Alt-J (∆) @ Academy 2, Birmingham – Wednesday 31st October 2012

It’s a cold and rainy Halloween night in Birmingham city centre but inside the O2 Academy a sold out crowd wait patiently for one of the hottest new acts of the past few years, Alt-J.

It’s the evening before the Mercury Prize winner is announced and the sensible money is on the indie-pop quartet from Leeds taking home the prize for their stunning debut album, An Awesome Wave. The band have seemingly come from nowhere in 2012 with this show being the hot ticket in town despite a certain band called The Killers playing in Birmingham on the same night.

Showtime is announced with the illuminated ∆ logo at the back of the stage before the four friends saunter onto the small stage and go straight into the opening number. The intricacy and inventiveness of the musicianship is something to behold and the band’s unique sound is just one reason why I feel they deserve that Mercury Prize so much.

There are plenty of highlights in their 55 minute set including the trippy Tessellate and the cleverly layered vocals on the almost funky Breezeblocks. An inspired mash up of Kylie’s Slow and Dr Dre’s Still Dre may be a familiar staple of their live set now but it still raises a few eyebrows amongst the audience and goes down a treat.

The album’s final three tracks also finish off tonight’s gig. First encore of Hand Made takes things back down a notch before a rousing Taro gets the room moving one last time. As the set draws to a close, frontman Joe Newman looks quite taken aback by the deafening cheers & whistles. I think it’s safe to say everyone in the room felt like they’d witnessed something special here tonight.

Alt-J return to the O2 Academy in May, this time in the main room. Tickets are on sale now.

Review and photographs by Steve Gerrard.

Blog – http://stevegerrardphotography.com/blog
Twitter –  http://twitter.com/stevegerrard

About Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *