Blossoms
NME Awards Tour
Olympia, Liverpool

Its been pretty much non stop over the two years for Stockport’s Indie-pop saviours, Blossoms. With their debut album not only hitting number one, but staying there for a second week in August, the shows have been getting bigger and bigger with a few stadium support slots on the way, along the likes of The Stone Roses.

The band start 2017 as they mean to go one, and tonight, in front of their biggest Liverpool crowd at a sold out Olympia, they prove they have what it takes to stay at the top.

Tonight on the NME Awards tour, they are joined by Manchester’s grim-up-north upstarts, with lead vocalists, Lee Broadbent nursing a fractured, pubic rami, suffered just a week before the tour started. Occasionally sitting on a chair swigging from a bottle, it is 30 minutes of frantic, anything can happen post-punk meets Brexit Britain. New track ‘Necroflat in the Palace’, features one of my favourite Cabbage lyric: I was born in the NHS/I wanna die in the NHS. They provided alot of energy to get their fans in the middle of the crowd jumping around and no doubt turned a few people round by the end of their set.

After the crowd have a quick singalong to some of the indie classics, the band emerge to Kanye West’s Black Skinhead and the place erupts. Tonight belongs to the smartly dressed headliners, and with the drum kit and a range of keyboards upon risers, it is clear the band light and stage set up show they mean business.

From the first track, ‘At Most A Kiss’, the crowd burst into a sea of movement, the album tracks sound great live, if not better as the music fills the vast venue. With 8 of the 12 tracks released as singles, it is clear that the majority of the crowd know the lyrics instinctively, with track ‘The Getaway’ especially needing no introduction, fan sing the words unaccompanied.

Being the closest city to their hometown, they mix things up towards the end of their set, with frontman Tom Ogden playing on an acoustic guitar alongside the father of Blossoms Guitarist Josh Dewhurst for ‘My Favourite Room’, dedicating the song to fan Ellie in the stalls who had been dumped (by Tim, queue the booing), adding on a little bit of The Beatles and Oasis on at the end for good measure.

Blossoms triumph in Liverpool with a faultless show, no doubt due to the time they have spent on the road, honing their craft. It is always a good sign, that there isn’t one stand out track of the night – it was electric throughout.

But for this five-piece, this is only the start of the journey. Singing about stately homes  (Blown Rose) have never sounded so good.

Click here to view photos from the night on the Flickr page.