It seems strange for a band that looks as young as Bombay Bicycle Club to talk about a song they wrote “back in the old days”.
But then the Hampstead four-piece has packed a lot into the past four years, from opening the 2006 V Festival to working with former Arctic Monkeys producer Jim Abbiss on their first EP.
And in that time they have also found time to write some genuinely great songs, which, judging by the reaction of the packed crowd at Audio, are set to propel them out of such small venues pretty quickly.
There is little danger the dreaded “landfill indie” tag will be applied to these boys, for one thing their songs are too sharp, hooky and carefully crafted for that.
Songs like Open House and Evening Morning were instant classics, characterised by charismatic frontman Jack Steadman’s impassioned, if not powerful vocal, and an extremely tight rhythm section that wasn’t afraid to throw a few surprises into the mix.
It’s a positive sign that most of the crowd were already familiar with the songs, despite the band not releasing an album yet, with the venue filling with cries at the end of the 40-minute set for the encore How Are You – complete with the apposite lyric “I don’t want to get much older”.
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