(Can you fill the silence?)

 

Bastille 09.03.13

It's been a while since I walked through Digbeth; a place of potholed streets and shabby chic, where the indie scene breathes through vintage shops and traditional crumbly brick pubs.  It was here I joined a queue of inappropriately dresssed young people to see Bastille.  I'd like to point out that although I am close enough to my disappearing youth to remember being 16, I am now old enough to appreciate an adequate number of layers when it's freezing outside.  I don't, therefore, consider wearing a coat to a gig at which I have to queue outside for about 40minutes to be too much of a hardship even if I do have to carry it while I'm in there. 

Once in the warmth of The (HMV) Institute, I joined the small crowd gathering near the stage.  It was only when the first distinctly average, but not overly offensive support act started to play that I realised I was stuck standing behind the worlds tallest man.  By the time the second act had started- a carbon copy of Florence and The Machine- again, not rubbish but entirely forgettable because it had all been done before, I realised I was standing next to a woman whose posterior seemed to have a circumference of saturns rings. At one point, she started dancing and if I hadn't been wedged in, I'm pretty sure I'd have been bounced out of the venue and back to the Bullring. 

The Tall Giant man kindly moved aside and I squeezed in to see the stage for the first time for Bastille's hour long set.  I've been a fan of theirs since I heard Flaws just over a year ago on Alex Baker's Kerrang show.  I have him to thank for Maybshewill and Awolnation also.  I think I have all their music, two albums being released for free by the band despite the sound quality being poor.  I'm always appreciative of originality in music wether I like it or not, especially these days because it's so rare.  I remember being struck by Bastille because I couldn't lable them, I couldn't fit them to a genre, and still can't really.  Their love of rythmn really speaks to me and as such I've been a fan of theirs from the get go.  I had been worried that Bastille wouldn't live up to my expectations live since they rely on a lot of digital layers but my concerns were proved wrong immediately.  On the contrary, they sounded fantastic and didn't disappoint.  They played an absolutely blinding set and I was glad to have caught them at a time when they were still humbled and dumbfounded by their newfound fame and success.  They struck me as down to earth and genuine.  It was even nice to see Dan's amazingly upright hair gradually flatten throughout the night.  A truly great night... with each song played met with mass enthusiasm from a young crowd.  I was just really pleased for them and happy to see truly fresh, creativity in the heart of Birmingham. 

 

"It is not enough to be dumbstruck"