XOYO, London, 12th October 2011
Opening for We Were Promised Jetpacks at London’s sold-out XOYO Wednesday night were Let’s Buy Happiness, a promising Tyneside quartet with energy and charm in equal measure.
Fronted by the ever-humble Sarah Hall, blessed with vocals of room-silencing power and gentle delicacy, Let’s Buy Happiness proceeded to kick things off with a sign of things to come; loud, energetic and damn good fun.
We Were Promised Jetpacks, another of Fat Cat Records’ imaginatively titled next-best-things, took to the stage at 10pm on the dot. The band greeted an excitable crowd, opening with ‘Circles and Squares’, a storming track from the band’s new album ‘In The Pit of the Stomach’.
One thing to note of this Edinburgh quartet is that they perform with every inch of their bodies, particularly lead singer Adam Thompson who was sweating profusely after just two songs. Projecting his incredibly powerful voice, 3 or 4 feet from the mic’ at times, Thompson wowed the crowd with several favourites from debut album ‘These Four Walls.’
‘Quiet Little Voices’, ‘It’s Thunder & Lightning’ and ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves’ all went down excellently with a crowd that clearly hadn’t just wandered in out of curiosity. With such a well-versed crowd inside the Shoreditch’s XOYO, the gig felt special and we felt privileged.
New album material was popular, but more importantly it fitted in seamlessly with tracks from the debut, proving that the band have maintained a stylistic consistency across both of their long-players.
There’s something about WWPJ that make them captivating on stage. Whether it’s their blend of gentle, contemplative intros and furiously visceral choruses or just their sheer energy, they’re ones to watch and will no doubt carve out a formidable live show reputation.
