Gig Review: Metronomy

Last Saturday (21/03/2014) I went down to The Institute, Birmingham to see Metronomy. If I'm honest, I wasn't really expecting too much, of course I knew Metronomy would be good - I just went down hoping to be entertained I suppose. Let's just say I got what I hoped for and so much more.

Nobody really seemed to know who the support act would be and so when this band stepped on, after something like an hour long wait, and began tuning their instruments when the lights had already dimmed - I have to say I was a little bit confused. When they started playing, at first they sounded a little bit like Django Django so I was kind of hopefully excited, waiting for them to start playing something like "Hail Bop". However, when the female member of the band started singing, I knew that it wasn't Django Django. They later announced that they were called Virginia Wing. Throughout the set they had a couple of promising songs that I really got into, but besides that I wasn't feeling them too much - they were slightly underwhelming, and they definitely weren't able to prepare me for what I was about to witness next...

When the lights dimmed for a second time and Metronomy stepped on stage all suited and booted, a huge grin couldn't help but stretch across my face. They actually started slow, opening with "Monstrous" - one of my favourites from the new record. Then the show escalated, leaving the crowd with no time to even register half of the awesomeness that they were witnessing. I'm going to use this junction to highlight how much of a badass Benga is. He is easily one of the best performers I've seen in a long time, and not simply in regards to his musicianship. Benga puts on an entire show of his own, and looks ridiculously suave doing so - brilliant performer.

This show in general definitely made it more evident to me exactly how talented Metronomy actually are. Every single note was executed with precision. Some of the songs that I enjoyed most that night include "Love Letters", "Everything Goes My Way", "Holiday", "Corinne" and "I'm Aquarius" - and that's not even including the encore! Having three albums worth of great tracks to work into a setlist certainly stood them in good stead because by the end of the night they'd played, what seemed in my opinion, the perfect setlist. When they played "Heartbreaker" in the encore, it completely cemented this - the first song that I ever heard by them, and I felt just as good about it then as I did the first time I heard it. Top night!

Overall Rating - 8/10


Here are some pictures from the night...