Bastille At The Shrine: Show Review
On Thursday night, the British phenom who seemed to soar to super stardom in the matter of months, played at the Shrine Auditorium to thousands of fans.
The crowd, many of whom had lined up since the morning, packed in the Expo Hall to watch Bastille's opening acts, Grizfolk and Ella Eyre. Grizfolk, a Los Angeles band by way of different parts of the United States and Sweden, kicked off the night with gritty, upbeat tracks off their latest EP, "From The Spark." This EP, which features singles like "The Struggle" and "Hymnals" were unique modern rock tracks that were particularly well received.
Next on the bill was Ella Eyre, a 20 year old UK chanteuse who has the talent and maturity well beyond her years. If you watched her set at The Shrine singularly, you wouldn't be able to tell that she was an opener. Leaping onto a stage with a tight latex number, Eyre belted out multiple tracks from her discography, including "Deeper" and "If I Go," the latter of which is nominated as one of BBC Radio 1's Hottest Records this year. Acknowledging the fact that most of the audience is unfamiliar with her work, Ella encouraged the crowd to make up the words and have fun, which is exactly what opening acts are supposed to do.
One commonality betwen the openers sets wasn't the genre of music, but the reaction when the artists yelled "Are you ready for Bastille tonight?" The audience reaction was incredibly loud, to say the least.
As the night went on, the show only improved. Having toured with their debut "Bad Blood" three times over the course of this year, the band refreshed their set list, adding more new wave songs like "Blame" and "The Driver," which was recorded for BBC Radio 1's re-scoring of the Ryan Gosling movie, "Drive." Even though most of the audience was unfamiliar with those tracks, they were still well received and people did their best to bob along to the beat of the songs, which is markedly slower than their album material.
The new tracks on the set list weren't the only things that surprised the audience. In the middle of the set, lead singer Dan Smith began a rock-hip hop song called "Weapon" which will be on their third mixtape due in December titled "VS." Having only performed the song once before at Coachella, Bastille introduced a fiery rapper named Angel Haze, who collaborated with the band on the track. But the surprises didn't stop there-soon, Smith reintroduced Ella Eyre and together, they sang "No Angels," a mash up of TLC's song "No Scrubs" and The XX's "Angels."
After Smith meandered back onto the stage and finished the song, he announced that next tune would require audience participation as he claims to be the "worst f*cking dancer in all of LA." He beckoned a docile crowd to do the "pogo" for their infectious mashup of old ninties songs titled "Of The Night." When the lights shone on the audience during the chorus, waves of arms and lights filled in the air as people jumped up and down in chaotic unison to the beat of the song. The track, which ends with an epic drum battle between Dan Smith and multi-instrumentalist Kyle Simmons, was a definite highlight of Thursday night.
But of course, the show cannot end their, people want to hear the song that still continues to be played on the radio every single day in person. "Pompeii," the tune that launched the band into mainstream success, was a definite hit. Calling out Grizfolk and Ella Eyre to the stage, Smith and co. finished the set on a high point with their distinguishable "Eh-eh-oh-eh-ohs."
Next time the quartet returns, they will be back with new album material, but until then, do yourselves a favor and listen to the record. You won't want to miss them the next time they're in town.
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