Heaven – Xavier Voigt-Hill

Originally published in The Edge

Particularly in this age of vehement digital obsessions, it’s not tricky to observe obsessive teenage mentalities from a relatively safe distance or even unintentionally kick a nest of Beliebers, whose attempts to insult me were as unimpressive as his music at the time. Yet, that idea of swooning over a heartthrob figure is a phenomenon that has taken a while – almost two decades, in fact – for me to fully appreciate. Even though my own teenage years contained sporadic and prolonged infatuations with particular artists and their outputs, these were built on foundations of what was to me groundbreaking musicianship, not through bleary-eyed desire.

All that changed when I found myself, perhaps foolishly, spending a night before a far-from-out-of-the-way spring coursework deadline at a LANY show. Smitten with ‘ILYSB’ after hearing Zane Lowe suffering from the same sentiment on Beats 1 the previous autumn, their night off from arena shows with Ellie Goulding and John Newman took them to Camden’s Assembly (then Barfly), where a quaint capacity crowd was treated to an intimate and sweaty performance of, at that stage, the band’s entire discography. As frontman Paul Klein spoke modestly about the band’s feeling of overwhelm by the love they were receiving through his matted mane of flowing locks, almost everyone hung off and echoed every one of his words, even though new single ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE MY FRIENDS’ was just three days old. Continue reading “Live review: LANY at Heaven, London”

Originally published in The Edge

For the first night of RÜFÜS’ sold-out stint at Westminster’s Heaven, the best spot in the house belonged to no human. Above the revellers, who clambered onto each others’ shoulders and bobbed incandescently through every repeating second, sat a sole beach ball, a symbol of the Sydney trio’s most fitting climate and their audience’s geographical cravings. Through selections from homeland chart-toppers Atlas and January’s Bloom, cemented by choruses striving for yet somehow eluding irksomeness by repetition, blinding lights and lyrical idylls brought an essence of their Instagram feed to an arched cavern hidden beneath London’s alleged spring. Continue reading “Live review: RÜFÜS at Heaven, London”