In the midst of what must have been one of the most exciting weeks of their career, having won two awards at the NMEs and performing at the Brit Awards where they won Best British Band, Royal Blood launched another UK tour at the iconic Barrowlands in Glasgow.
Their mass appeal was shown by the diversity of the sold out audience, with people aged 16-60 embracing one of the best new bands of recent years.
Opening act Mini Mansions, featuring Queens of the Stone Age bass player Michael Shuman, are definitely one to watch. ‘Freakout!’ was a definite highlight of their set and is worth catching on Spotify.
Whilst Royal Blood’s set was brief, clocking in at just about one hour, they more than made up for it with electric atmosphere and showmanship. Opening with ‘Hole’, a B-Side from the ‘Out of the Black’ EP, was a bold move seeing as only the die-hard fans of the band will have known it. However the whole crowd was enraptured from the minute they walked on stage, with massive mosh pits breaking out in nearly every song.
The biggest surprise of the night, and one of the highlights of the whole gig, was their cover of T. Rex’s ‘20th Century Boy’, which had everyone singing/screaming along.
Some were left slightly disappointed that they didn’t perform any other covers, such as The Police’s ‘Roxanne’, or Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’, which they have previously done in Radio 1’s Live Lounge.
In what was a very good set, though, they also played every track from their self-titled debut album, and a few B-Sides, but of course one of the tracks that got the biggest reception was closing track ‘Out of the Black’ – at this point, drummer Ben Thatcher stage dived into the mental, sweat-soaked crowd.
He may have left all of the talking to singer/bassist Mike Kerr, but they both had great stage presence.
The Barrowlands was the perfect venue for Royal Blood with great acoustics and an intimate audience of 2100 fans who, even at the very back of the room, could be seen having a great night.
This is a band on a meteoric rise to the top of rock music, whose tours are not one to be missed. It will definitely be interesting to see how the rowdy energy of this show will translate to stadiums when Royal Blood support the Foo Fighters this summer.
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