More than a decade after their stunning live performance at Amsterdam’s London Calling festival just weeks after the release of their eponymous debut album, Brighton’s Royal Blood visited Barcelona’s Razzmatazz to perform the album that catapulted them to fame in its entirety.
Mike Kerr of Royal Blood, Sala Razzmatazz Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo©
The opening act was Madrid’s Sexy Zebras, who we saw at the L’H Spring Festival just over two months ago. Unfortunately, in a situation that is becoming increasingly common, leaving home an hour and a quarter before the concert for a journey of just over 30 minutes was not enough due to the delays that accumulated in the suburban trains and metro, so we arrived at the door of Razzmatazz barely five minutes before the start of the Royal Blood concert, including our photographer Victor Ramos’ race to get to the pit…
Mike Kerr of Royal Blood, Sala Razzmatazz Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo©
On a stage with incredible lighting, the British duo began the setlist by playing their eponymous debut album in strict order, giving a spectacular first few minutes with ‘Out of the Black‘, ‘Come on Over‘, ‘Figure It Out‘ and ‘You Can Be So Cruel‘, songs that got the crowd doing some mosh pits. After this first part, in which even Ben Thatcher dared to play the drums with some rhythms more typical of funk than rock, the concert turned into a more stoner part with “Blood Hands“, “Little Monster” and “Loose Change“, delivering an overwhelming 35 minutes in which the heat of Razzmatazz in July began to be felt…
Ben Thatcher of Royal Blood, Sala Razzmatazz Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo©
The first moment of rest would come with “Careless“, where Mike Kerr had to restart the track to tune his bass, and then close the album with my favourite track of the album “Ten Tonne Skeleton” and “Better Strangers“.. From this point on, the concert would become a greatest hits of the rest of their albums, with a surprisingly large part of their album recorded in the middle of the pandemic Typhoons (2021), with songs like ‘Boilermaker‘ and ‘Trouble’s Coming‘, which would allow the duo to become a trio for a good part of the second half, with the presence of Darren James, who would play keyboards and backing vocals from a discreet background.
Mike Kerr of Royal Blood, Sala Razzmatazz Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo©
Perhaps this more electronic approach, along with the mid-tempo incursion of ‘Pull Me Through‘, meant that the second half of the show lost some of its power. Only the flashes of the final ‘Mountains at Midnight‘ and the great ‘Lights Out‘ lifted the spirits of an audience grateful for those little rock pills. In the encores, the British band once again showed their characteristic power, starting with the rarity that is ‘Hole‘, the B-side of the Out of the Black EP, which they have been rediscovering in their live shows over the last few years. “Limbo” and those Daft Punk touches sent the room into a frenzy, although I personally don’t understand the frenzy for a song that seems minor to me, while the definitive end came in style with “How Did We Get So Dark?“, a song that clearly shows all the virtues of the British duo live.
Ben Thatcher of Royal Blood, Sala Razzmatazz Barcelona 2024 – Photo by Víctor Ramos Santafé for Indieofilo©
When the band burst onto the scene in late 2013, many saw them as the saviours of rock and the next band to carry the flag for the style. As with The Darkness before or Greta Van Vleet after, comparisons about future totems of a style are always huge, but the truth is that 10 years later, in Barcelona, Royal Blood showed why we can talk about them as one of the bands with a fairly coherent discography and a remarkable live performance, in which the rapport between its members and a simple and powerful sound stand out.
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