Is there anything sweeter in this gloomy life than an indie-rock double bill?
Some people’s idea of heaven is a sandy beach in the Bahamas. Others’ is a warm log fire, three generations of their beloved family, and a collection of family photos so badly aged they make Jim Davidson look cutting-edge. Some people’s might even be a solitary walk across Dartmoor, armed with nothing but a podcast and a lingering sense that this might be the only time they’re truly happy.
But for us? It’s a pint of Dark Fruits, a cavernous room in North London, and some seriously loud guitars. And fortunately, that’s exactly what DMA’S and Tribes had to offer when they rolled into Wembley Arena.
Tribes
North London’s finest indie raconteurs are back after a ten-year break, and it’s almost like they never went away. Which is to say, judging by their barnstorming Wembley set, that there’s still as much of an appetite for top-class indie-rock bangers, oft-melancholy lyrics, and frontman Johnny Lloyd’s dulcet tones as there was all the way back in 2013.
Their set is oh-so-short, and yet oh-so-sweet – but with a healthy mix of new cuts and indie disco classics from their surprisingly hefty back catalogue, it’s safe to assume that both the preached-to and the converted walked away feeling satisfied.
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DMA’S
Well, we say ‘walked away’ – but judging by the look of this crowd, they just went straight to the bar. Seriously: there’s up for it, and then there’s up for it.
It’s an interesting quirk of this country that one of the world’s best Britpop bands actually hails from Down Under. Their sound is more Scunthorpe than Sydney, and it’s slightly jarring to hear frontman Tommy O’Dell speak in a broad Australian accent when he’s just finished rattling through the kind of arena-ready indie-rock that any GarageBand warrior this side of Southend would’ve killed to have written.
Still, that’s not to take away from what we see tonight. For, dear reader, it would be no exaggeration to say that the band we know as the DMA’S have, somehow, outgrown Wembley Arena.
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It’s a bold statement, but it’s one we stand behind.
After all, there aren’t many bands who could open their set with a track from their new album and be greeted by the sight of flaming flares by the time the first chorus hits. There also aren’t many bands who can then proceed to deliver a 90-minute set full of not only some of the best indie stompers of the last decade, but also a handful of lovelorn acoustic ballads the likes of which are more generally attributed to professional sadboy John Mayer than a trio of lads from Down Under.
And of these stompers-cum-ballads, it’s Silver that’s the undeniable highlight. What begins as a love song transforms into a towering inferno of swirling guitars, sugar-sweet harmonies, and the kind of crowd reaction that’s usually reserved for holy resurrections.
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We hate to resort to journalistic cliche, but by the time they sign off with Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s The Weekend, any roof that was remaining on Wembley Arena has long since been blown off.
And in its place, we’re left with a crowd that’s already longing for more, a bar that’s been bled dry, and a band who one day seem destined to fill the kind of stratospheric outdoor venues that their parka-wearing, rolling-with-it heroes used to call their own.
