After a whirlwind year of chart-toppers and sold out gigs, Bastille could rest easy knowing that fans were hungry for them in the last leg of their Australian tour.
Setting the tone for the night, first up was young Aussie DJ Alison Wonderland – whether too cool or too awkward to actually engage in conversation she bopped away to her beats and made her own fun on stage while the crowd grew and danced along.
Up next was the very beautiful, and very British, Foxes, who was as thrilled with the fans as they were with her, and she spent her set giggling away that “You’re all amazing, this is amazing, it’s all amaaazing.” Foxes was quite a delight; she’s a master of her own voice and material, and confidently belted out covers of Rudimental’s ‘Right Here’, as well as a strangely depressing rendition of Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’ – both of which she nailed. After finishing on “Let Go for Tonight”, Foxes departed the stage, and Alison in Wonderland returned for a brief stint. Though it was better than canned pre-main show music, and people paid her lip service, but ultimately it wasn’t really happening, and it was clear what people were getting fidgety for.
Finally taking the stage with hit single ‘Bad Blood’, Bastille had the crowd dancing instantly. The London four piece have an eclectic sound, and are super tight together. Lead singer Dan Smith has a smashing voice, huge range, and is pitch perfect in every key.
The band’s sound is pretty fresh, and in amongst the hundreds of indie rockers on the scene at the moment, they’ve carved out a decent niche for themselves, employing vintage anthemic sounds, and chanting that builds drive in their numbers and enthusiasm in their crowds. Despite their overwhelming success of the past year, Bastille has a unique vibe – take them out of a stadium, and put them back in a pub, or throw them back into a garage, and nothing will have changed – they’re four mates jamming together who aren’t too good or too cool to show that they’re having an awesome time.
As relative newcomers, and with only one studio album under their belt, the boys don’t have a huge selection of numbers to play, but they worked through their album nicely, and played a few songs from their EPs. The second number of the night, ‘Weight of Living’, as well as ‘Laura Palmer’ were crowd favourites, and ‘These Streets’ and ‘Things we Lost in the Fire’ had people jumping and moving enthusiastically. If there’s anything that’ll get fans launching themselves out of their seats and stumbling down stairs, it’s the prospect that some degree of celebrity might be near them, so when Smith made a lap of the room during ‘Flaws’ it was the perfect remedy to get people moving for the last pre-encore song of the night.
The fake encore, something that can lead to embarrassment when half the crowd gets up to leave, and the band have to awkwardly rush back on stage to remind them they’re not over yet, is something that can get a little tedious after a while. But whether it was because they still hadn’t played their biggest hit, or that the crowd was just craving more, there were a few moments where it felt like the venue couldn’t stand up to the roaring and stamping for a few more songs.
The boys came back on for “Daniel in the Den” and “Of the Night”, and finally, finally, it came time for The Song. Last legs of the tour are always a celebratory time, and the band graciously had Foxes and Alison Wonderland back up on stage to party along to their biggest hit “Pompeii”, which was overwhelmingly the favourite number of the night.
They don’t yet have a huge range of material to perform, but once they’ve got another album or two, Bastille are going to a genuine force in the indie-rock scene – and with performances like they give, they’re well on their way to true stardom.
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