Bastille @ Cliffs Pavillion, Southend

Gig: Bastille

Support: Clean Bandit + Rag N Bone Man

Date: Monday 4th November

RAG N BONE MAN

As soon as Rag N Bone Man walked on stage everyone assumed he was a rapper. But to everyone's surprise including mine, wow, he is ah-may-zeng. CHECK HIM OUT! Soulful and powerful, his voice was distinctive making it hard to believe that this voice was coming from the man stood in front of me. A brilliant artist from start to finish.

CLEAN BANDIT

To me, Clean Bandit were a familiar band. I had heard them before on Radio 1 and quite liked their way of mixing together two genres of music - classical and dance. Mozart's House was the first song I had ever listened to by them and I've loved it ever since. Now don't get me wrong, the band were brilliant, but I didn't feel that they suited the tour.. Compared to Bastille, Clean Bandit would be considered a dance artist, they were expecting the crowd to jump around and even though some were, the venue was filled with 12 year old girls waiting to scream at Dan Smith so the atmosphere wasn't as great as it could have been. Clean Bandit have also supported Disclosure on their tour, this is the perfect tour for they are both similar artists.

The tour was a great way to get them noticed and increase their popularity as they are an excellent band but to me, it just didn't fit in with the whole mysterious mood Bastille create. However, I'm sure Clean Bandit will play across many air waves soon enough as their sound is VERY distinctive.

BASTILLE

After seeing Jake Bugg, Miles Kane and Arctic Monkeys earlier this year, I was sceptical about this gig. I hadn't really been 'hyped' about Bastille for a few months because I was SO excited to see my favourite artists earlier on. 

However, I underestimated them for sure. From start to finish, I loved every second! The songs were brilliant, the atmosphere was incredible and I just couldn't believe how much I had disregarded them as a live artist - I'm even slightly ashamed of myself for doing so.


The band played their debut album Bad Blood and also leaked some new songs from their upcoming album.

If you've been a fan of the 'new' Arctic Monkeys sound and the recent increase in heavy rock n roll influences on many other songs, then you'll love Bastille's new album! They have also been pulled towards the rock n roll way of life. One of the songs called Campus sounded really reallllly good, and I can assure that it's going to be a good album.

For those of you who don't know Bastille that well, before their Number 1 album Bad Blood, there were two albums called Other People's Heartache and Other People's Heartache Part 2. These albums were combinations of their songs and other artist's songs. On the tour, they performed Of The Night, which has now been released as a single. This is a remix of the hugely popular dance song Rhythm Is A Dancer.

Overall, I underestimated Bastille and I am soooo glad I have been able to see them live as they are a pretty decent live artist. (In the words of The Strypes, you can't judge a book by the cover.)