All Words And Pictures by Henry Groves
On the back end of their UK tour, supporting the release of their latest EP ‘Wake Up and It’s Over’, Lovejoy were playing in their hometown Brighton and the infamous Brighton Dome. For a band with only EPs to date, playing a sold out Brighton Dome is nothing short of extraordinary, and queues were forming well before the doors opened. Supports for the night came from Amsterdam based indie rock outfit Loupe and Toronto-based Good Kid. Even as early as 19:30 when Loupe came on, the crowd were already in full flow, having filled out the majority of the standing area of the Dome already, and it only got busier, and louder. This was one of the liveliest I have seen a crowd for support bands in a long time, due to a mixture of the sheer excitement of the crowd for Lovejoy, as well as the opening bands performing excellent sets.
Good Kid – Pics: Henry Groves Photography. (All Rights Reserved)
Loupe – Pics: Henry Groves Photography. (All Rights Reserved)
As an already packed Brighton Dome somehow became even busier, it was time for Lovejoy, and as soon as the band appeared the crowd roared. The energy did not dip for the remainder of the set, with Lovejoy opening with ‘Perfume’ at times it was difficult to hear frontman Wilbur Soot over the crowd singing along. As they performed a set of songs from each of their 3 EPs and even performing ‘It’s all Futile! It’s all Pointless!’, one of Wilbur Soot’s solo tracks, the crowd continued to dance and sing to every song. At one point the band tried to teach the crowd a chorus, but before they could go through it, half the crowd were already singing it back. As a hometown show, there were clearly a lot of big Lovejoy fans in the audience (including Willbur Soot’s Mum, who he apologised to during the set for his lyric in ‘Model Buses’ about her knowing nothing).
As they walked off, before they even left the stage there were chants of ‘one more song’ before the stomping from the crowd turned into ‘We Will Rock You’. “I couldn’t get Freddy tonight”, Soot joked as he returned to stage. Their encore comprising of ‘Concrete’, ‘Portrait of a Blank State’ and ‘The Fall’ finished the set, before the still jubilant crowd made their way out of the venue.
