★★★★★
Black Country, New Road dazzled and delighted at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, which marked their biggest London headline show to-date.As the other five members of Black Country, New Road steeled themselves for the final number of the night, Tyler Hyde turned to address the audience: “It’s nice to be home again. It’s nice to see all your faces”. The event certainly felt like a homecoming. Although originally from Cambridge, the past five years has seen London become the band’s spiritual home, having cut their teeth as part of Brixton’s “Windmill scene”. Bush Hall – a stone’s throw from last night’s performance at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire – was chosen for the band’s latest release, a live album and accompanying concert film that crystallised their 2022 setlist: nine songs written after the departure of frontman Isaac Wood. Eight of those nine formed the bones of last night’s set; this, alongside the physical proximity to Bush Hall invites comparisons between the performances. Despite the Empire’s grandiose setting however (it’s their biggest London headline show to date), the mood was somehow intimate, familial even. Instead of a formal support act, BCNR’s May Kershaw entered the stage with little fanfare to introduce Kinu Trio, a folk-tinged chamber group formed of herself on piano, Gwyneth Nelmes on violin and Cara Doyle on clarinet. Only when she thanked her page-turner “Georgia” at the end of their set did it become obvious her bandmate Georgia Ellery had been silently onstage the entire time.
Photo: Paul Hudson
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His endearing demeanour matched the sincerity in his delivery (“Please call me Lewis and protect me from the wounds I’ve gone through”), before finishing the song by introducing each furiously jamming band member, as if the home crowd weren’t already familiar with their names. The ‘50s-crooner-esque shtick might well have been playful theatrics (it’s what the band is known for after all), but there was nothing feigned about his affection for each one. Older material that could have gone stale was instead lovingly well-worn, the performers relishing and reworking each song’s contours like jazz players over a standard. Hyde’s opening to ‘I Won’t Always Love You’ was transformed into a flamenco-style guitar solo; on fan-favourite ‘Turbines / Pigs’, Kershaw and Ellery found room for joyful excursions even as they retreaded old ground. Propelling the latter to its crescendo, Charlie Wayne became so engrossed in his virtuosic drumming, his snare drum was knocked to the ground.
As the crowd relented from the unanimous standing-ovation, the moment felt significant. When BCNR announced after Wood’s exit they would be retiring their previous work from their live shows, the odds always felt stacked against them. Between the looming tour dates and a following built upon two albums that could not be performed, it seemed inevitable that their rising star would be cut short. And yet ten months after the Bush Hall recordings, those songs that were once hastily put together were now being rapturously applauded by an audience even more adoring than before. “There will be more next time, don’t worry”, Hyde promised as she brought an end to the proceedings. If last night’s performance was a victory lap, it was a deserved one.View this post on Instagram
