The Amazons / Rock City / Nottingham

Oct 13

Oct 13 The Amazons / Rock City / Nottingham

Back to our spiritual home tonight for this one, as The Amazons hit Nottingham on tour to promote their latest album “How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?”. I’ve been enjoying the new album and was excited for my first taste of The Amazons live.

First up, we were entertained by Nottingham band Cucamaras, and for a Nottingham band, I can only imagine what it must have been like playing the main stage to a packed house ! Based around the songwriting of Oliver Bowley and Joshua Hart, they are a rising band in the indy / post-punk world, and are well known locally having played at Rough Trade and at the Beat the Streets annual festival in the city. With a growing fan base and influenced by bands such as Do Nothing and Yard Act, they produce a sharp-edged sound, in tracks such as single Death of the Social.

A polished performance and thoroughly enjoyable. Cucamaras are a band I’ll definitely be checking out again.

The Amazons are an indie band who formed in 2014 in Reading and consist of Matt Thomson (vocals & guitar), Chris Alderton (guitar), Elliot Briggs (bass) & Joe Emmett (drums). With some great singles behind them already such as Black Magic and Ultraviolet, they released their latest album recently and it’s done really well, reaching #5 in the album charts. Hugely popular on the indy scene, which was very evident tonight with the sold out signs up.

The setlist was a balanced mix of crowd favourites and tracks from the new album, and for me the mix was great and worked well. The flow of tracks from old to new etc worked seamlessly. The band came out to riotous applause from the huge crowd. The stage was simply set out, with a white cloth backdrop with some simple black lines. A little uninspiring maybe, but we were here for the music ! The lighting was also really good and matched the mod well, and thankfully (as seems to be more and more common these days) steered mostly clear from the horrid pink/volet lighting that us photographers hate with a passion ! (Thanks guys).

The set starts with the title track from their new album How Will I Know? Which I have to say worked brilliantly. It’s upbeat and punchy and a great track for fans to sing the chorus along to, with a real anthem feel to it. Second track Ready for Something is also from the new album, and maintains the high tempo intro. I think this is actually my favourite track on the album and again, it transposes to the live environment really well. This is The Amazons, but it has a new feel… a freshness. Matt Thomson was in good form tonight, interacting with the crowd and stepping down on to the barrier to smile and sing with the crowd, and the overall the band chemistry was really good, with no obvious timing issues or errors with some great performances including great versions of 25 and One By One which included a great slowed down section.

As the set progressed, perhaps the highlight for me was an excellent performance of Mother (from 2019’s excellent album “Future Dust”) and a stripped down version of Nightdriving. A great track anyway, but the back to basics stripped version was spot on and very effective. As the set ended we got a tremendous rendition of Black Magic from 2017’s self titled album “The Amazons” which really showed off Matt’s vocal range, and the guitar riffs were fast and furious throughout.

Overall, it was a great performance and the big crowd seemed to go away very happy indeed . I was really pleased how the new material from “How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?” worked live. With a great back catalogue to choose from, the new stuff is a very welcome addition to their live arsenal.

Setlist:

How Will I Know?

Ready For Something

Ultraviolet

In the Morning

There’s A Light

In My Mind

One By One

Say It Again

Northern Star

Wait For Me

Doubt It