To have two sold out tours across the UK now over and done with and sat comfortably in their back pockets in just this year alone with only one album being out is pretty inconceivable. Last Saturday night at the O2 Academy in Birmingham was my second time witnessing Catfish and The Bottlemen’s inevitable rise to success first-hand. If you’ve ever seen them live then you’ll know what I’m talking about, their colossal stage presence being placed next to the likes of The Arctic Monkeys and even Oasis’s early success. They've always seemed to have been more than ‘just another rock band trying to make it big’ from the get go; even their performance at an almost empty London Barfly on the night they got signed by Mumford and Son's keyboard player - Ben Lovett "sounded bigger than what we did last night playing an arena" according to Ben himself. However, admirably they've worked for eight years to get to the point they are at now, with the band managing to undoubtedly being on their way to becoming one of this generations essentials for rock music. Now, Catfish and The Bottlemen seem to be claiming their own identity regarding their sound, breaking out of all of the ‘they sound like’s and ‘they’re the next so and so’s.
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| Before the lights went down (my photo) |
The band certainly made an entrance as they took to the stage with The Beatles' - Helter Skelter as their intro music, followed by an hour-long set which consisted of the entirety of their debut album - The Balcony. I felt as though the band could have done with adding some more new material with the exception of only one of their new songs - ‘7’ being played. The song seemed like a real tease for album two as it sounded a lot different to their older material whilst it focused more on vocals with a more easy-going, slower tempo track yet nonetheless still being rather dramatic. Van admitted himself that ‘album two embarrasses the first one’. With ‘7’ consisting of the kind of easy, repetitive lyrics that will have you unknowingly singing along in no time building up to a signature drop where a lengthy guitar solo appears; a regular occurrence within Catfish’s songs. (listen to a live recording of 7 HERE - credit to owner)
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| Photo credit to my friend Chloe Bailey |
Despite this, the audience did not seem to mind the set-list as Van was barely audible over the crowd belting out each and every song from their album word for word, Van still seeming astounded and not yet used to the hysteria with a head shake accompanied by a humble smile of disbelief appearing now and then alongside various thank you's shouted out here and there. Favourites of the night included Kathleen and Business, with the kind of chorus' that created waves of people on each others shoulders with their arms around each other and arms thrown hopefully into the air with a true euphoric sense in the room. The array of ages across the audience wasn't surprising as this band really do seem to be taking the interest of most people that discover them.
I have to say, this performance was even better than when I saw them last March due to the crowd size, excitement (coming from both the crowd and the band), and atmosphere being heightened to a whole different standard. The entirety of the night was absolute chaos (in the best possible way). Not one person was stood still, possibly due to not being physically able to as the crowd was just one huge moshpit; even those sat on the balcony were being encouraged by Van himself to stand up with the regular prompt of "Come on, what are you doing sat down? I want everyone stood up and moving!" which, unsurprisingly acquired worried looks on the faces of security guards. They're a band who really know what they're doing, not only in stage presence and maintaining their full-on adoration from their fans within their live shows but their ability to produce hit after hit. I'm suspecting that the new album will come out early next year and so if you haven't seen this band live already, I highly recommend you try and do soon before it becomes almost impossible to bag yourself a ticket for their predicted future shows at stadiums.
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