Submotion Orchestra / LV feat. Joshua Idehen [Live Review – Concorde 2, Brighton, 15/11/14]
If you love diversity, Brighton (aka Camden-on-Sea) is damn near perfect. Its top alternative music venue, the Concorde 2 – situated next door to the beach – hosted batshit crazy prog-metal mentalists SikTh on a school night last week. Now, just a few days later, a mixed-bag crowd of dub lovers are filing in to spend Saturday night the right way – enjoying music that moves the hips as much as the head.
LV feat. Joshua Idehen get things off to a banging start, keeping a steadily swelling crowd entranced and entertained with a fun mix of heavy bass, abstract rhythms, and wicked lyrics. Although a too-dry vocal threatens to suck the life out of Idehen’s words, it ultimately fails thanks to the frontman’s full-frontal passion. By the time Idehen and LV leave the stage, the amount of applause suggests that they’ve won a fair few fans over this evening.
Submotion Orchestra are on a high right now. The night before this show was the biggest of their lives, performing a headlining set at the Forum in London. Now, they’re set on enrapturing another room, taking us through a series of top-drawer tunes fresh from the currently unreleased Alium (reviewed here) before launching into It’s Not Me, It’s You. The hypersyncopated banger is greeted by a warmly cooking audience who cheer for Thousand Yard Stare‘s one-two punch to the familiars, new tune Worries‘ Portishead atmospherics, and a host of heavenly bass riffs, beats, and lyrical lines that sweep all present away before All Yours closes the night via a venue-wide singalong.
When people start to turn and leave, I’m struck by their faces. After SikTh finished here, their fans looked battered; Submotion Orchestra’s followers, however, have tears in their eyes more often than not. The guys tug at sweat-soaked shirts while the women stare into smartphone mirrors, repairing the damage to their makeup. As for me, I’m still getting my breath back as I write this. I can safely say that this was one of the best shows I’ve seen in 2014.
Links
Submotion Orchestra official website.