"Hello London, it’s lovely to be back." As far as hackneyed opening lines go, they don’t come much more trotted-out than that. But The Joy Formidable look like they’re genuinely ecstatic, if not somewhat relieved, to be experiencing any form of human contact tonight, let alone that of a room full of their diehard fans.
As well they might, as the band have been on a semi-sabbatical that’s seen them decamp to their homemade studio in North Wales for 12 months to work on their third album and a host of distracting yet satisfying musical pet projects.
“It was just the three of us there,” singer Ritzy Bryan tells us with a cheeky grin. Jokes aside, though, the band navigated the breakup of Bryan and bassist Rhydian Dafydd during this time, and so it’s little surprise that their first string of gigs is proving wholly cathartic. And it shows.
Flailing-haired drummer Matt Thomas has positioned his kit side on, giving front row revellers a cracking profile of his pounding playing style, and himself a perfect view of his band mates, who grin merrily in his direction whenever the opportunity arises.
Imminent new album notwithstanding, they open with ‘The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade’, the closing track off debut album Big Roar, suggesting that while they’re keen to thrash out their Cymru cabin fever, they’re aware that even the most fervent of fans need a little warming up after such an extended hiatus.
In fact, very little of the new record gets an airing tonight. Instead, they pepper a set of classic hits with oddities like 'Passerby', oldies like 'Ostrich' and even ‘Y Garreg Ateb’, a slab of prog-pop that Ritzy sings entirely in Welsh.
We gladly afford them these indulgences, though, as they sound truly fantastic tonight, straddling the line between epic, which they deliver with a newfound ferocity on ‘Whirring,’ and intimate, which they showcase by performing an unmiked acoustic duet in the middle of the crowd.
It’s a move that endears both longstanding fans and newcomers to their charm and in closing with old favourite ‘The Ever Changing Spectrum Of A Lie’ you get the sense that The Joy Formidable are rallying their troops around them to build up to what is sure to be a triumphant return.
