuzzy mess of indistinct twanging as he attempted a climax. The intricate instrumental jam section that followed offered a much better display of his skills, sounding pleasantly Parcels-like in his dexterity and tight connection with Cotteril.
A bit more of that spirit of experimentation would have helped add variety in a set where the band’s vast number easily digestible, upbeat pop songs slowly began to feel stale. Piano ballad Boundless was “Cassia’s one sad song” in Ellis’s words and was rolled out in Newcastle by necessity. Vaguely pretty and as inoffensive as the rest of the band’s tracks, it was inevitably talked over by the audience, although the delicate vocal harmonies were worth listening to. A mid-set slump promptly ensued. Cumbersomely titled 16-18 – Why You Lacking Energy? had potential on the album but fell flat in the flesh, Ellis’s scratchy guitar having none of the earthy bite that was required to help the track stand out from a set of smooth guitar pop. Other songs, like Dreams of My Past, might have gone by entirely unnoticed had Ellis not tried so hard to get the crowd somewhat involved, instructing us to clap along and throw our hands in the air at one point. As the band’s good tracks seemed to be running out and mid-track chatter amongst the crowd grew louder, Ellis asking “Newcastle, are we still there?” sounded perhaps more desperate than he’d intended.
Cassia built momentum towards the end of their set
The night wasn’t a complete lost cause, however, and the solution to the dullness turned out to be a return to Cassia’s calypso roots – exactly what separates Cassia from the mass of the UK’s other radio-friendly pop boybands. Moana, the band’s 2016 debut single, landed like a breath of fresh air, Ellis’s acrobatic guitar riffs as cheerful as morning birdsong over Jacob Leff’s gently simmering cauldron of bongos. The harmonies on the chorus were gorgeous and Cotterill’s energetic bassline was finally getting the crowd moving. Within seconds, teens clutching empty beer cups were aloft on the shoulders of friends, much to the disapproval of party pooping venue security staff. An exciting percussion break gradually introduced the delightful reggaeton of Small Spaces, perhaps early Cassia at their compositional finest. All of a sudden, keeping both feet still on the ground was very difficult indeed.
Momentum continued to build for a very strong finish. Right There, objectively the best of the pop side of Cassia’s discography, was given the late billing it deserved, and at last Ellis didn’t seem to have to try hard to get the room singing along for the song’s final build. The breakout hit 100 Times Over rounded off the evening and at last found a sweet spot neatly between calypso and pop. A song that I have returned to again and again over the years as a sure-fire mood booster, the effect was magnified in person, filling the room with very happy young music fans dancing the night away. “Freedom, it is all around me / Get up, sit down,” we sang together, hand gesturing accordingly. No Cassia song leaves quite the same residual feeling of joy as 100 Times Over, regardless of where you’re listening to it.
“Goodnight Newcastle, you’ve been unreal,” Ellis told us before skipping off stage with his bandmates. Had we, really? The trio had indeed figured out how to appease the NUSU crowd for the final fifteen minutes, but for much of the night Ellis’s showmanship had been tested, resulting in plenty of forced “make some noise” and “how we feeling?” moments that felt a little grating. True, it was a tough crowd, but some greater variety in the set list – some sort of meaningful way to break up the glut of samey mid-tempo pop songs – would have helped the show progress a little less precariously. Sunshine pop is all well and good, but unless the genre is absolutely nailed, a wider range of emotion is needed to add some more interest. A bigger, fuller, less utterly lifeless venue would help too. At the very least, next time they ought to book somewhere with a glitterball.
Carried by a wave of support from a large and boozy entourage of travelling fans, Leeds locals Skylights seemed to be having the time of their lives on a one-off night in Dublin. Who cares if their music wasn’t very good?
Iknew I was out of my depth as soon as I asked for a drink at one of the many bars in the gloomy upstairs quarters of Whelan’s, one of Dublin’s most renowned drinking and live music establishments. “J2O? What’s J2O?” the bartender replied, appearing genuinely baffled by my request. “And first of all, have you got a ticket?” he followed, pointing at the visibly annoyed ticket steward behind me that I had just unknowingly sauntered past. I apologised and awkwardly loaded up the ticket on my phone. Back at the bar, I settled for a Coke (not available by the tap, but a few bottles in stock), relieved that at least this beverage did indeed exist on this side of the Irish Sea.
