Just three months after visiting the Netherlands at the Best Kept Secret Festival 2015, The Vaccines returned this time to Amsterdam Concert Hall Melkweg to present finally in a concert hall their third studio album, English Graffiti, having also the support of one of the recent British indie sensations, Kid Wave, as supporting band.
London's band was responsible for opening the night to defend their second album Wonderlust, which has been welcomed in the islands. For a little over 30 minutes, Lea Emmery's band offered a show focused mainly on this LP, with a few exceptions in the setlist as "Gloom" or "All I Want". Their concert was somewhat disappointing for the excessive volume of Serra Petale on the choirs the lack of energy and little connexion with the public that was at the room, looking like a watered version and meaningless between Lush and The Breeders. Only those times when distortions in the guitars were the protagonists and the end with the great song that gives title to the album, "Wonderlust", were escaped from the carnage.
After a too long period of waiting (about 45 minutes), the stars of the evening appeared on stage as a cyclone chaining in just over 10 minutes five great songs like "Handsome", "Wreckin Bar (Ra Ra Ra)", "Ghost Town", "Dream Lover" and "Wetsuit". After a short slowdown caused by songs that show the most docile side of the band, that in who they try to approach album after album to the worse The Strokes playing "Minimal Affection", "Tiger Blood" or "Bad Mood", the public soon vibrated again as soon as the guitars of Freddie Cowan and Pete Robertson's drums gained special prominence.
In a journey throughout their discography we could enjoy hits like "Post Break-Up Sex", the new "Give Me a Sign" or "Teenage Icon", which served as great warm-up for an apotheosis on the last 10 minutes in which more than half of the room jumped and danced to accelerated versions of "20/20", "I Always Knew", "If You Wanna" or "All In White". At the insistence of the public, Justin Young was the one who offered his calmer face with an acoustic solo cover of "No Hope", that besides serving to his personal brilliance, also helped the audience to take a breath before ending the concert with the hyper "Radio Bikini" and "Nørgaard".
So, one of six and half dozen of the other on a night that had The Vaccines as clear winners, showing that when their live turns to their more rocker alter ego , the show becomes an experience worth to enjoy that show after show gets closer to those crazy and funny shows that Swedish The Hives use to made years ago..
