Royal Blood - O2 City Hall, Newcastle 21.06.2023

In between opening for Muse at various stadiums and headlining the odd festival here and there and a Glasto slot Royal Blood chucked in two smaller venue shows at Nottingham Rock City and here at the O2 City Hall Newcastle.

Delving right back the duo kick off with the groove driven 'Hole' straight into 'Come On Over' sending the already bouncing crowd into a frenzy! The set is mainly taken from their debut album and their third album 'Typhoons' with only 'Lights Out' and the title track from 'How Did We Get So Dark' and one song ('Mountains at Midnight') from their forthcoming album 'Back To The Water Below' due to be released later this year and it sounds great with the trademark fuzzed out riffs and catchy hooks all held together by Bens solid drumming.

The day of the show was sweltering to begin with but once the crowd got moving to the likes of 'You Can Be So Cruel' and 'Troubles Coming' the place was like a sauna. The security were handing out water like it was going out of fashion BUT the move to hand out flavoured ice pops was a stroke of genius! The crew had their work cut out for them as although there’s primarily only Mike and Ben on stage their lighting rig was enormous (for the current stadium shows I guess) It was like that front cover of the Queen live album and when full on was threatening to take retinas out at forty paces! And although this added to the heat it looked fantastic during 'Boilermaker', 'Limbo', 'Ten Tonne Skeleton' etc.

For a duo they make such a huge sound and are as tight as anything I’ve seen, Mikes lead bass providing massive riffs and Ben just smashing it behind the kit having the time of their lives. Of course it’s 'Little Monster' and set closer 'Figure It Out' that get the pits going even stronger there’s shirts and shoes flying about and I’m not sure where they’re getting the energy from! Time for a breather though with first encore with Mike at the piano for 'All We Have Is Now' a lovely atmospheric ballad almost Lennon ish in feel. The extended staccato drum intro of 'Out of the Black' once again gets fists pumping and voices roaring and leaving Mike and Ben on stage with huge grins and no questions needed as Newcastle certainly knew who they were!

Royal Blood - https://www.facebook.com/RoyalBloodUK

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