A general feeling of discomfort stayed with me for the whole night. I had spontaneously taken a cheap flight out of Leeds Bradford Airport that morning, embarking on my first ever trip outside the UK alone mostly for a thrilling but comfortingly short new adventure, although there’s surely no more familiar and pleasant foreign destination for a Brit than Ireland. Standing alone in a dark corner of Whelan’s cradling my glass of Coke, I began to feel my age as the Guinness flowed around me, the drinkers invariably twice my age.
Yet, I waited in Whelan’s with the credentials of one of the main act’s ultra fans. Skylights are Acomb, York lads after all (although their allegiance these days lies much more strongly with Leeds, and Leeds United football club in particular), and I even found myself falsely telling Belfast support band Brand New Friend (after an exceptional performance) that I had travelled abroad just for my beloved Skylights, just like the many men around me who were already warming up with chants of “Leeds! Leeds! Leeds!”. The chants only grew louder and the men more lairy, culminating in a roar as the four Skylights lads appeared from the side of the crowd. Raised beers replaced the raised iPhone cameras I had become used to seeing at the bigger gigs I had attended back in England.
The four-piece wasted no time bashing out their hits, endearingly excited and pumped up for their first ever gig outside of the UK and a rare outing beyond the realm of Leeds’ vibrant indie music scene. Particularly with so many football fans around me, the gig felt bizarrely like an exciting non-league cup tie – Whelan’s is hardly Wembley, but this was still the beloved hometown heroes making the journey to the big, unfamiliar city, kept company by their most loyal followers. Skylights are certainly non-league musicians; bassist Jonny Scarisbrick works at a building society during the day, guitarist Turnbull Smith is an electrician. The surreal thrill of travelling to a different country and playing your homemade songs for a modest but enthusiastic crowd of 100 was evident on the musicians’ faces, not least Smith, who seemed to spend the entire gig beaming from ear to ear. Frontman Rob Scarisbrick was the most outwardly nonchalant of the group, only releasing a smile on the many occasions a tipsy man emerged from the crowd to give him a fist bump mid-song.
Amongst all the boozy fervour for the band in that cramped room in south Dublin, it would have been easy to overlook all the musical flaws had I not been standing aside from the main action in the crowd, arms crossed with my 330ml of Coke. The truth is, Smith only really seems to have one guitar riff up his sleeve: a sort of washed out, Oasis rip-off that felt tired from about ten minutes into the set. Scarisbrick was hardly charismatic as a frontman, often taking breaks in vocals to stand well back from the mic and stare blankly into the mid-distance, waiting for his next cue and extinguishing all the on-stage energy in the process. It was a relief on the occasion he picked up a tambourine and gave it a bash to keep himself occupied in the breaks. Drummer Myles Soley was undoubtedly the most technically accomplished member of the group, but got into a habit of overplaying just to prove it: too loud, too many fills and not enough solid groove to bring out the best from the three men in front of him.
And yet, of course, no one seemed to care, and excitement amongst the crowd built steadily through the band’s catchier numbers like Enemies and What You Are, culminating in a glorious finale of dancing and beer sloshing. I’ve never witnessed an atmosphere at a gig quite so merry; this is what indie venues like Whelan’s live for. The band’s debut single YRA in particular tore the roof off, and for once I could begin to understand why. With a bit more mainstream attention, Scraisbrick’s straightforward, instantly unforgettable hook could quite easily find its way into the chanting repertoire at Elland Road, and Whelan’s was certainly packed with fans who had already learnt all the words by heart. A simple song structure and even simpler three chord loop leant the song the same appeal as a cheesy but loveable Eurovision entry – everything in me said I should dismiss it like all the other forgettable Britpop songs in the set, but I found myself soon getting swept up in the mindless joy of the music. YRA would certainly flop in the professional jury vote but dominate the televote, and I wasn’t complaining when the band decided to milk the adoration of the crowd and reprise the song for the end of the show, in probably the first genuinely unrehearsed encore I’ve ever seen.
