The Lemon Twigs Live review by Ryan Beardsley
I’m sure you all saw the recent controversy involving Royal Blood and their tantrum on stage at a recent Radio 1 show, the Southerners threw their toys out of the pram as they felt they were not being duly respected by a crowd who were there to see Taylor Swift or something. You’re probably asking what does this have to do with The Lemon Twigs. Well if Royal Blood really wanted to impress an audience, they should have headed to Camden tonight and took notes from a real Rock n Roll band who would not take apathy for an answer from any crowd, no matter if they were there to see Metallica or Shania Twain.
It’s Camden’s Electric Ballroom and Long Island’s finest are in town and that can only mean one thing, an amazing live performance.
The brothers D’Addario are in typically flamboyant garb and kick things off with a bunch of crowd-pleasers from their third record; Songs For The General Public. General consensus suggests that it’s their weakest record but hearing to Live In Favour of Tomorrow and Hell On Wheels live for the first time, my mind is changed almost immediately.
But they’re here to tour album number four, the universally acclaimed new Everything Harmony and the new tracks get a great reception, it’s less than a month since it’s release and already the audience are bellowing out word for word, trying in vain to match Brian D’Addario’s impeccable tones.
The new songs are much gentler, ballad and harmony driven, not dissimilar to Arctic Monkey’s latest and they did support the Sheffield megastars a couple of years ago, but if I may, The Lemon Twigs stylistic pivot works far better, possibly because their voices are just so mesmerising.
I Wanna Prove To You, opener from their game changing debut Do Hollywood gets the biggest reaction of the night, still sounding like it came from another planet some 7 years later.
Queen of my School the only treat from their outrageous sophomore effort Go To School is the highlight of the evening, the club genuinely shaking for the chorus with whoops a plenty as Michael D’Addario high kicks and power stances his way around the stage in a manner that defies gravity.
When Winter Comes Around is played acoustically, representing the change in direction from a band never afraid to reinvent themselves, with Camden reduced to hushed silence in order to fully basque in the harmonies on show.
As Long As We’re Together closes the evening with a mass sing along and once again I’m in awe at the sheer talent of Brian and Michael, I think at points tonight they’ve each played guitar, bass, drums, maybe even a violin was thrown in there too.
I’ve been lucky enough to see them on big stages at Glastonbury, in stadiums and in clubs like this and it doesn’t matter, wherever they are it’s an incredible show. They’re probably the best live act in the world right now.
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