“We feel like you guys deserve a treat,” says Kevin Baird, who has inexplicably morphed into Freddie Mercury during the recording of Two Door Cinema Club’s second album Beacon. “So we’ve got a treat for you!”
Tough as it is to ignore Baird’s distracting copstache and tank top combo (HP’s venerable fashion jury has dubbed it “a classic interpretation of rock star shabby chic”), it’s even tougher to ignore the fact that tonight, I’m in the presence of superfans.
Bangor’s most triumphantly successful export since Blue Peter hottie Zoe Salmon have sold out their fair share of 10,000-capacity venues in the UK, and are well on their way to selling out the 15,000-capacity O2 in Dublin; nabbing a ticket for the far more compact Academy, which holds just 850 bodies, will have taken pristine organisation and hawk-like cunning at the least. Rumour has it that the show sold out in two minutes flat, so this crowd – a curious mix of bald heads and baby faces – have done extremely well to secure themselves a spot.
But it’s not the tickets selling like hotcakes that proves this particular audience’s fan credentials, it’s the silence. Sure enough, the roof is metaphorically raised when that frolicking guitar chimes in on ‘What You Know’ or during a singalong live favourite like ‘Something Good Can Work’, but for the most part, it’s pin-drop city.
“We’re gonna try something we’ve never played live before,” Baird continues, 850 math pop junkies hanging on his every word. The taut trio promptly launch into the title track from the new record, which also happens to be its mellowest moment, before following it up with the slow-burning ‘Settle’.
As we’ve come to expect from the North’s favourite rockers, there’s not a note out of place, but thanks to the crowd’s otherwise admirable politeness, it’s difficult to imagine these songs graduating to stadium banger status – although, with all the snappy choruses and frisky guitarplay bouncing off the venue walls, I’m certain they will. ‘Sun’ is powered by some feverish handclaps, ‘Handshake’ is all the better for an earwormish disco bass line and radio smash ‘Sleep Alone’ is every bit as thunderous as I remember from the LP.
Things finally kick off during the encore, when the irresistibly boisterous ‘I Can Talk’ draws the show to a delirious close. As groups of wild, sweaty figures bop around to the song’s jagged melody, it suddenly feels like the Two Door shows I’ve been to before: noisy, blindingly bright and a little bit chaotic. When the band return in January, I’ll be hoping the fans are on their worst behavior.