Norwich Arts Centre would make a great place to hold a religious cult. Its converted church interior along with its wooden-beam ceiling lit in red, makes it seem like it would be perfectly suited for a horror film. However the other members of the mostly ‘arty’ crowd seem to think otherwise, as I hear one hipster draped in vintage clothes say to another, “this is a fantastic venue”.
Soon the support band, Best Friends, take to the stage. They start of well with their best impression of The Vaccines and The Drums rolled into one, but there’s no real substance to them and their songs are hardly memorial. Yet they seem to be getting great support from the guy standing directly behind me, who is completely off his face and seems insistent that my girlfriend’s ankle needs some of his beer, as that’s where half of his pint ended up.
After a twenty minute wait, the four members of Django Django bound onstage and dive straight in to an extended musical introduction which features bird song, waves crashing, electric drums, woops from the lead singer and whistles off the bass player. They then seamlessly glide into ‘Hail Bop’ which sounds even better live than on CD. The drunken man has somehow staggered to the front of the crowd now, and he and a tall sweaty, long-haired teen are dancing likes there’s no tomorrow. I’m talking full-on jumping up and down and thrashing of arms and legs, and this is only the first song!
The band are a good sight to watch on stage, they recreate the air-raid sirens and other various noises found on the debut CD with ease, as they flit between instruments, overly-large tambourines and coconut shells. However, it is the crowd that is most bemusing about this gig. Whatever it was that had taken hold of the two dancing guys at the start of the set, has now infected all around me. It’s like being at a hippie convention, everywhere I look I can see two finger peace signs waving and people looking as though they are on some drug-effused trip. One guy, (who looks as though he has been dragged off the street) has to be lead away by a friend midway through, because he has almost bent his spine in two from bending backwards, arms outstretched. It’s reminiscent of a scene from a documentary about people who are possessed by the devil!
When my attention is not focused on the wild scenes around me, and rather on the band, they are enjoyable to watch. Their debut single, ‘Default’, lacks the uniqueness that it does on the album somewhat, becomes they cannot replicate the cut-up vocals; however a valiant effort nonetheless.
They leave after a one song encore saying they will return, and if they can have the same effect on a crowd again they’d be stupid not to.
