REVIEW: Bombay Bicycle Club – Mandela Hall | The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

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REVIEW: Bombay Bicycle Club – Mandela Hall

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After playing an in-store gig at Head Music that afternoon, Indie folk four piece Bombay Bicycle Club were psyched and ready for a late evening performance in Mandela.

BY JANETTE LOUGHLIN

Bounding on stage with energy, the band launched straight into a rendition of their latest single ‘Shuffle’, no formal pleasantries or hellos, but music from the off-set. With fast-paced build ups and thumping bridges, drummer Suren de Saram encouraged the audience to clap along in double time to track ‘Your Eyes’, before singer Jack Steadman indulged in some funky dancing antics.

Compared to their recordings, Bombay Bicycle Club’s sound is much heavier live. Where their albums are layered with intricate instrument patterns, here it blurs together to create a heavier rock sound. Somewhat surprising from the mostly mellow-dic band, but the liveliness worked well for the Mandela audience.

During ‘Dust On The Ground’, the lights faded and in and out, and mixed with Steadman’s haunting vocals, it created a ghost-story atmosphere. Joined on stage by a pixie-like some-time singer, for ‘Lights Out, Words Gone’ another harmonic layer was added to the music. Instead of fading out like the album track, the band gave it a Clubland remix as it blurred into ‘Ivy and Gold’. With its delicate, pitter-pat style drumming and plucky arpeggios, everyone was moving to the infectious beat.

The band then brought in tracks from their first album, I Had The Blues But I Shook The Loose, with heavier brass sounds running through ‘Evening/Morning’ before turning into sweetness and sunshine again with tracks from their mainly acoustic album, Flaws. For their encore, Bombay Bicycle Club finished with the upbeat ‘What If’, ending the show with a fast, engaging performance that showed a sense of determination in their playing, as well as pure enjoyment; like they’ve been let loose and are ready to go wild.

Tags: Bombay Bicycle Club, Gown, Janette Loughlin, Mandela Hall, newspaper, qub, QUBSU, Queen's, queen's university, Review, student, students, su, The Gown

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2012 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Arts + Ents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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