Twin Atlantic + Dive In @ The Q Club, 14th October 2015
Its not very often nowadays that you get to do anything for free let alone go see live music but Budweiser have proved with their Live Project that it can be done and its not exactly small bands that they’ve signed up to play either. Tonight a lucky few hundred or so people have gathered to enjoy the joyful sounds of the Scottish rockers Twin Atlantic at the Q Club in Birmingham for free, how can you not jump at an opportunity like that!?
The Q Club is definitely an interesting venue, a former Methodist Church its Central Hall is an imposing room with the old organ pipes still taking up the entire back wall behind tonight’s stage. Its the perfect setting for tonight’s show and the crowd are eager for Twin Atlantic to take to the stage. It’s been a while since I last saw Twin Atlantic and admittedly I like to sing along unabashedly in an extremely bad Scottish accent and I know I’m not the only one guilty of doing that this evening. The band is coming to the end of their album cycle and these shows are the last chance for fans to catch them before they hole themselves away to write their new album.
Support act Dive In are up first, decked out in all black they definitely look the part but its a shame the music doesn’t quite live up to their polished look. Their live sound is devoid of the auto tune used on their recordings which means that quite a few notes are a bit hit and miss and it meant things fell a bit flat. As much as I didn’t enjoy the set I could see that the majority of the crowd seemed to be digging them. Dive In just didn’t really do it for me; it’s not music I would normally listen to but I can see why other people would like them.
Kicking things off in fine form with ‘Edit Me’ the Twin Atlantic boys look pretty pleased to be up on that stage. I heard through the grapevine that they were looking forward to this show and they hoped it would beat the previous show in Manchester, I for one think the Birmingham crowd would have definitely given those Northerners a run for their money! The set is just hit after hit, these boys sure know how to write songs that people can’t help but sing along to. During ‘I’m an Animal’ lead singer Sam McTrusty jokes about raising the roof ‘although its a pretty high roof’. He even manages to get the whole crowd to sit down so we can jump back up as the song kicks back in, probably one of the most fun party tricks a band has in their arsenal, definitely less chaotic compared to a wall of death!
Introducing their massive sing-along inducing hit ‘Free’ Sam jokes that ‘This song goes out to anyone that hasn’t seen us before, maybe it will convince you to buy a ticket or something!’, nice pun Sam! ‘Free’ also probably gets one of the biggest crowd reactions of the evening so far as the crowd sings back at the band in their best Glaswegian accents.
‘Generator’ sees the evenings first and only crowd surfer which seems to amuse the gents up on stage, in fact it seems that everyone is having a great time. The set is short but sweet and having not spent a penny you could definitely say it was worth it! Maybe it was the beers, maybe it was the party atmosphere in the room but I couldn’t seem to wipe the huge grin off my face during the entire set. Twin Atlantic are one of those rare bands that can make even big shows like this feel intimate, the crowd played their part in that too singing along loudly to pretty much every song. I’ll admit that the band drifted off my radar for a bit but they are well and truly back on it and I hope to catch them live again very soon. Kudos to Budweiser for making this tour happen.
Review: Hannah Sebestjanowicz