Demob Happy Blow the Ears off the Nottingham Bodega – Live Review
The Nottingham Bodega is a compact “I saw them here first” venue. It’s also the perfect stepping stone to the larger Rescue Rooms and Rock City sister venues. And that’s the first thing that strikes you, Newcastle/Brighton band Demob Happy deserve to be playing the bigger gigs.
Drummer Tom Armstrong takes on MC duties, unleashing the proceedings with ‘Voodoo Science‘. The crowd instinctively erupts as the Bodega’s foundations are rocked to its core. And that bass, it’s soo substantial. Its meatiness will leave your ears ringing with joy for months. It’s also clear that Demob Happy are way heavier live than they are on record.
Demob Happy display shades of Kings of Leon meets Wolfmother with their earlier material. And with their latest album ‘Divine Machines‘ it’s like a Queens of the Stone Age, Gary Numan, Paul McCartney love soup. This never more evident than on the excellent ‘Token Appreciation Society‘ where they are backed by the brilliantly named ‘Shemob Happy‘.
Shemob Happy
Singer-bassist Matthew Marcantonio is a commanding presence. Owning the stage like a heroin Jesus, with the audience his disciples of rock. And there’s very few people who can wear the shit out of a string vest. The band are positively joyful at this point, as Shemob Happy bop around like the Robert Palmer appreciation society.
Filled to the brim with 60’s psychedelia, ‘Super-Fluid‘ is ‘Spirit in the Sky’ with lashings of Black Sabbath. Throughout, guitarist Adam Godfrey unleashes the heaviest, dirtiest rock n’ roll ever played on a Fender Telecaster.
There’s further Beetles on display on ‘She’s As Happy As A Man Can Be’. The band then wrap up their electrifying set with ‘Be Your Man‘, which was undoubtably the tune of the night. As with many of Demob Happy’s songs there’s a live energy that improves on the already excellent album versions, like they’ve grown eight new legs and crawled into your brain.
Playing it cool with no encore based malarky, the band stuck around at the merch table to meet the fans. As merch is now one of the few ways bands can make money, it was great to see them overwhelmed. #BuyMoreMerch
Catch Demob Happy at an intimate whilst you still can, the bigger venues are calling.
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