CHVRCHES at The Olympia Theatre | Review

CHVRCHES at The Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 5th March 2014

“I wrote this when I was thirteen” SOAK declares introducing Sea Creatures. It’s the kind of proclamation that instantly makes you think “ye cocky bollix” and “fair play to you” all in the one instance and then you realise that at seventeen SOAK hasn’t even discovered who she is yet and her potential for growth is phenomenal.

She possesses an age-defying talent with a meek yet powerful voice that compels you to listen to her. While SOAK’s music may not be the natural bedfellow of CHVRCHES her appearance tonight was a forgone conclusion as the Derry singer is the first artist to sign to CHVRCHES own label Goodbye Records. She didn’t pass up the opportunity to impress her new bosses or the sizeable crowd who made it in early to catch her performance.

The Glasgow synthpop trio made their way onstage with the Roman numeral V in toe to an accelerating 4/4 beat twinned with harsh attention-grabbing swaths of strobe lighting until a crescendo was finally reached and the starting gun fired and CHVRCHES commenced with We Sink, while the stage is bathed in appropriately Numan-esque green neon light for Lies.

The dynamic for tonight’s performance is quickly established with Iain Cook and Martin Doherty nestled behind banks of synths dancing like nobody’s watching while Lauren Mayberry with only a microphone to hide behind seems less comfortable than her bandmates walking forwards and backwards and singing into the ground at times. However, she seems more comfortable later in the performance when she’s behind a synth.

Like SOAK before her, her voice defies her frame and she releases a powerful, emotive sound and it’s here that we find the truth and power in her performance. Mayberry’s vocals are laden with heartache and perseverance as if she’s sitting you down to tell you a dark, difficult secret about herself or tell you something you need to know but nobody else is willing to tell you.

She exposes these brittle emotive crevasses throughout and at times you wouldn’t be surprised if the next word was replaced by blubbering tears as she relives the imagery of the lyrics so completely. This was especially noticeable on songs such as Recover and Night Sky where the only thing that could have aided the emotive performance was a glass of wine being thrown over Spencer Matthew’s face live on stage.

CHVRCHES don’t simply rely on the cute heartbreak of Lauren Mayberry, though Iain Cotton and Martin Doherty also make a lasting impression. Cotton’s bass and guitar playing on songs such as Lung, Guns and Tether gets the crowd going as he rocks out on the front of the stage bringing a real sense of fun and humanity to the occasion. Not to be outdone, Martin Doherty delivers the highlight of the night as he takes over lead vocal duties on Under The Tide working the stage more in four and a half minutes than Mayberry does in the whole performance thanks to his individualistic approach to dancing which would safely qualify him for the Baltering Olympics if such a thing existed.

Mayberry takes the opportunity to thank the crowd for a wonderful first night of their tour before declaring that “touts are cunts” (we wholeheartedly agree) before closing the main portion of the show with The Mother We Share. The Olympia crowd sing “seven more songs” until CHVRCHES return to give You Caught The Light its live debut with Mayberry on synth and Doherty on lead vocals and bass playing duties. The slower paced track leads CHVRCHES into slower early-Doves terrain adding yet another string to their considerable bow.

As the first stabs of By The Throat chime you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for Cutting Crew’s I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight as CHVRCHES are well known for their series of quirky covers. However By The Throats’ lyrical refrain of “You know, you know, you know, you know that you go too far” is the perfect way to end a stellar performance of electro pop because CHVRCHES know the exact formula for when enough is enough and they engineered their set perfectly to leave the audience in no doubt that they are the real deal.