Royal Blood, Alexandra Palace, London

Firstly I really don’t like gigs at the Alexandra Palace. I know the location doesn’t really help but putting that aside I think it is a really poor music venue, a facility which holds 10,000 yet it doesn’t even have a good number of toilets plumbed into the main water supply. This might be perfectly acceptable for 6,000 drunk darts fans, most of whom piss through the fence outside, but it’s not really acceptable for day to day gig goers. This place could be so much better if some thought went into the set up and some money spent on it. The food stand area is OK, but there just isn’t enough seating.

The second thing to note is that I wasn’t really in much of a mood for a gig, travelling there after work I felt like I was going to puke and I was also pretty tired, therefore my judgement could have been a little blurred for that reason.

Black Honey opened the night, from the evidence I saw there was nothing to write home about here. I’m sure the label is backing them financially to get airplay and onto tours so they might break through for a bit.

At The Drive In were up next, I know a couple of their songs like One Armed Scissor and Incurably Innocent for example, on record they sound quite rocky. Live however they are far more heavy than on record, and to be honest it sounded like a load of shit to me. Too much shouty singing and not enough clear vocals. Shouting doesn’t make you a great live act, you’d have thought that a band who have been around a few years would have learnt this by now.

Finally Royal Blood show up, they play a solid set from start to finish, making the evening more enjoyable than the start of it. They also seem to have a couple of backing singers in their ranks these days, not sure if they are really required to be honest. They also had a really cool lighting/laser rig suspended above them with a massive screen within it.