Weekly > Reviews
Delphic - The Cockpit 2, Leeds
I’ve seen Delphic live twice before, but both times I went there with no expectations of them, once supporting Little Boots (they blew her off stage) and the second time supporting Orbital in a big venue (they held their own), tonight though was different.
Stepping out with your own name on the top of the bill provides it’s perks of course, but it also brings added pressures, not least from fans (which I count myself as) who have the added expectation, we want to see if they can step up to the plate so to speak and deliver when all eyes are very definitely on them.
I get into the venue and it’s very busy already in the middle room where tonights gig is, it holds about 200 people and i’d say it’s just about full (it may have been a sell out even), Mirrors are just going through the last song of their set so I have no idea if they are any good or not, while I heard half a song it wouldn’t be fair to judge them on that alone.
You can sense the extra tension in the air before the band are due to come on, it’s a Saturday night and Leeds is a clubbing city, Delphic are a wonderful cross between a dance act (Orbital) and a guitar band (New Order) and as such the crowd are expecting the group to deliver an arms in the air set of tracks from their album that was set to crash into the top ten that weekend.
They don’t disappoint on that front either, I had worried if they could ramp up the emotional connection, they’ve always been very mechanical in what they do and when a tech guy came out and started measuring the angle of the groups stage lights with an angled wooden block just prior to them arriving, those worries grew.
Although the first couple of songs, which included a euphoric Doubt, were seamlessly played and the crowd were loving it, Delphic hadn’t uttered a word to their thronging mass and I felt they were going to blow their chance to make a real impression. Maybe they realised it themselves as they started to cut loose, a few words to the crowd in between tracks and them bumping up the dance element like the flick of a switch and we were in business.
- Delphic
- The Cockpit 2, Leeds (23rd January 2010)
- Category: Live
- Label: Chimeric / Polydor
- Support: Mirrors
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 25 Jan 2010
- Photography by: The Beat Surrender Facebook Page
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesRed Lights and the album title track Acolyte were brilliant, with the latter seeing a bouncing group of bodies towards the front, I had to wait for the last song of the set proper to get my own personal favourite and The Beat Surrender’s single of 2009. Counterpoint still has the ability to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, it ebbs and flows and is packed with emotion throughout it’s slightly extended version and it does of course raise the roof.
They return to play one more track and then they are off the stage and away into the backstage area, all doubts have been alleviated and they’ve proved that they are turning quite comfortably into a headline act, sure they have a bit of work to become a great headline band as far as the interaction goes, but these shy lads seem quite happy to let the music do the talking for now….and when it’s as well produced as this, then that’s good enough for me.
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