Review: The Drum at The Village for Heineken Green Spheres on December 1st 2011
Review: Saranne Murray
Photos: Kieran Frost
Heineken Green spheres is back with a bang, delivering three straight days of entertainment from some of the hottest acts around right now. The Drums kicked things off with an intimate performance in The Village with support from rising stars Cloud Control. I arrived at The Village and was handed a lanyard with details of the gig, a bottle opener, as well as a generous free drink token.
Anyone lucky enough to get a ticket to the gig was handed one upon entry, a nice touch I thought. The crowd settled in nicely and excitedly welcome the opening act Cloud control. I have to admit I hadn’t really explored their music before the gig, but they left with at least one new fan. I recognised some songs such as Meditation Song #2 and There’s Nothing in the Water We Can’t Fight, but despite my ignorance on their back catalogue I thoroughly enjoyed their performance.
I thought the gig was the perfect opportunity to introduce them to a possibly new audience and they really fit well with the headliner
With Cloud control now over, the crowd started to get in place for the main act. As with most Heineken Green Sphere events, tickets are like golddust and the venue was packed to the rafters. I was excited to see The Drums on their first return to Ireland since Electric picnic this summer. The Drums were my favourite performance of Electric picnic and so I had high expectations for their gig.
They managed to work an impressive amount of their songs into their performance but it was Portamento that got a proper outing. Frontman Jonathan Pierce kept the crowd entertained throughout. It was hard to dance at times due to the lack of space but despite all this I loved it. I felt lucky that I had managed to gain entry when so many hadn’t due to the site crashing and tickets becoming near impossible to get.
Although they played pretty much their entire back catalogue Lets go surfing was noticeably absent. Perhaps to show that they can put on a good show without it and that they don’t need the song that catapulted them into the mainstream to succeed. The crowd responded no matter what they played but it was Forever and Ever Amen, Me and the Moon, Money and Best Friend that really got the big responses of the night. Pierce had to ask the crowd to calm down a few times, most notably before their performance of Down By The River, but despite his plea’s the crowd sang along loudly anyway.
My high expectations were more than met. They really set the bar for the following Greens spheres acts and they will certainly be a hard act to follow.