Awolnation // The Waterfront - 31/05/2014
It’s a warm Saturday night at The Waterfront, and from the offset, everyone here seems to be buzzing. Headliners tonight, LA’s own, Awolnation seem like the perfect band to start off the Saturday antics.
It’s a warm Saturday night at The Waterfront, and from the offset, everyone here seems to be buzzing. Headliners tonight, LA’s own, Awolnation seem like the perfect band to start off the Saturday antics. Support band Eliza and The Bear played a short but sweet set, that was a surprising mixture between pop-rock and Mumford and Sons. Nevertheless, they got the audience warmed up and dancing to their fun, upbeat tracks which were slightly repetitive, but no one seemed to care.
After a short wait filled with a strange selection of modern hip-hop/dance and some 80s tunes, it was time for Awolnation to take the stage. Fronted by singer and guitar player Aaron Bruno, the band started off with the massive ‘Guilty Filthy Soul’ from their album, Megalithic Symphony, instantly getting people up, dancing and jumping to the beat.
The band themselves seem like naturals to performing. Their music, which consists of some more traditional rocky bits, alongside sampling and some synths, was always perfectly played and performed in a way that really drew the audience in. Singer Aaron absolutely had the room in the palm of his hand – when he told us to jump, we jumped and when he told us to sing, we screamed the words back to him. His ability to go from this kind of beautiful falsetto straight down into a metal-style growl really reflects his performance on stage in the sense that one moment he is swinging and dancing around and the next he is down and dirty with the crowd.
Disaster hit mid-gig as the PA system let out a horrific (and very very loud) groan before deciding to conk out half way through a song. The band handle the whole situation very well, carrying on with as much enthusiasm and energy as before, despite the fact we can no longer hear half of the track. The front man decided to conduct a little Q&A as the broken PA was fixed, bringing a little comedy to the situation. ‘FUCK THE PA, FUCK THE POLICE’ he shouts into the mic before launching into another massive crowd pleaser in the form of ‘Jump on My Shoulders’. After a slight mellow patch in the evening where the band play us some of their less well known songs, they massively bring the energy back with the awesome ‘Sail’, the song everyone was waiting for. The band decide to end the evening with song ‘Knights of Shame’, an 11 minute epic which seems to skip through about 5 genres on its way from start to finish. The song is a great ending because of its dance- ability and sense of fun which leaves the audience, and myself, sufficiently grooved out. The last time I saw Awolnation, they were supporting Billy Talent and were by my standards, quite disappointing. Tonight however has completely blown any sort of doubt out of my mind about the talent of these guys. Brilliant!
