Gig review: THE AMAZONS – O2 Academy, Bristol, 17 November 2019

It’s a cold Sunday night, and raining heavily as I try to navigate the streets of Bristol, armed with Google Maps and a soggy friend in tow to see the Amazons. We finally arrive at the O2 Academy, where the doors are opened and I am greeted with the familiar muffled buzz of live music and vibrating floors.

The Mysterines are on stage, fronted by Lia Metcalf, who had an incredible voice. The band’s sound was something similar to that of Wolf Alice; grungy with some elements of blues. The second support was Demob Happy, a Brighton based three piece band. I had listened to them briefly en route to the concert, and they sounded a lot heavier live, which was met with nothing but enthusiasm from the crowd. ‘Autoportrait’ really stood out for me, and has made its way on to my Bangers and Bops Playlist, which does exactly what it says on the tin. I’d definitely like to see Demob Happy perform again.

Two support acts later and everyone is excitedly murmuring as sound check do their final checks. The lights go down and The Amazons appear, opening with ‘Fuzzy Tree’, from their latest album Future Dust. From the first note, the crowd went absolutely wild. I haven’t experienced energy in a room like that before; either that or I’m getting old. They followed it up with ‘Mother’, the first single from Future Dust. The sound is moody, dark and reminiscent of something Royal Blood would conceive. After being thrown around quite a bit I managed to seek refuge in the upper standing area of the venue, where I watched the rest of the night unfold.

I was pleased to hear them perform songs from their self-titled album, such as ‘In My Mind’ and ‘Ultraviolet’. The album was included in The Telegraphs 2017 list of Best Albums of the Year, and rightly so. It’s definitely within my top 10 favourite albums of all time, and well worth a listen. I was particularly happy to hear them perform the beautiful piano ballad, ‘Palace’. It was in stark contrast to the guitar heavy, energetic performances that were sandwiched in between, but hearing the entire room start to sing along gave me chills. Frontman Matthew Thomson’s vocals were phenomenal, and packed the same punch as the studio versions of album tracks.

Their set ended with ‘Little Something’, which went into a rendition of ‘Helter Skelter’ by The Beatles, amongst others. The band had an amazing stage presence, and kept the crowd hooked for the entire show. They returned to play ‘Junk Food Forever’ – another one of my favourites, and a definite crowd pleaser. The last song of the encore was ‘Black Magic’. And let me tell you, if you’ve never heard of The Amazons, please go and listen to this song. I can’t really describe how good it is, nor how fantastic it was live. Catchy tune, memorable lyrics and a guitar solo that was aptly described by my friend as ‘f**king tasty’.

All in all, it was a great gig, and I’m excited to see what the band do next. Keep an eye on these ones, folks, I feel like they’ve got a lot more in store for us.

Review by Jasmine Ritchie

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

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09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)