I had the pleasure of seeing British duo, Royal Blood this week at Margaret Court Arena and it was awesome. I didn’t know a whole lot about them except for the two facts mentioned in the opening sentence. They’re British and there’s two of them.
I’m always a little wary of two pieces as they never seem to have enough to truly fill out the sound Live but Royal Blood were a welcome exception. Between charismatic frontman, Mike Kerr’s fuzzy as-all-get-out Bass guitar (he deftly uses keyboards & synths to great effect, too) and drummer Ben Thatcher’s thumping rhythms they’re an act who have developed a sound all their own. The closest comparison I could draw would be ‘Era Vulgaris’ era Queens of the Stone Age mixed with Arctic Monkeys at their very ‘AM’est. This unique sound has helped them to enormous popularity here in Australia, with the notoriously bereft of atmosphere, Margaret Court Arena positively throbbing throughout. I was sitting near a bunch of extremely enthusiastic 10 to 12-year-olds, banging their heads in time while the dancefloor fell into a classic circle pit on more than one occasion… Classic.
Check ’em out and have a good weekend!