With the gig wrapped up, Skylights headed for backstage via the audience right in front of me (it was that sort of venue) and I had time to give them a quick pat on the back, ditch my empty glass at the bar and swiftly take the next bus back to my hostel, keen to spend no longer than necessary in the uncomfortable surroundings of people in their forties getting plastered (Scarisbrick promised a long night of partying ahead as he left the stage). It hadn’t been an altogether brilliant night – I tended to watch all the action rather than attempt to get involved in the mayhem as I would usually do with familiar company in more familiar venues – but, as my solo adventures tend to be, it was a great way to make new memories and venture a little out of my comfort zone. I may not be the Skylights superfan I professed to be but, as the band’s following continues to grow, I’ll still be proud to say that I was there the night our York lads played Dublin.
No expense was spared on the Leeds leg of Dua Lipa’s victorious world tour, after 2020’s Future Nostalgia changed the face of modern pop. With slick transitions and memorable visuals, this was a performance dense with bona fide pop smashes and jaw-droppingly theatrical highlights.
Rocking up in central Leeds in a group of five friends poorly dressed to spend any significant period of time outside on a disappointingly cold Easter Monday, there was a moment on approaching a T-junction in paths that we had no idea exactly in which direction Dua Lipa was gearing up for an arena concert. Already beginning to shiver, we decided we might as well pick a stranger and follow them through a nearby underpass. Soon enough, the stream of punters became a river and then a torrent, with crowds in the 100 metre viscinity of the first direct Arena more akin to what I’d expect ten minutes after a gig, rather than 3 hours before it. It may have only been half past six, but we wasted no time grabbing drinks and finding a spot amongst a crowd buzzing with anticipation.
The truth is, that night it would have been a challenge to find someone walking through that northern corner of Leeds that didn’t have 70-odd quid’s worth of arena ticketing stashed in their wallet. An antithesis to Jeff Rosenstock in every way, Dua Lipa has been vying for chart-topping mainstream appeal for years now, and she’s frequently been granted her wish, garnering millions of fans worldwide. Her latest album, Future Nostalgia, is packed full of the sort of hits that manage to infiltrate the consciousness of virtually everyone in society. Even if you think you don’t know mind-blowingly successful smashes like Don’t Start Now or Levitating, trust me, you do.
What was new with Future Nostalgia was the wave of critical acclaim that came with the endless radio play. The album was bold in its unapologetic support of what I like to call the ’20s disco revival; a stylistic shift towards retro styles in contemporary pop music that is generally deemed to be a result of the dancefloor-yearning brought on by the pandemic. Giant names like The Weeknd, Doja Cat and even Kylie Minogue are all in on it, although whether the new world of modern disco-pop will survive now the society is opening back up again remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Lipa continues to position herself as the movement’s flagbearer, adopting an 80s-inspired public image whilst digging deep into the realm of slap bass lines and superfluous glitterballs.
To that end, me and my friends Emma and Hattie had to crane our heads towards the distant roof of the arena on entering to tot up the evening’s glitterball count: a somewhat underwhelming three (and, once they had been lowered during the performance, they turned out to be more like cheap-looking shiny balloons). The no-doubt immense budget for the Future Nostalgia Tour had clearly been utilised in other aspects of the show, not least a dozen-stong dance troupe that bounced and boogied their way around Lipa all night. Lipa is of course a great dancer in her own right, and the sheer amount of moves and she memorised and pulled off for the performance was impressive. For her, it was mostly a case of ticking off all the things arena-sized pop divas are supposed to do: we got Dua playing with a sparkly cane or Dua throwing poses behind a morphing wall of umbrellas or Dua being carried face-up across the stage in the middle of a verse, singing all the while. She may lack some choreographic originality, but that’s not to say she wasn’t convincing. The astounded crowd around me fumbled for their iPhone cameras whenever Lipa so much as flicked a gloved finger in our direction. On occasions when Lipa responded to the cameras and flashlights with a brief smile, the screams almost drowned out the music.
The umbrellas were out for New Rules
Physical, Lipa’s gleefully self-aware pastiche of Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit of the same name, was an excellent choice of opener and a statement of intent, with lines like “baby, keep on dancing like we ain’t got a choice” finding a match with zumba class-ready dance moves. An early onslaught of Future Nostalgia bangers ensued, finding a highlight in Break My Heart, Lipa’s most whole-heartedly disco number. The glitterballs remained dormant, but instead a dense web of tiny spheres descended above Lipa and her dance crew, pulsing with colour in time with the shimmering rhythm guitar and chest-rattling bass line. Then there was the unbelievably funky Pretty Please, plus groovy midtempo hit Cool, during which Lipa was joined by a pair of dancers on rollerskates, each encircling her and beaming from ear to ear. They got one of the loudest applauses of the night when they stole Lipa’s spotlight for a moment to perform a few somersaults and headstands on the well-implemented satellite stage.
