O2 Academy, BournemouthThe three-time Mercury prize nominees seemed stunned by the deafening reception at their first non-socially distanced show in two years
From the second you walk into Bournemouth’s O2 Academy, it’s clear that gigs are not as they once were. An hour before Wolf Alice are due to take the stage for their first full, non-socially distanced live show in nearly two years, the atmosphere already feels more like an evening’s sweaty climax. People are cheering everything, including the roadie who comes on stage to say “one-two-one-two” into the microphones and the
music playing through the PA: each song is greeted by a bellow of enthusiasm and a mass singalong.
Under the circumstances, you get the feeling that Wolf Alice could come on stage and read out Stalin’s speech to the 1939 Soviet Communist party
Congress – in the original
Russian – and still get a reaction like the Beatles got at Shea Stadium. Instead, they play a set heavy on songs from their new album: over half of Blue Weekend – nominated, like every album Wolf Alice have thus far released, for the Mercury prize – gets an airing.