Anberlin + Furthest Drive Home + Data.Select.Party @ Birmingham Barfly – 22nd November 2008
London indie pop band Data.Select.Party opened up the stage with their upbeat party style riffs, which although seemed a tad out of place at an Anberlin gig still had a few toes tapping in the crowd. Despite the music having an energetic mood to it, the band were a tad static in comparison, however they made up for it with good interaction with the crowd — a rarity in most opening support bands.
With just enough time to buy a nice cold pint and resume my position, there is an exciting burst of dramatic music – Furthest Drive Home take to the stage. The Surrey band complement the gig a lot more than Data.Select.Party, however with their catchy pop punk sound some may say it was an anti-climax after the grand and theatrical opening. The band still got a good reaction from the crowd with some even chanting back during Warm It Up. They interacted well yet predictable in places. A very good support band which had a lot of heads bopping.
The crowd begin to move closer and closer to the front — I’m still amazed to see an almost full venue for a band which so few had heard of. The lights go down and eerie music begins to creep in. Anberlin burst in with Disappear from newly released album New Surrender and the crowd breaks out into a sea of dancing and jumping. By just the second song a majority of the crowd are singing with the band word for word perfect, so the next song Paperthin Hymn is dedicated to the devoted fans.
The band’s second ever single A Day Late sees the crowd chanting ‘we are who, we are who were when’ and Adelaide goes down a treat before the band slow things down with a beautiful acoustic performance of The Unwinding Cable Car. By this point lead singer Christian is amazed at the turn out, ‘We had no idea so many people knew about Anberlin.’ The Feel Good Drag continued to raise the mood and proved popular with it being there most recent single.
The band leave the stage much to the distaste of the crowd, who have began chanting in unison ‘AN-BER-LIN, AN-BER-LIN’. The band reappears to play a brilliant encore of two songs, which unsurprisingly has the crowd going wild. One girl is shaking her head uncontrollably, annoying those surrounding her, but does she care? Of course she doesn’t. The show ends, however the crowd stays in place passionately chanting the band’s name and ‘ONE MORE SONG’. Christian returns asking ‘Are you serious?’ to which an up roar of ‘YEAH!!!!’ is his response. He looks to his band mates who follow him on stage. They play a few more songs, including an acoustic version of Inevitable to satisfy the crowd’s seemingly never-ending appetite. They certainly are a band with a dedicated relationship with their fans.
Overall the gig was very well planned out, with a good choice of support bands that warmed the crowd up accordingly. A lively and thoroughly enjoyable gig for those long and short term fans.
Set List
Disappear (new)
Never Take Friendship Personally
Paperthin Hymn
Breaking (new)
A Day Late
Adelaide
Retrace (new)
The Unwinding Cable Car (acoustic)
Hello Alone
The Feel Good Drag
Dismantle.Repair.
The Resistance (new)
Godspeed
Review – Victoria Jones
Photographer – Adam Spall