If the rollerskaters weren’t Eurovision enough, We’re Good – a dubious inclusion at the best of times – featured a cameo from a giant inflatable lobster for reasons that never quite became clear. It seems that money to spare can occasionally work out as a hindrance rather than a benefit for shows like these. Early hit IDGAF, here demoted to We’re Good‘s introduction as a 30-second snippet, would have been both much more sensible and much more effective, with or without a lobster.
Somewhat trite strings ballad Boys Will Be Boys gave the night some necessary breathing space, although I’ll admit I was relieved when Lipa got seemingly impatient and threw in synths and a thumping electronic kick drum two choruses in. A slew of Lipa’s biggest dance hits followed and, having reserved all my excitement for Lipa’s pop and disco songs, I was pleasantly surprised at just how compelling the segment turned out to be. It helped that Lipa and her troupe had ventured out onto the satellite stage once more, surrounded by the crowd and seemingly caged up thanks to clever lighting and a metal rig that had descended from the ceiling. The claustrophobia suited songs like Electricity and One Kiss, which now sounded perfect for a gloomy, body-filled nightclub. Extended remixes allowed for more dancing, more energy and more outfit changes, with Lipa switching from one glitzy leotard to another just as one global number one hit blended seemlessly with the next global number one hit. I could have danced to that handful of songs long into the night.
A lighting rig descended for an intimate dance music segment
I spent a majority of the night in giddy anticipation of awarding Undertone‘s second ever five-star gig rating, so I was a little disappointed when Lipa eventually started to lose her momentum in the final third of the concert. Future Nostalgia bonus track Fever was a poor set list choice over Blow Your Mind (Mwah), particularly becuase it entailed a pre-recorded feature from Belgian popstar Angèle on the big screen. Elton John was similarly featured on tribute track Cold Heart, but I remained unconvinced by the song’s lack of fresh ideas whilst Lipa and the troupe attempted a tear-jerking end-of-gig group hug.
Electrifying Levitating and Don’t Start Now – surely two of the most monumental (and musically flawless) pop songs of the decade – were rightly saved for the encore, before confetti cannons cued Lipa’s theatrical disappearance into the stage, mid-pout. Lipa aptly took to a platform and floated around the arena for Levitating, leaning against the railings and waving down at the adoring crowd in a third, figure-hugging catsuit. Now unavoidably, we had been reduced to peasants bowing down to our queen of pop as she purveyed her subjects. She had every right to, after all: no popstar in Britain today quite has the global reach or the dense catalogue of hits currently in Lipa’s possession. With all the flabbergasting showbiz glitz and glamour of the Future Nostalgia Tour, she has ensured a firm grip on the crown for many years to come.
Despite being in desperate need of an extra bandmate or two, Orla Gartland had plenty of strong enough material to give the crowd exactly what they wanted in Leeds. Unlike her friend and peer dodie, however, her live act still has plenty of room to grow in the years to come.
Idouble- and triple-checked that my ticket proudly branded with the words ‘Orla Gartland’ in stretched all caps (a valuable souvenir to keep for years) was safely stowed in my wallet as I walked across the unsettlingly gloomy campus of Leeds University alone at twilight. It had been a difficult drive in and locating the venue wasn’t any easier. I walked into the modern, sterile white of the student union building with some trepidation, half hoping to bump into some old school mates that must have been no further than a mile or two away. Down a flight of steps and round a corner and at last I found the Orla fans slowly meandering around the cafeteria amongst students hunched over chess boards, iMacs and fast food. Only now did the dejà vu I had expected kicked in; I’d partied with this bunch of stylish, brightly-coloured teenagers not so long ago. As a close friend of dodie, Gartland shares much of the same fanbase with the uke-pop superstar, even if her sound has a decidedly more rock ‘n’ roll edge than anything dodie’s ever released. I recognised a handful of familiar faces from dodie’s showstopping Manchester gig, and overheard phrases like “At The Dodie Gig she didn’t start until 9:30!” or “I hope there’s some choreo like The Dodie Gig!” I wore my dodie mask again with the pride of a passionate football supporter, albeit not quite at the right match.
For all their similarities, it must be said that dodie is simply the more famous and more beloved of the two friends. If O2 Apollo was a Championship-level venue for dodie, Gartland’s Stylus had more of a League Two feel, and this time I had no issues in getting close enough to the stage to properly take in all the action. The venue size inevitably meant there was none of the fancy confetti or versatile lighting that made the dodie gig feel so once-in-a-lifetime – this was a straightforward gig where musicians play their music and nothing more. Gartland’s time on the big stages of Britain is most certainly still to come.
The obvious comparisons to dodie can only be taken so far. After a humdrum choice of opener Pretending, Things That I’ve Learned and oh GOD made a nice pairing with their unmistakably-Orla and risky odd time grooves that got the crowd shrugging along, even though dance moves are difficult to coordinate in 5/4. Sara Leigh Shaw was the right drummer for the job, clattering into the chorus on oh GOD with a laser focus. Tucked away slightly on the side of the stage, she looked uncannily similar to Gartland herself with her own mop of ginger hair that bobbed about in time to the stumbling groove behind that “I don’t wanna think about it” earworm. Gartland meanwhile looked ready to take on the world with her chequered green suit and matching neon green eyeshadow, commanding the crowd atop an inch or two of chunky Doc Martens. Rounding out the band was Pete Daynes. One of the standout performers of the dodie tour, his return was well received, with his enthusiastic jaunts wielding his P-bass around the stage earning him chants of “Pete! Pete! Pete!” on two separate occasions.
The problem was a lack of personnel. Often Gartland’s ambitious pop-rock creations demanded more than the three albeit competent musicians could provide. (Intriguingly, support acts Greta Isaac and Clean Cut Kid could have really done with at least two more performers each – probably another manifestation of the supply chain crisis or something.) Poor Pete often had to oblige with synth parts, backing vocals and a drum machine, and a cool yet unnecessary glowing drumstick wasn’t enough to distract from the fact that this man was born to leap around with his bass like the Easter Bunny. Restricting him to the keyboard rack on the gritty, earthy bomb of a pop song Bloodline for example was nothing short of criminal.
Gartland was an engaging and loveable frontwoman, delivering sure-fire crowd pleasers from the recent album like You’re Not Special, Babe and Over Your Head with guts and charisma. Indie rock gem Codependency sounded somehow even better than the studio version, with Shaw digging in on the sections of the chorus where all momentum was previously lost. It’s a testament to Gartland’s skills as a performer that the quieter moments of the set were just as powerful as the aforementioned rock singalongs. Madison was a joy – a perfectly written acoustic ode to Gartland’s therapist with an expertly crafted melody at its heart. Gartland took to the piano for the touching Left Behind, an achingly vulnerable piece that left the crowd desperate to give Gartland one big hug before she embarked on her last few numbers.
Sara Leigh Shaw leaped atop Pete Daynes to celebrate another successful night on tour with Orla Gartland
I Go Crazy soon picked things up, taking the role of Gartland’s almost-funk jam (see dodie’s In the Middle) and properly turning the pit into a dancefloor for the first time in the night. Daynes was sure to make the most of a bubbly bassline, whipping up the crowd whenever he could. Gartland ramped up the usual crowd participation routine as the set drew to a close. Difficult Things was a good opportunity for a two-part audience call and response section, and there was something vaguely profound and moving about a few hundred concert-goers repeatedly chanting “we never talk about difficult things” in unison. In contrast, synthpop foot-tapper Flatline was a chance for the obligatory “crouch for the bridge and jump up for chorus” schtick which, despite being somewhat painful in the knees after hours of standing in one spot, was impossible not to smile at. I didn’t even know the song, but something about bouncing around in sync with these young and happy strangers was life-affirming.
The encore was mostly reserved for fan favourites More Like You and Zombie!, although as far as I was concerned the gig had already reached its pinnacle. I may not have returned to my car with the giddy buzz that the best gigs give me, but it’s nonetheless hard to fault Gartland, who put in a good shift despite requiring some added support in the form of personnel and some more engaging staging and lighting. With that, I can safely stash away my dodie mask for a long while — or at least until Pete Daynes starts doing his own headline tours.
