After seeing Bombay Bicycle Club earlier this year at Glastonbury, I was a little apprehensive as to how they would compare at UEA’s LCR, (especially considering how they had wowed the crowd at Glasto with their surprise collaboration with London Afro Beat Collective, and with the beautiful vocals of young Lucy Rose). But boy oh boy did they exceed my expectations in every respect.
Aside from a superb set, surprisingly good acoustics (I generally associate the LCR with costume themed student nights), and wonderful lighting, the energy on stage was ecstatic. At the risk of doing the boys injustice, their coalition with Lucy Rose has done them no end of good. Bouncing around on stage (looking perfectly adorable in a FlashGuns’ tee), she added charisma, diversity and sweet-ass vocals.
It goes without saying that the music was incredible (massive BBC-fan alert), but what really made the gig for me was that it really was the whole package. Starting with a brilliant support set from Dry The River, and with incredible attention to detail with the lighting (the cute twinkly lights hanging from the ceiling really did for me), they really did have license to “do their thang”. And their thang, unarguably, is performing live- whether it be Glastonbury festival, or a grotty student union, they’ve got my vote.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that being the silly sods we are, we ended up missing Theme Park who were the first support act. But ive been told they offered up a sterling performance on the night that im sure we will live to regret no end.
By Hatty Farnham
