Bombay Bicycle Club – 10th February 2014 (Melkweg – Amsterdam)

The Max room of Melkweg in Amsterdam hung sold out days ago for the British Bombay Bicycle Club, who came to the Dutch capital as the second stop of their European tour to promote their new album So Long, See You Tomorrow, that this week has just come to number 1 in sales in UK.

Responsible for opening the evening were also English The Ramona Flowers, that beyond its nod to the star of Scott Pilgrim comics, offered not so much regarding music. Preventing excessive volume distinguish the instruments, let alone the singer’s voice was constant throughout the 30 minutes performance. Without a defined style that moves between light-rock bands like Nickelback or a bad version of Foo Fighters to some inroads with more powerful synthesizers reminiscent of bands like The Bravery and The Kills, the show highlighted only the interpretation of their two most famous songs, Lust and Lies and Brighter, in which the volume of choruses made ​by the crowd contributed  that all sounded a little better.

At 21:00, in the presence of a packed hall mostly by young people between 16 and 25 years old, the headliner came out onstage under chords entrance theme just opened its new LP. As a block, they began with Overdone and It’s Alright now, shown their evolution towards more own oriental sounds from places like India or Turkey, but without losing the beautiful sound complexity flaunted in previous work, as could be observed moments after  when we listened one of their biggest hits from their penultimate album, Suffle. Come To showcased its commitment in the new work by the incursion of female voices in choirs, moments before the madness came to the room for about 10 minutes to play consecutive successes Your Eyes and How Can You Swallow So much Sleep, in which the audience sang the chorus to exhaustion, to the delight of singer Jack Steadman.

In a nod to older fans, the band chose to sang Lamplight and Evening/Morning from their first work I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose, sounding much more powerful than those in the physical version thanks to some wrenching distortions on bass guitar and, at times, they got the show look like a hard-rock concert. Home by Now relaxed the mood just before the leader of the band stand in the front of a small drum kit that consists of bass drum and snare that was introduced with regard to the interpretation of Feel, that carried us with his blistering pace to the streets of Bombay or New Delhi and certified that it is probably the puncher song from the new album. As if they were on a game, the band returned to choose to relax the atmosphere with sensual Lights Out, Words Gone, followed by Eyes Off You, which again highlighted the warm voice of Jack simply accompanied by a piano in the initial phase of the song.

After an inevitable joke with references to Shakira, it was time to play what is probably the song with more pronounced beats and more definite electronic bases of their new album, “Whenever, Wherever“, that supposed a magnificent prequel for the most perfect song of it, the precious “Moon“, that with its sound richness and voice plays was even more hypnotic than in the LP, receiving the group at the end of the song the loudest applause of the night. It was curious to note how the crowd chanted in unison the chorus of a track as old as “Always Like This“, which also served to the personal brilliance of bassist Ed Nash, while the drummer would be the protagonist in an accelerated version of “What If”. Closer to the end, “Carry Me” was the confirmation of the almost perfect sound that had accompanied them throughout the concert, as well as being the first track in which the guitar Jamie MacColl took a step forward for a small individual recognition, to moments after closed the concert with the interpretation a a encore of the decaffeinated “So Long, See You Tomorrow“, song  with less weight of their last album. Despite this strange end, there is no doubt that the band has taken a step forward in all aspects, sounding better than the last time we saw them at Spanish Festival FIB 2012, and postulating them as one of the bands of this 2014 that has started 1 month ago, in addition to becoming a fundamental piece in the lineups of most of the festivals during this summer, but this time with a big letters that make them grow up to bigger scenarios and stellar schedules.