Wolf Alice have had a whopper of a year. The London-based alternative rock band released their third studio album, Blue Weekend, in June 2021, to rave critical reviews, and in January they won the Brit Award for Best Group. They are now touring with Blue Weekend, glittering on stages across the UK.
The disruption Covid created for live entertainment has been gutting for music lovers, many of whom have not been able to experience a live concert since 2019. Storm Eunice’s disturbance in Fifth week also led to the added stress of transport cancellations and delays. As I tried to prepare alternative travel arrangements for the journey from Oxford to London, a feeling of uncertainty, so painfully familiar to us by now, began to cloud over the experience. Although forced to get a train several hours earlier than initially intended – which led to an extremely chaotic morning – Wolf Alice delivered a night that was completely worth the extra faff.
This was the second of three successive sold-out nights for the four-piece at the London venue, and it proved one for us and the remaining five thousand people in attendance to remember. Wolf Alice performed a number of songs from Blue Weekend, as well as a handful of staples from their older records. The show began with the explosive ‘Smile’, kicking off with an exhilarating number that appropriately roused the crowd in anticipation for a night where the band’s – and the fans’ – energy levels would not waver. Following ‘Smile’ came ‘You’re A Germ’ from their 2016 album My Love is Cool, matching the opener’s dynamic chord progressions and thumping beat.
As a lead singer, Ellie Rowsell’s comfort onstage was unquestionable, her presence fierce. Clad in an oversized blazer and elegant bootcut trousers, she delivered consistently powerful vocals and guitar solos aplenty. Her impressive vocal range was showcased as she transitioned effortlessly from the thunderous pace and half-screams of the hard rock song ‘Play the Greatest Hits’ to the softer tones of ‘Feeling Myself’. The stage lighting mirrored the cooldown between the numbers by turning a deep violet from a flashing neon green.
Indeed, Wolf Alice are a band who serve up phenomenal artistic variety. The mélange of genres to be found in their music is evidence enough of this: indie, rock, grunge, shoegaze… Witnessing them in concert only confirms their chameleon knack for transformation. We were stirred up to breathless heights in one song, the bassline pounding through our bones, and lulled back down to soothing, melancholy introspection in the next.
And the fans responded accordingly. They became an undulating, frenzied mass during the roaring ‘Visions Of A Life’ – mosh pits and all – and in the same song they stood gently swaying as Rowsell held them enchanted on a stage lit up with red and blue. The nostalgia-inducing song ‘Silk’ moved some fans to tears.
To perform an intimate, mellow rendition of folk song ‘No Hard Feelings’, Rowsell came down to sit on the edge of the stage, where she was given a bouquet of tulips by a fan in the front row. She accepted the bouquet with delighted surprise – and later flung it back into the crowd, returning the fans the love they show the band in a gesture of her personal appreciation. That, or maybe she just doesn’t like tulips.
Bassist Theo Ellis kept firing up the crowd with his volcanic energy, leaning at the edge of the stage into the audience to ecstatic shrieks. ‘This song’s for you, London!’ he yelled before the band played ‘Bros’, another classic from My Love is Cool.
A mention must be given to the band who opened for Wolf Alice on their first and second London dates, Lucia and the Best Boys. An electrifying four-piece from Glasgow, they established the mood of the night with a selection of characterful indie-pop songs from their 2020 EP The State of Things. Vocalist Lucia Fairfull stomped vigorously on the stage in a black leather jacket, making the auditorium quake with fervour.
At the end of the night, Wolf Alice returned to the stage for an encore, playing fan-favourites ‘The Last Man on Earth’ from Blue Weekend, and, of course, ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’ from their 2017 album Visions of a Life. The euphoria in the room was palpable. ‘Me and you were meant to be in love!’ the fans screamed, almost drowning out Rowsell herself. It’s unsurprising that Wolf Alice have long been hailed the best band in Britain.
Not a bad way to celebrate the return of live music.
Image Credit: Paul Hudson/CC BY 2.0 via Flickr
