The Amazons deliver electrifying set at Leeds Beckett Student’s Union
Last Thursday, I managed to catch The Amazons at the Leeds Beckett Student’s Union on their UK and European tour for the release of their 3rd studio album How Will I Know if Heaven Will Find Me. Having seen them a couple of times at both Leeds and YNOT festivals over the years, I knew I was in for a solid night of big riffs and guitar music bangers.
With a wave of inspiration from the COVID lockdowns of the last few years, the band’s new album was an ode to the better things to come after times spent away from loved ones with frontman Matt Thomson admitting this was the band’s most sonically joyous album to date where he particularly wanted to focus on an album which could offer a great live sound and an uplifting mood as a celebration of the return of gigs after the unfortunate lack of them during the pandemic.
Before the show, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the venue or the crowd as it was the first time I’ve had the pleasure of going to the Leeds Beckett Student Union (which as a music venue is great!) but after convincing my mate to come along with me last minute, we arrived at the venue to see what was a surprising mix of ages within the crowd both young and old which I reckon has come from The Amazon’s big success as a regular festival band with wide commercial success on national radio which has allowed them to garner a large, varied fan base successfully managing not to be constrained by any generational gap which has been a difficult task for some bands.
A little while after arriving and a couple of pints in, the first and only support band for the night, Ava In The Dark came onto the stage. A sonically vibrant, up-and-coming Leeds-based alt-rock pop band led by frontwoman Ava, Ava in The Dark offered an ominous yet slick, melodic performance which after a few songs gave us a sound I would describe as similar to the likes of Pale Waves or Nothing But Thieves with a combination of melodic vocals and catchy synth/guitar lines that definitely succeeded in getting people warmed up for the main event.
A little after the support band had finished their set, the crowd started to pile in in droves and with a full stage floor and balcony and the fact you could no longer easily leave the stage room to get to the bar, you could tell the crowd was ready for the headline act.
Soon after, the lights shut off and the electrifying guitar riffs and snare rolls of ‘Ultraviolet’ filled the Student’s Union which quickly got the crowd jumping and singing along to every word. Throughout the set frontmanThomson delivered an excellent vocal performance, particularly on some of the tracks from the new album including new fan favourite ‘Ready For Something’ which has quickly amassed over 1 million Spotify streams since the album’s release last month as well as the uplifting melodic rhythms of ‘Wait for Me’ which really epitomised the focus of the new album and its positive outlook.
Having written a lot of the new album material on acoustic guitar during the lockdown, I was particularly excited to see how these slower, more somber stripped-back tunes such as album single ‘Bloodrush’ and acoustic track ‘Northern Star’ would go down in a live setting and the crowd definitely got behind these euphoric tunes with everyone singing along with Thomson and a sea of phone torches and lighters filling the venue which you can’t really ask for a better crowd reaction to an acoustic song than that.
The set continued with a mix of new album tunes which the crowd confidently sang alongside the band despite the short time since release, as well as some of the old indie classics which made the band famous such as the huge sounding ‘In My Mind’, with its iconic guitar-heavy intro and harmonious falsetto backing from the band getting the crowd back into its energetic mood after the some of the slower acoustic tracks.
After the obligatory ‘last song’ call by Thomson, The Amazons finished their set with a satisfied and excited crowd that knew that this wasn’t really the last song. Sure enough, the crowd eagerly waited in the dimly lit venue before the band returned to play a couple more tunes ending on arguably their most famous and well-known track ‘Black Magic’ from their 2017 first album, where the band had the crowd on strings with every word sung back to them alongside their crushing heavy guitars and explosive drums.
All in all, The Amazon’s delivered an electrifying set that seemed to happily live up to expectation and proved to the crowd why the band continue on the rise and firmly hold its spot as a British indie hall of fame.
You can catch The Amazon’s in the UK, North America and Europe over the next two months with dates listed here.
