Two Door Cinema Club, Sound Control Manchester, 5th September 2012 9/10

Two Door Cinema Club is on the crest of a wave following Alex Trimble’s performance of Caliban’s Dream for a television audience of over a billion people at the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Their second album Beacon has made a successful chart debut this week, and their next London show sold out in two minutes.  Even Barack Obama is reported to be a fan. They formed in County Down, Northern Ireland in 2007, the name coming from a mispronunciation of their local Tudor Cinema. I named Tourist History as one of my top ten album choices in my very first roundup back in 2010, saying that it was tuneful and they deserved greater recognition.

I was concerned this Manchester gig might be an anti-climax following their amazing set at Reading Festival last month, where as many as 20,000 people packed the NME Radio 1 tent with an amazing party atmosphere. Last night was far more intimate, a rare show in a small venue with four hundred very hot and sweaty bodies crammed into Sound Control’s loft. In fact, it ended up being one of the most inspiring explosions of joy I’ve experienced in live music. As at Reading, the audience was incredibly young and enthusiastic, screaming wildly at the merest hint Alex Trimble might be about to appear on stage. Once the main act started, they jumped up and down with boundless energy despite the stifling heat.

Two Door Cinema have developed their live act significantly since I first saw them at Coachella 2011 and the NME Awards Tour in February. They played incredibly tightly in Manchester, and the sound combined clarity with punchy bass (testament both to the venue and sound engineer). They’ve become one of those acts whose live experience is on a different planet to the albums. The music is accessible, and enjoyable, making clever use of melodic hooks, but also quite formulaic. Beacon played safe, merely refining their radio friendly formula, and the old and new songs cohered well. When Alex announced that he was playing a quieter, slower song (Eat That Up, It's Good For You) the contrast was less than expected, and the previously unperformed song they played still seemed familiar. The set list might have had 17 songs, but the brevity of their material meant they were onstage for only 70 minutes.

The key to Two Door Cinema’s live acts is the way reaction they inspire in the audience, and it’s intriguing how they achieve this. Alex Trimble is quite a reserved character, and can even appear shy on stage. Whilst expressing his appreciation for the fans, he didn’t speak to the audience at any length. There are no gimmicks such as an elaborate light show, and unlike the support band they didn’t attempt to stage dive. Instead, they’ve engaged with fans over the long term, building exposure over the past two years. Yet I believe it’s the immediacy of the music which inspires this joy at. Whilst there are elements of electro pop, Two Door Cinema demonstrates the continued relevance of guitar based rock to a young audience. I’m sure that they will be routinely playing stadiums in the near future, and their prospects for recognition in America are favourable as they embark on a tour next month.

This is overwhelmingly positive music, despite the hints of more introspective, melancholy undercurrents on tracks like Settle. It’s a more visceral, physical experience than the intellectual Grimes, and in terms of creativity they are on a different planet to a band like Radiohead. The immediacy is a long way from classical music too, but its key is the sense of escapism it engenders. For an hour last night, all other thoughts were excluded from my consciousness, and my brain could concentrate on emotions. I didn’t see the world in a different light afterwards, as with some more challenging live music, but I loved living purely in the present for a while.

Set List

• Next Year
• Undercover Martyn
• Do You Want It All?
• This is The Life
• Wake Up
• You're Not Stubborn
• Spring
• Sleep Alone
• Sun
• Something Good Can Work
• Pyramid
• Handshake
• Eat That Up
• What You Know
• Some Day
• Come Back Home
• I Can Talk