Live Review: Catfish & The Bottlemen

Welsh rockers Catfish & The Bottlemen brought their rousing indie-rock anthems to the Hordern Pavilion, having performed over the weekend at Splendour In The Grass. Opening their set with Longshot, the lead single from their latest album The Balance, it was clear that the band had decided to stick to the staple Brit-rock sound of their first two albums. That decision seemed to pay off as the crowd began to sing along to the lyrics like a backing choir, albeit an enthusiastically rowdy backing choir.

Lead singer Van McCann had an incredible energy throughout the performance, lighting up the stage almost as much as the neon toucan emblazoned behind him (the fun new motif for the band’s newest album). Fan favourite Kathleen was the second song off the bat, sending half the Pavilion into a boisterous frenzy. What followed was a well-orchestrated, 50/50 split of well-loved tracks from their debut album The Balcony, including Fallout, Homesick and Cocoon, and hits from 2016’s The Ride, with Soundcheck and Outside being particular crowd favourites. The enthusiastic response to 7 was wonderful, with the whole crowd jumping and singing along with such fervour that McCann was able to throw the task of singing to the crowd during the chorus. 

Catfish & The Bottlemen @ Hordern Pavilion. Photo by Angela Padovan.

The band also dabbled in a few of their newer songs including Conversation and Fluctuate, which were received warmly by the crowd. It was interesting how similar some of the newer tracks sounded to songs from The Balcony despite the five years in between. The band have undoubtedly found a winning formula in their anthemic indie-rock sound, with the crowd lapping up the entire setlist, however a little variation in their music probably wouldn’t go astray, and judging by some of the impressive guitar riffs and creative drum loops featured during the night there is potential for something a little less rigid.

The band ended the night on a high with the song Tyrants, an explosive finish that included numerous brave but very short-sighted attempts at crowdsurfing by audience members, obviously spurred on by the energetic rumbles of a band that are only going to get bigger and better at what they do.