So last night I went to see one of my favorite bands to come out of the last few years, which is none other than Black Country, New Road. My history with the band has been overwhelmingly positive – I first stumbled upon their breakout LP „For the first time“ right when it came out and was hooked immediately. The building instrumentals, the dark riffs, huge crescendos, beautiful harmonies, powerful vocals and lyrical themes, everything I just love about music in general, this band had. I was even considering giving that album a perfect score innitially but decided not to, as I thought the band had even more room to grow – and I was definitely right. With their second LP „Ants From Up There“ they only built upon everything I already mentioned – the riffs were more moving, the crescendos larger and more rewarding, the suspense was on point, everything just clicked with this album. To this day it remains as one of my favorite albums of all time honestly and I was only looking forward to what they would bring to the table down the line.
And than tragedy struck… The lead singer of the band Isaac Wood announced his departure from the band. I was honestly kinda devasted by this – Isaac’s vocals were a huge part of what made BC, NR click for me in the first place. I even thought the band was splitting up because of this… But no, instead they released one of the best live albums of this year. With „Live at Bush Hall“ the band finally proved to everyone that yes, they will indeed continue making music and really amazing music at that. The band didn’t loose their charm here at all, on the contrary it feels like a complete reinvention of their sound and a natural progression for the band. Tyrel Hyde mostly, but also May Kershaw and Lewis Evans take the positions of the main singer, each on different songs and all of them work exceptionally well with their sound, it’s almost a miracle. Now with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the actual concert.
Before the concert started, they were mostly playing minecraft music, which I found to be really funny but also a really nice touch since minecraft music is amazing. Than there was the artist that was opening for the band which I forgot the name of, but they were playing a harp and singing absolutely beautifully, like the range of their vocals was from another planet, definitely recomment searching her up (I couldn’t find the name anywhere though, so it may take some digging). Than after a few random songs from the playback (including Charles Mingus of all people) the band finally showed up in the most goofy way possible, running on stage in pairs of two I think and starting to play along to some song they put on previously, it was really silly but ultimately really effective.
Now for the actual show itself – all of the songs, with two exceptions of songs I don’t have yet seen the light of day yet, were off of the new live album and not any from their frist two LPs, which was to be expected since Isaac’s departure, but it still kinda hurt a little bit that they didn’t play any of them. Still though, the songs themselves were in one word amazing – whoever did the sound engineering for the show deserves a raise, because everything just sounded so clean and smooth, it was all around a really pleasant experience just from a technical standpoint. They mostly followed the chronological structure of the live album, with the highlight for me definitely being the opener „Up Song“ – I mean when Lewis started hitting those sax notes it was already over, the crowd just exploded when the rest of the instruments kicked in, it was a really powerful opener. „The Boy“ was actually one of my biggest highlights too, the performance was so good that the song itself actually grew on me quite substantially and now it’s like one of my favorites of the whole album.
I would also like to take a moment to appriciate the constant reminders from Tyler Hyde to stay hydrated during the show, since it was REALLY hot in there. The „you’re more important than anything that’s happening on the stage right now“ was probably my favorite non-musical moment from the whole show. Also the way the members interacted with each other throughout the songs was really nice to see – it just felt like they were having a lot of fun and were all working together as one.
Another highlight for me was also the two songs „Turbines/Pigs“ (which almost made me cry if I’m being completely honest) and „Dancers“, the latter of the two being a really amazing and special moment with basically everyone in the audience singing the main hook of the song with the band, it was really moving. The show concluded with the „Up Song (Reprise)“ and just like that it was over. As the band was leaving they played the Scatman song (outdoing the goofiness of their enterance) and scrambled out of there, which I thought was honestly hilarious. But yeah, the only song off of the live album I think they didn’t play was „The Wrong Trousers“ which is honestly my least favorite on the album, so I didn’t mind it as much. I would also like to give a special shoutout to Charlie Wayne who absolutely killed it on the drums, especially on „Turbines/Pigs“ where he went just completely sicko mode on them, it was really insane. Also that one song that hasn’t officially come out yet that they played was honestly like one of my favorites of the whole show, makes me really excited for when it finally comes out, the sax on that one was like catchy on a whole nother level and the way the drums synced with everything at one point made the whole crowd start just like bouncing up and down, it was just so good.
Anyways yeah, that was my BC, NR concert experience – I forgot to mention that besides like 3 or 4 really drunk a-holes who just wouldn’t shut up at times the crowd was really respectful and super energetic, it felt like everyone was having the time of their lives. If I had to say then this was probably the best concert I ever went to just period. Really recommend seeing these guys if you can still catch them somewhere, an absolutely brilliant experience.