Black Honey’s Izzy Baxter Phillips’ call of “let’s have a good time!” was loudly answered by an audience that stretched all the way to the merch tables and cloakrooms – there was barely space for dancing, but that didn’t stop the crowd.
Opening their set with charged ‘To The Grave’, Izzy twirled on stage with a black feather boa before throwing it to the crowd, her excited grin a sign of how animated this show was about to be.
Fucking capitalism, sometimes it’s fine if you just want to sit in your pants and smoke weed
With spontaneous vocal runs during ‘I Like the Way You Die’, bassist Tommy Taylor playing notes you can feel in your stomach while vibing with drummer Alex Woodward’s crisp snare beats during ‘Soak’, and Chris Ostler’s flawless solos, most noticeably in ‘Vampire in the Kitchen’, which they playfully round up with the first few bars of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, the band played impeccably and the sound production was on top form.
Thanks to enigmatic support act Girl Group and their distinctive feminist rage rock and choregraphed dance routines, bringing the vibe of dancing in your bedroom with your mates but instead on stage, the audience are limbered up enough to begin opening up a pit and instead create a wall of death all the way to the back of the venue for Black Honey’s ‘Heavy’.
We’ve travelled round the sun, played huge venues, and we’ve come back round to this venue and we get to relive this with you
Black Honey barely left any room to rest, running off their high energy while the crowd wave flamingo and ring pool inflatables to ‘Psycho’, the crowd jumping so much it was impossible to tell where the mosh pit began and ended. With a final dedication of ‘Corinne’ to everyone who had “been with us since day fucking one”, Izzy launched herself into a crowd surf before singing in the centre of a protective circle pit.
If you haven’t experienced Black Honey’s electric stage presence or smooth sound, then fill your tastebuds asap.
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