Bastille – Manchester Apollo 28th February 2014.

I was thrilled to take my young niece to her first-ever concert last week. She’s a huge fan of the band Bastille, and when it was announced they were playing in Mancheste,r her Uncle made her day by buying tickets.

I think the night was a success even before we had entered the venue. Whilst queueing to get in, we were stopped by a security man as a taxi pulled up near the stage door. The reason we were asked to wait was so that Dan and Woody from the band could get from the cab to the door. VJ was simply gobsmacked as they walked passed. It certainly made the evening even more memorable and special. Once inside and settled in a corner by the bar, she spent some time ringing her friends to say what had happened. This did mean missing the support acts, but it wasn’t too long before we were taking our seats in the circle.

The show was great. The band were joined by a string quartet on stage and the sound was mixed really well. It surprised me how little my ears were ringing when we left to be honest. Loud enough without being over powering. I was impressed with the on stage harmonies and it really felt like it was all about the music. The band were backlit, no spotlights. I can’t fault the performance at all, everything was spot on and the audience lapped up every single second of it. It was a very mixed audience. I had expected to be the oldest person there but the age range was pretty widespread.

The setlist featured one brand new song, plenty of strong favourites and the whole show was very well balanced out building up to an encore that started with my favourite of their songs and culminated in their biggest hit, Pompeii. We had danced, we had listened, we had sung along and then it was out into the night to a waiting Grandpa who was picking us up.