Olympia Theatre, Dublin
THOSE MISGUIDED souls that say guitar-based music is dead should have been at this gig last Friday: a sold-out venue, rammed solid from pit to rafters with teens, 20-somethings and older folk, all of whom were mouthing the words to virtually every song, and jumping up and down like punk rock had never gone out of fashion. It's called working up a sweat, and if Bangor's Two Door Cinema Club – recent winners, with Tourist History, of the Choice Music Prize for Best Album of 2010 – can lay claim to anything in 2011 it's that perspiring for (and because of) your art is a noble achievement.
That this gig (the first of two sold-out shows at the venue) was unadulterated pleasure and utter triumph is, naturally, down to the music. But something else was afoot here; the world is awash with indie kids such as TDCC’s Alex Trimble, Sam Halliday and Kevin Baird. They look like a myriad of other such Topshop bands: Ivy League preppy, skinny jeans, tight shirts, hair just-so, and the music they play isn’t too far off the blueprint of what goes down most weekend nights at your indie disco.
Of course, "too far off" indicates the differences between generic and genius, and it is these very differences that form the several unique selling points of TDCC. Not for nothing was Tourist History named album of 2010 by Nylonmagazine (edging out the likes of Arcade Fire, Kanye West and Vampire Weekend); not for nothing has Tourist History sold over 100,000 copies in the UK alone.
These impressive statistics would count for little if the music was dressed-up old tat, but it is nothing of the sort. Do You Want It All?is buoyed by thrillingly optimistic opening guitar chords and the kind of lyrics that speak so well to the band's youthful fanbase ("We're low in our hearts, we're low in our heads, but all in good time, we'll take charge"). This Is The Lifecracks open a sonic bottle of bubbly with such ferocity that you'd swear it sprays the roof, while indie-pop nuggets such as What You Knowand Come Back Homebalance old-school melody lines and new-fangled angularity in such a clever way that the audience has little choice but to go bonkers.
Fifty minutes pass by like 10. Guitar music is alive and – Biff! Bam! Pow! – kicking very hard, indeed.
