Adult DVD. Sold Out. In The Round.

Freddie Waterland on 24 February 2025

Adult DVD. Sold out. 1am start time. In the round.  

Adult DVD’s hometown gig at the Belgrave Music Hall was as chaotically energetic as anyone who is even vaguely familiar with their music could expect. ‘Yacht Money’ and ‘Hot Set’ provided the ideal start, an unapologetic blend of punchy vocals from lead singer Harry Hanson, strong riffs and as much influence from the synths as could be imagined with no less than four on stage, encapsulating in microcosm the band’s distinctive sound. Often made comparisons to LCD Soundsystem are not without merit, but only by listening to their classification defying acid/electronic/dance rock can one begin to grasp what Adult DVD are about. 

Simply put, the ‘in the round’ aspect of the gig – where the band stood in a circle essentially amongst the crowd, in an intimate ‘boiler room’ style – worked brilliantly. Perhaps the main beneficiary (apart from the crowd) was drummer Jonathan Newell; no longer relegated to the back of the stage behind a wall of equipment, the pulse Newell provided not only provided the perfect complement to the synths but deservedly took the spotlight at times.

‘7 foot 1’ and ‘Dogs In the Sun’ were both well crafted and compiled without losing the jazzy electricity that makes the band unique. They provided the perfect build up to the highlight of the night, ‘Do something’. A cacophonous soundscape as full of relentless dynamism as the rest of their music, ‘Do something’ retains lyrical sardonicism whilst being undeniably catchy. This combines to give a sense of forward motion – surely emblematic of the band’s trajectory in the coming years.

The remainder of the set basked in the playful peculiarity of the moment. It is not every day at 2AM you are stood, essentially engulfed by a dance/rock band, above an (albeit excellent) canteen in Leeds’s Northern Quarter, but as the industrious ‘Sadman Mancave’ faded into the joyfully crazy ‘Bill Murray’, it became apparent it’s something that should happen more often. 

Written by Freddie Waterland

A Dar(e)ing Foray into Bodily Fluids and Faulty Sound Design: Yes, I Went To See The Dare

Kyle Galloway on 28 November 2024

So it’s like 2pm on Wednesday and I’m one flask of instant coffee and two RAND cold brews deep in Laidlaw (mind: alive) toying with the idea of committing to read Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation for my dissertation when my phone chimes. My intestines clench – I wipe away an fading skidmark of hoisin sauce from my joul – I’m in the library – why is my Do Not Disturb off? I’ll tell you why: divine intervention. It’s an email from Warren Higgins at Chuff Media. “URGENT – RE: THE DARE TOMORROW NIGHT”. 

A tear forms in the corner of my eye, rolls down the side of my face. The sound of it hitting the floor reverberates off the cold, angular interior design of the library. The swathes of international students and Herefordshire finance bros in quarter-zips fall silent. They all know what has befallen Leeds… I will be present at The Dare’s gig at Belgrave.

Fast forward 29 hours. 19:00. My room laden with discarded jumpers. I stink of Versace Eros. I have toothbrushed away the red wine tidal mark from my bottom lip 3 times, but I’m starting to think it adds to my vampire-hit-by-a-car aesthetic. I have “All I Need” by Air on my speaker because I feel romanced by the air of the moment. I’ve used my honed research skills (a network of gay men on Instagram stretching from Scarborough to Southport) to recruit another twink to accompany me. I stub out my incense (“Tropical Lemongrass”) and saunter to the bus stop. 

20:30. Everything is red. Adult DVD is warming the crowd up. I turn to my compadre (“sebastiAn? Justice-y? Maybe.”). It’s pushing nine. He’s itching for the man himself to guess the colour of someone’s underwear. All the bodies in the room hold an abstract charge, part anticipation for an act whose USP is manifest eroticanostalgia, part awe of the negative space already held by a not-yet-present act whose USP is also a very rentable suit-and-sunglasses combo. We’ve been waiting: the crowd flicker like candles on the verge of burning themselves out, iPhone flashlights extend out between bodies in frenetic little blooming rings every time a sound technician comes to tamper with the synth. 

21:07. He emerges and the aerated agitation of the crowd bubbles over into a boiling, frothing fever for what is to come. “Open Up” does exactly what it describes as the first track, leading into a breakneck back-to-back performance of “Good Time”, “Sex”, “Perfume”, and “I Destroyed Disco”, the last two interrupted almost comically by brief technical issues that somehow aesthetically align themselves with the sleaze and artificiality of the product The Dare has marketed to us. But the atmosphere is anything but soiled. The pot continues boiling over. There is a sense, in this room, of a unique catharsis. It feels like an embodiment of a deceased pop dancefloor, immortalised as something of the past, something crumbled into territories of other genres for about 10 years, resurrected by a man iconicised by his non-descriptness, his grand interpolation of a milieu of electroclash artists dragged unceremoniously into a prior unrendered present-future.

21:45. The People have been waiting for this. The setlist descends (ironically) into “Elevation” and “You Can Never Go Home”, after an electric interpolation of “Guess” into “Bloodwork” from the rocket-fuel debut Sex EP (2023), giving us a minute to breathe. We are ready for an encore worthy of such a gig, hair matted with sweat and eyes bloodshot, a bass-amplified forcefield pressing in on the room from its edges. He acknowledges what we’re waiting for after telling us we’re his first European show to mosh for him, we roll our eyes: continental Europe doesn’t understand what year-round drizzle and 14 years of Tory office make catharsis mean. 

Then the metallic opening synths of “Movement” lead us into a three-track fury, moving into “All Night” and then “Girls” as the crowd begins lifting dancers into the air, throwing bras onto the stage, screaming “I LOVE YOU!” à la One Direction fanfic. The bass hits, hypnotic, we all know the words, acrylics begin ripping panelling off the stages, scratching grooves into the floor, throwing vodka tonic into the sky. Boys are kissing! Tits are out! I can smell Kesha! Or a Jack Antonoff who never met women who write lyrics in diaries! The roof opens up to the pitch of the night. Maybe we’ll all be swallowed. Maybe swallowing is part of the commitment to the performance. After all, what’s a spitter to a swallower, and what’s a swallower to The Dare?

Words by Kyle Galloway