AlunaGeorge at The Academy | Review

AlunaGeorge at the Academy, 16th of October 2013

AlunaGeorge have come out of the gates at a time when there’s been a bit of a revival in alternative-leaning R&B (see also Frank Ocean, Miguel, The Weeknd, etc.). They are also one of the few British groups to tackle this genre for a while, following in the trailblazing footsteps of the great Craig David. The time seems right for their blend of electronic beats and soulful singing and their début album ‘Body Music’ has gotten fairly good reviews so far.

Naturally, anticipation was high for their first Irish show since the album’s release. There seems to be a consensus that R&B and hip-hop music works better on record than it does in concert so there is also a question of whether they can reproduce the goods in a live setting.

In short, the answer is yes. Starting things off with one of their strongest singles Just A Touch is enough to get the crowd on side from the start. Aluna’s voice isn’t the most assertive; she prefers to hold back a bit on a lot of songs. She sounds surprisingly vibrant on stage though and doesn’t get lost beneath the music at any point.

The group’s most popular track so far is probably You Know You Like It and they bang through it fairly early in the set. Jay-Z can get away with playing 99 Problems early because he has about twenty other hits to fall back on but it’s a risky strategy for a band on their first album.

Fortunately they have more than enough material to cover themselves for the rest of the show. Even songs that didn’t stick out on the record work a lot better here. Kaleidoscope Love is one highlight and Lost and Found is helped by the addition of the live rhythm section, who add a bit of muscle throughout. The latter song comes off as a bit strange on the album but its fast tempo makes it stand out more here. Outlines is by contrast their slowest song and it’s a potential lighters-in-the-air moment. Luckily the crowd is safety-conscious enough to avoid that fire hazard.

Attracting Flies gets possibly the best crowd reaction up to this point and rightly so, it is one of the better pop singles of the year. The band saved two of their best for the encore and after a short break comes White Noise, their collaboration with Disclosure. It could be seen as a bad thing that one of their best songs isn’t actually their song but it gets everyone dancing anyway. They finish the show with Your Drums, Your Love, which some would argue is the definition of saving the best for last and it definitely finishes things on a high note.

The nature of their music means a lot of AlunaGeorge’s songs are in a slower tempo so the show was fairly short on headbanging and mosh pits and they weren’t great at the crowd banter either; George didn’t even introduced himself. The quality of the songs was more than enough to make up for this though and it was a solid – if not exactly mind-blowing – show overall.