Slaves - part of the line-up at this year's NME Awards Tour
The NME Awards Tour is notorious for showcasing bands that go on to great success. Royal Blood, Temples, Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys are just a few we can safely say have done alright for themselves. But which band on tonight’s line-up will that be?
A last-minute change due to the Amazing Snakeheads abrupt split two days ago meant that The Wytches, a band who impressed at the Great Escape Festival a couple of years ago, were swiftly added to the line-up. Their doom-Goth sound has lost some of its spikiness seen at some of their early shows but they can’t be knocked for their ability to contrast brash loudness and subtle quietness.
Within the first few seconds of the Slaves set it was quite clear they would steal the show. The two-piece came on with a sense of confidence that makes being in a band lark look easy but only because they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s a mix of spoken word angst with a punk spirit that easily reminisces seeing any of the great punk bands. They do it with a hint of humour proving that they aren’t taking themselves too seriously despite being one of the greatest bands to come through in the last twelve months. Every single song gets the crowd moshing and jumping up and down with a big smile on everyone’s face. We’ve all been waiting for a band like this for a long time. A band that isn’t afraid to write songs with lyrics that antagonise and mock what’s wrong in the world, only seen recently by the likes of Sleaford Mods.
Fat White Family always guarantee to put on a good gig and don’t disappoint, starting the set with a man in a military jacket ranting into the microphone. The one thing I do notice is that many people in the crowd are obviously here for Palma Violets as many have a bemused look on their face. It’s psychedelic, squatter background, heroin chic with song titles like Touch The Leather. While they may not break through the mainstream like tonight’s headliners they are one of those cult bands in their hearts of many. Their set tonight isn’t as performance focused as they are usually renowned for but tonight they let the music do the talking. Either that or they have really bad hangovers.
Palma Violets were on second band on the NME awards tour in 2013 and now two years later they are headlining. They have been likened to bands like The Libertines very early on but the difference is the latter always had a strong sense of originality but that doesn’t stop the crowd bopping around to catchy songs like Best of Friends. It’s a crowd pleasing band but there’s only one band who will leave everyone talking about them for days, if not weeks, months and years and that’s Slaves.
The NME Awards Tour was at Rock City on Tuesday 24 February 2015.
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