Royal Blood

Royal Blood @ The Halls, 26th October 2023

Formed in Worthing in 2011, Royal Blood are currently touring the UK in support of their fourth studio album ‘Back To The Water Below’ and on Thursday evening found themselves at the recently reopened The Halls in Wolverhampton.

Royal Blood

Gaining popularity with their huge debut album ‘Royal Blood’ in 2014, the band burst onto the mainstream rock scene with their ‘unique’ set up of bass and drums, and over the years have expanded their sound to include more dance and electronic elements that see them joined by a keyboardist/percussionist for this current tour.

Royal Blood

Having flittered with high profile festival performances, a support tour with Muse earlier in the year and an arena tour under their belt it proved highly exciting, the thought of seeing the band in a relatively smaller capacity venue.

Taking to the stage to ‘The Ecstasy Of Gold’, the band blasted into ‘Mountains At Midnight’, ‘Come On Over’ and ‘Boilermaker’ that certainly set the tone for the evening’s proceedings. Confidence oozed out of vocalist & bassist Mike Kerr but there certainly wasn’t a lack of personality emitted from drummer Ben Thatcher either. Having to ask that drinks were not thrown around so as to not damage the equipment was a sign of how rowdy the audience were willing to get, and this built and built throughout the evening.

The majority of material showcased was pulled both from the newest and first records, with personal favourites ‘Typhoons’ and ‘Troubles Coming’ from 2021’s ‘Typhoons’ getting their airing one after another.

In terms of visuals, the giant lighting rig situated on stage was reminiscent of early Bon Jovi videos, with each song having a unique lighting tone of it’s own. Despite only primarily being a two piece, there’s plenty of movement and engagement on stage, with drummer Thatcher even taking to the crowd at one point to entice the audience into a wall of death.

Royal Blood

Ending the show with ‘Loose Change’ and ‘Out Of The Black’, the band returned to rapturous applause to perform an encore of ‘Waves’ which is much different tempo-wise and tonally from the rest of the band’s material as well as ‘Ten Tonne Skeleton’ and ‘Figure It Out’.

Review: Dan Earl

Photographs: Andy Shaw

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