Ludo Dawnay | Staff Writer
After Harry, Ron and Neville Longbottom graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, they set off to create a band’. The comment, on the YouTube video of an acoustic version of ‘What You Know’, has racked up seven hundred and seventy likes. Before I went to the show, I barely knew anything about the group. My flatmate had invited twelve friends from home up to go to the concert. And they were going to all sleep in our flat, made for three. I was invited by a different group, so we all went together.
The electro-pop trio’s name, Two Door Cinema Club, was thought up after the lead guitarist, Sam Halliday, mispronounced their local cinema, Tudor Cinema Club. They are a Northern Irish band who formed in 2007. Their fans include Kanye West, Daft Punk and Wayne Coyne. Their influences are a mesh of British acts (Biffy Clyro, Hellas for Heroes and At The Drive In), indie bands (Pheonix, Modest Mouse) and dance DJs (Justice). As the lead singer, Alex Trimble put it: ‘We were listening to everything at the time we formed Two Door Cinema Club’.
Arriving at the O2, we shimmied through a very young-looking crowd, to get ourselves relatively close. The warm-up act, Jape, were finishing up. The electronic-rock band from Dublin were surprisingly good, and worth a listen. As we found my flatmate and his friends, Two Door opened with ‘Sleep Alone’.
The song is inspired by the incessant traveling that the band experience when on tour. Three hundred days of last year they spent on the road. Alex said, ‘Touring became my life’. The bassist, Kevin Baird, has expressed in a documentary ‘What We See’ that he worries about his lack of friends. The relentless touring, which included supporting Alt-J recently, has been the main cause of their success.
The well-dressed Co. Down group were very entertaining. Their high-tempo songs, which got the crowd bopping, were punctuated by slower hits. This might have been what Alex, who sung at the Olympics Opening Ceremony, meant by describing the shows as ‘regimented’. They played a surprising number of tracks from their old album, ‘Tourist History’. Their second album, ‘Beacon’, released last year, was produced by the Irish Jacknife Lee, who has also worked with Robbie Williams, Bloc Party and U2. It is difficult to tell, though, because the band have opted to be safe, and not experimented with their sound on their second record. They have come under criticism for using a laptop for percussion, but there was a drummer. Surely a drummer is an important part of band. Maybe they should get one on board. The fast-paced guitar riffs were complemented by neon lights on the side of the stage, emitting red and blue. At the end, there was a very nice touch. Balloons, twice the size of a football, were released, and dropped onto the crowd. One floated towards the backing guitarist at the end of a song. With the last chord, he punched the balloon into the audience. It was as if it was meant to happen. The only small complaint that I might have was the lead singer’s microphone was drowned out by the guitars.
Normally, artists who have established fan bases and large record sales forget to appreciate their audiences. They blurt non-sensical hyperbolic exclamations to the crowd such as, ‘I love you all!’. This band are different, and clearly not yet affected by the fame. They were charming, declaring that this was the largest venue they’d headlined by 4,000 people. Before the encore, Alex said sweetly: ‘We’re so happy to be here. I’ll remember this for the rest of my life’. As they finished with ‘What You Know’, they may not be wizards, but they had the audience under their spell.
Two Door Cinema Club’s album Beacon is out now under the label Kitsuné.
