Live Review: The Lumineers – 28th November 2013 – Alexandra Palace, London, UK
3 min read
London, in all it’s size and splendour, has a massive range of venues of all shapes and sizes – one of the more extravagant ones being the Alexandra Palace, a massive venue which few artists could completely pack on a tour. One of these artists, clearly, being The Lumineers.
The support act – who you could guess the genre of from the fact that they feature a banjo and were supporting The Lumineers – were Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, an American band who played a cheerful and catchy indie/folk rock set filled with lots of classic oohs, ahs and harmonies and provided a perfect build up to the Lumineers.
When it came time for the Lumineers to take the stage, the lights dimmed and a dramatic instrumental opening blasted throughout the building, making the audience scream until they could see the band – at which point they doubled their efforts and packed in as close as physically possible to the stage. The introduction shortly ended and the band began their first song, focused around the vocals and guitar, with the drummer conducting the audience with his drum sticks, much to their delight.
By the second song the audience were singing along, exaggerating the echo that was in the room massively and changing the feeling of the venue from a fancy palace to a pub with a folk sing-along happening inside, the line “I ain’t nobody’s problem but my own” being screamed out by the audience at the top of their lungs and massive cheering as a piano solo was clinked out over the minimalistic folk sounds in the room.
The biggest excitement of the night almost certainly came in the form of the fourth song, where the audience erupted to the simple shout of “ho!” It probably took all of 3 seconds for the whole audience to be singing along, but were cut short when Wesley (the band’s lead singer) asked that everyone put away their phones so that they can focus on singing along – which they surprisingly did, for the most part.
The rest of the night followed as you would expect, with the audience rarely stopping singing along or clapping – and in those rare moments it was only to get themselves another drink, after which they only sang louder. The whole night had the feel of a sing-along in your local, as opposed to a world class gig – this feeling being especially emphasised when the band announced that they were going to go and play in the centre of the crowd. There they were swamped with adoring fans, all of them fumbling for their phones to get photos of the incredible musicians who were now mere feet away from them.
At the end of the night, once the event had finished, the audience filed out and made their way back to the nearest tube station. Once on the tube I bore witness to not one, but two entire tube carriages singing Ho Hey with massive enthusiasm – assuring me that I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the gig.
Set-List:
- Classy Girls
- Ain’t Nobody’s Problem
- Flowers in Your Hair
- Ho Hey!
- Subterranean Homesick Blues
- Darlene
- Elouise
- Slow it Down
- Falling In Love
- Charlie Boy
- Stubborn Love
- Flapper Girl
- Submarines
- Morning SongEncore:
- Gale Song
- Big Parade
::: covering the latest live events in London (UK) for RenownedForSound.com
They also played Dead Sea. This is the second review that missed that.
Really? Sorry about that, strange that two of us miss it – haha! Where did that come in the set? I’ll add it in. :)
I thought you both must have gone to get a drink when it was on;) Dead Sea was somewhere after Ho Hey and before they setup shop in the audience for Elouise. Put it at 6, Darlene moves down. Thanks for the review!