Review: Don Broco at o2 Academy Islington, London – 08/08/16 and 09/08/16
It’s been almost 4 years since I caught Don Broco’s intense and sweaty set at Reading festival. They’ve come a long way since, with the release of new album ‘Automatic’ a year ago, countless sold out nights as headliners (including their biggest so far at Brixton Academy in December), and more recently supporting 5 Seconds of Summer and Bring Me The Horizon all over the UK and Europe.
This summer, the Bedford quartet is bringing special, one-off shows across Britain: two consecutive nights in each city where they play the albums ‘Priorities’ and ‘Automatic’ back-to-back. All of the tour has sold out. The London dates at the O2 Academy in Islington were the equivalent of a work out (but hotter, and more fun).
In true Broco-style, we found ourselves right in the middle of chaos as the extremely familiar and unmissable riffs of ‘Priorities’ instantly sent the crowd wild on the first night. Despite the intimacy of the venue, the band tore the house down with old goodies like ‘Whole Truth’, ‘Let’s Go Back To School’ and ‘Fancy Dress’. The four song long encore, which included the band’s more recent singles, showed us how well their brand new track ‘Everybody’ works live – it was meant for playing live. [Side note: It also has a rather disturbing music video that gives me the creeps and it will haunt me for years to come.]. I also loved the special way of ending the night with “See you tomorrow, guys!” instead of the usual “Goodbye”.
Night #2 for ‘Automatic’ seemed even better, with the added excitement to finally hear the new material live. Looking forward the most to ‘I Got Sick’ (which has the catchiest riff ever), how good ‘Further’ sounded live is what surprised me the most. Don Broco are not a band you expect to go full-on emotional, yet they managed to pull it off with this performance. I loved every minute of this highlight. However, for those that have followed the band’s evolution from the very, very early days, ‘Thug Workout’ must have been the best part. No idea how they got from that bonkers track to where they are now but I cannot wait for them to amaze the arena sized crowds of the future to come with it. It would be awesome, minus the fact that singer Rob Damiani definitely won’t be able to mosh in the middle of the pit at the end.
If you ever get the chance to see Don Broco live, definitely do not miss it! High energy and a top-notch performance is what you get in return. Let’s do this again soon!
I’ve gone bad, and won’t go back…
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(Due to other commitments that come with ‘adulting’, we weren’t able to catch MassMatiks as support for the tour, which is a shame. They sound amazing and very promising. Check out their most recent video ‘4AM’!)
