Review by Debbie Gough, photos by Russ Tierney
After spending just over a week of melting teens’ faces off around England and running security guards into an early grave (or at least retirement), Marmozets couldn’t have picked a better city than Birmingham to wave goodbye to their UK headlining tour. Accompanied by Thought Forms and Steak Number Eight, the Northern band that can only be described as the product of a love affair between Halestorm and Huntress take to the stage for the final time to show the Brummies what The Weird and Wonderful really is.
First to call for a response from Birmingham’s side fringed youths are Thought Forms, a band which perhaps are not suited to a crowd pulled by Marmozets seeing as the majority of the audience are either picking their nose or uploading a new selfie to twitter while they play. Unfortunately, Thought Forms fail to warm up the waiting Brummies with their possibly too tranquil vocals and looped riffs, which is a real shame seeing as the band show evident originality.
In an attempt to wake up the girl asleep at the barrier next to me, Steak Number Eight turn their amps up to 10 and run around the stage for a bit before realising that the crowd simply aren’t satisfied with any other band than Marmozets. The first band were too lethargic and now it would appear that the second are too mental. What does Birmingham actually want? Well from the response frontman, Brent Vanneste, got from jumping into the crowd, whacking several young girls on the snotbox while doing so, it would appear that a circle pit is definitely not on the wish-list right now, sorry guys.
Marmozets take to the stage and command the screams of every teen and even the middle aged guys in the room instantly with the opening of ‘Move Shake Hide’. The smoke cannons, meanwhile, abolish any chance of the sea of smartphones capturing a decent photo of Becca Macintyre and her gang prancing on stage in their new Dr Martens to upload to Instagram. What a few moments ago was a graveyard is now a jungle of fists flying through the air; Becca jumps around so much that she forgets where the end of the stage is and nearly topples off onto an unimpressed security guard handing water to the Brummies, who are now definitely awake, during ‘Love You Good’. Is this normal Northern behaviour? Well if it is, I’m catching the first tractor t’Marmozet’s hometown, Bingley in West Yorkshire, for more.
‘Captivate You’, the passionate song of heart break which every band has to have nowadays, should ideally be a perfect lighter moment but it would seem that the band would rather set themselves on fire than be so cheesy and instead let the crowd sing for a bit; this may not have been the best of ideas seeing as most of the mob sound as if they are up Broad Street not at The Institute during this Saturday night.
The band’s 2014 album, The Weird And Wonderful, showcases Becca’s never ending vocal range perfectly as she replicates the gnarliest of growls followed by angelic lines, defying the ideology that every female-fronted group is a clone of Paramore. Marmozets are unmistakably a band who have perfected their skill as all 12 of the night’s numbers are performed with complete accuracy and an incredibly pronounced tone. The only fault of the night is that the band leave the crowd in a confusion without an encore but this only produces hope that they will be returning soon after their run of the US for more aggressive moving, shaking and hiding.
Setlist:
1. Move, Shake, Hide
2. Is It Horrible
3. Weird and Wonderful
4. Love You Good
5. Captivate You
6. Broken Reflection
7. Particle
8. Hit the Wave
9. Born Young and Free
10. Vibetech
11. Back to You
12. Why Do You Hate Me?
