Indoor Pets @ The Flapper, 15th April 2019
Let me pitch you a paragraph. Formerly Get Inuit, the recently re-named Indoor Pets are currently touring the UK in support of their debut album ‘Be Content’ and on Monday evening found themselves at the soon to be demolished The Flapper in Birmingham.
Opening the show were Brighton three-piece Gender Roles, who’s brand of fuzzy pop made them an ideal support for the evening’s show. Clearly already familiar to a large proportion of the crowd, tracks such as ‘About Her’ saw the crowd bouncing and singing along which would only happen more and more as the evening progressed.
Having released their debut record earlier this year, a headline tour from Indoor Pets is something that doesn’t come around that often but is a wonderful occurrence when it does. After high profile support slots with The Big Moon, Spring King and soon to be Weezer, the band have clearly developed a taste for big venues and although Monday evening didn’t mirror that in size it certainly reflected in the band’s confidence and talent.
Indoor Pets have always felt and to the best of my knowledge are, a DIY band, and as you entered the venue you were greeted with an impressive banner and stage set up for such a small venue which is always great to see. As for the performance itself, the star of the show was clearly lead vocalist and guitarist Jamie Glass, who’s personality and showmanship bleed out in bucket loads both through the band and social media. But a band wouldn’t be anywhere without the songs, and boy do they have those.
Opening with the bouncy ‘Cutie Pie, I’m Bloated’, the band performed a 15-song set of cuts from their recent album but also older tracks such as ‘Electrify’ and ‘All My Friends’.
Having been on the live circuit for so long, for many people that had seen Indoor Pets a number of times before the album was released, it was more a collection of tracks they already knew than a bunch of new songs. And this was proved as every song felt like a greatest hit, with the same levels of energy and adoration throughout the hour-long set.
Personal favourites ‘Mean Heart’ and ‘Being Strange’ sounded fantastic, whilst the closing duo of ‘Barbiturates’ and ‘Pro-Procrastinator’ highlight perfectly what’s so wonderful about the group. Infectious and catchy melody with humorous and downcast lyricism.
Now that the band have an album that they can go out and push to people, you would hope that the band will grow and become more and more popular. The word underrated perhaps sometimes gets used unfairly, but for Indoor Pets that’s certainly the case.
Don’t worry Jamie, you’re definitely nearly famous.
Reviewer: Dan Earl
Photographer: Andra Tudoran