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Twenty minutes before they're set to take the stage Clor’s front man Barry Dobbin tells Gigwise the Zanzibar is a bit quiet - 50 to 100 people light. Maybe he’s worried the boy wizard Harry Potter could be about to up-stage his band on the return to one of their favourite venues. He needn’t worry, by the first chord of their set the place is packed, steaming and ready to dance. Clor are about to take us on a forty five minute adventure through a day-glow world of frenetic and sublime electro indie-pop.
For a band on the cusp of breaking out of the toilet circuit and into a whole new stratosphere Clor look almost embarrassed to be on stage tonight, Barry looks coyly round at the rest of the band and chuckles to himself at huge reaction they get as he stands at the mic before launching into a feverish rendition of ‘Good Stuff’. Latest single ‘Outlines’ has the audience dancing almost epileptically to its offbeat fizzing melodies and singing along to the lines "Each of us is special, in our own unique way" in communal appreciation.
After a frenetic ‘Making You All Mine’, technical problems hamper the set with Harry’s pre-programmed electric drums seemingly giving up the ghost for a second but this is no bother as the pace is slowed slightly for the darker and brooding ‘Dangerzone’, a song that sees Barry Dobbin’s eccentric lyricisms at their best. By now the audience are truly captivated, ‘Magic Touch’ meanders wistfully on a bed of 80s funk soul with the band enjoying the moment - as usual guitarist Luke stares intensely into the distance while bass player Max bobs behind him performing the face pulling antics fans have become accustomed to.
By the time they get to debut release and live favourite ‘Love & Pain’ its an understatement to say the crowd have been whipped into a frenzy. With the encouragement of the band many at the front attempt to recreate the now infamous dance from the songs video but its difficult to do asymmetric star jumps in a venue as packed as this. The band leave the stage to rapturous applause, the words "I was in love, but that was yesterday, now I’m in pain and it’s here to stay" ringing in everyone’s ears.
They're not gone for long, they return for an encore with a raucous performance of ‘Hearts On Fire’ and finish with a crescendo of angular guitars, throbbing synthesized beats and achingly danceable baselines. The last tour before they release their debut album, probably the last tour we’ll see them in this size of venue. Within a couple of months the Zanzibar won’t be able to hold Clor’s groupies never mind their fans too. Tonight this small room in Liverpool loves Clor, Gigwise loves Clor and so will a whole lot of other people very soon indeed - for they are very bloody special in their own unique way.
