Photo: WENN
In the decadent, red draped theatre, singer Dan Smith and the additional three members of Bastille have a lot to celebrate. Not only has it been a stellar year for the band, which saw their debut album Bad Blood storm the charts and harbour their No.2 single ‘Pompeii’, but the closing night of the recent tour was now upon us.
Dressed as if proudly vacating a shopping spree at high-street store H&M, the foursome began with their third single release ‘Bad Blood’. The melancholic, electronic rock inspired Smith to throw his hands above his head, bop around the stage like a child high on sugar and whip his jumper’s hood back and forth, as if summoning Voodoo spirits. Yet, his signature quiff remained free from the curses of gravity.
A stark white sea of camera phones’ screens appeared for the band’s second offering ‘Things We Lost in the Fire’, which provoked Smith to pound on the drums as if intending the burst them. Then came new material by the name of ‘Campus’. This increasingly electro track, which samples something that I can only assume to be robot children skipping rope, is juxtaposed with Smith’s American indie style vocals and jovial melodies and topped off with an Asian inspired outro. The indefinable mishmash of a song was a real highlight of the set – one that hints at a highly-evolved future.
Bastille’s music lurches between indie, pop, emo, nu-metal, anthemic dance - and it doesn’t stop there. During the set, they showcased another new song – featuring a gravelly, commanding start and pounding drums seemingly replicating a march to war. Another crowd pleaser was the ominous anthemic single ‘Laura Palmer’.
The band blared out several of their obscure covers, including City High’s ‘What Would You Do?’ and their medley of Snap!’s ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ and Corona’s ‘The Rhythm of the Night’. These uninventive crowd pleasers had the audience quaking with empty gaiety, yet I remain baffled by their relevance to the group’s other material.
The night saw Smith hotfoot across the stage with controlled angst, as if putting a polite, middle-class finger up to the ‘the man’. Bastille’s flit between original material and novelty audience slayers, left a scent of frustration in their wake, like a meaningless one-night stand.
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