Between the physical and digital release of Demob Happy’s latest album, The Grown Ups Are Talking, the group organised two album release shows in London and Brighton. The London show, held at Islington’s prolific venue, The Lexington, was hosted by DIY magazine, and everyone was packed into the attic space under the gleam of a disco ball.
Ironically, the album release show contained very little of their latest album, playing only five of the ten new tracks. This was quite disappointing initially, but makes sense. Though they physically released The Grown Ups Are Talking the week before the shows, there’s no guarantee that those same people would also be able to come to their album shows. The tracks they did play were strong choices, but only two of the five were actually new, as naturally they played the three released singles, as these were most familiar to the fans.
‘Power Play’ was Demob Happy’s opener and their first single of the night. Despite a shaky start, they managed the landing fairly well – as Marcantonio mentioned afterwards, it was the band’s first live performance of the song. A personal favourite, ‘Judas Beast’ ticked all the right boxes; the dark bass tone was perfect, and the vocals were far more distinct live. The recorded version loses a lot of vocal distinction trying to compete with the track’s aggression, so it was nice to see a song surpass its studio counterpart.
The same can’t be said for ‘No Man Left Behind’, with a good 60% of the song being the same repeated riff over and over. Whilst this isn’t an outright issue, it became one on the night, as the amount of distortion on stage muddied the riff completely. The chorus did come together magnificently, but not quite enough to offset the rest of the song; a profound shame for one of The Grown Ups Are Talking’s strongest tracks.
In a complete one-eighty, a live track that far exceeded the studio version was ‘Who Should I Say Is Calling?’. The studio version was one of the record’s weakest songs despite being its title track. A lot of the song’s missing gusto was found in their live performance, and came well into the set when the trio were in the groove. Similarly, the album’s closing track, ‘Give It All To Me,’ was beautifully performed and was a welcome, calming break between the set’s two halves.
That’s all they wrote for The Grown Ups Are Talking, but Demob Happy still brought the thunder with some of their old tracks, bolstering themselves and the crowd through their familiarity. ‘Be Your Man’ from Holy Doom was a great start to the set, and ‘Succubus’ from Dream Soda featured some of the lowest, most brutal bass tones that can still be heard in a crowded room. The tracks from Divine Machines were biblical to witness, including ‘Voodoo Science’ and ‘Run Baby Run’. They naturally ended the night with ‘Autoportrait’, the single that lifted them ever higher after their first album.
Demob Happy are in their element when they’re performing. For an album release show, there are naturally going to be some kinks that need ironing out, especially if some of those tracks are first-time live debuts. For an album release show, though, there was a distinct lack of album material, which is a shame, as The Grown Ups Are Talking is a strong album and the culmination of over 10 years of work together. Hopefully, their album tour in April and May will see them debut more songs from the album. For those of you who haven’t listened to The Grown Ups Are Talking, your patience is nearing its end – the album releases digitally on February 13th.
