LOWER THAN ATLANTIS – Fibbers, York 13.05.2018
After touring some pretty big venues last year on the back of the release of their fifth studio album ‘Safe In Sound’ LOWER THAN ATLANTIS have embarked on a 2018 tour of smaller more intimate venues including the iconic York venue Fibbers. I was there to see them, but before I tell you about that let me give you the low down on the support acts.
First up was The Faim all the way from Perth in Australia. These Aussie Pop Punkers have a hint of Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco in their sound, only with significantly bigger cojones. They have some hellishly classy songs, particularly “Make Believe”. Singer Josh Raven produces soaring, soulful and supremely powerful vocals. I must give a special mention to drummer Sean Tighe who drums with the power of a 100 megaton bomb, he is a combination of Animal from the Muppets and Keith Moon. This band will go places!
The penultimate band was Blackpool’s finest Punks Boston Manor. Not only are this lot very Punk they are also very passionate about what they do. They exhibit a frenetic energy that never seems to let up. Their songs hit you with the force of an overloaded runaway freight train. I believe that they are cut from the same cloth as 70s Punks Sham 69. Ash, Dan, Henry, Jordan and Mike are what Punk is all about!
I think that for many bands following The Faim and Boston Manor would be a very tough gig. But not for LOWER THAN ATLANTIS, to paraphrase Funkmeister George Clinton this band blew the roof of the mother, sucker!
Right from the opening songs “Had Enough” and “Dumb” which also kicked off the ‘Safe In Sound’ album this crowd would have done anything the band asked. The light show was sensational for such a small venue, the capacity is circa 500. Mike Duce is a consummate front man who totally understands his audience. He ventured into the crowd a few times. Firstly for “Far Q” where he encouraged an already excited crowd to run manically around him. Then armed with just his acoustic guitar he did it again for what he called a Kumbaya moment with a delicate and haunting rendition of “Another Sad Song”. He had the whole crowd sit down campfire style and performed with no amplification at all. Later he crowd surfed during the encore. There was plenty of crowd surfing from the audience and some full on mosh circle action.
As the crowd spontaneously rolled out the “Yorkshire, Yorkshire” chant Duce told an amusing anecdote about the first time he heard a crowd do that. He thought the audience were chanting “You’re shit, you’re shit” so he left the stage somewhat angry only to be told by the security guy that this was a Yorkshire thing. He promptly returned to the stage to apologise. No such mistake at Fibbers though LOWER THAN ATLANTIS loved this crowd and the crowd loved them.
Credit is due to all the bands on the bill and all the staff at the venue because the heat was horrendous given that the Fibbers air conditioning wasn’t working. It certainly never dulled the sonic assault that LOWER THAN ATLANTIS gave us. They closed the set with potential tearjerker “Words Don't Come So Easily” from their eponymously titled fourth album before returning for an encore. That encore was a two song couplet of full on Pop Punk power with uber earworm “English Kids In America” and full on Rock tour de force “Here We Go”, their highest charting UK single from 2014.
So LOWER THAN ATLANTIS? Really? If they are that low then surely they are generating the heat that keeps the earth’s core at molten temperatures. Mike, Eddy, Ben and Dec make up one of the UK’s finest bands!
LOWER THAN ATLANTIS - https://www.facebook.com/lowerthanatlantis/
Boston Manor - https://www.facebook.com/bostonmanoruk/
The Faim - https://www.facebook.com/TheFaim/
Review - Bill Adamson
