Lanterns On The Lake – Live @ Norwich OPEN
aaamusic | On 01, Dec 2016
Thursday 24th November, Norwich
This is the first time Lanterns On The Lake have performed in Norwich and the Club Room at OPEN is the venue for this long overdue appearance of this great Newcastle five piece cinematic dream rock band. OPEN has great sound which perfectly suited the Quiet-Loud-Quiet nature of this band. I thought the audience would swell to capacity after arriving early. It didn’t, which is a shame but it was to some advantage that there was no audience chatter as during the “quiet” parts of their songs, you could hear a pin drop…well you could still hear my camera shutter going off!
Starting proceedings was True Adventures, a Norfolk singer songwriter whose real name is Samuel Leonard who has a great future with his insightful folky tunes. Main tour support was from Ciaran Lavery who was brought up in a tiny village in Northern Ireland and writes engaging stories with huge honesty and is a truly gifted vocalist.
It’s been said before but Lanterns On The Lake should really be much bigger than they are, and the sparse crowd at OPEN are here to witness and hear real music with no distractions from screaming kids or disrespectful heckling punters. The band start with the gentle piano-led building of “Of Dust and Matter” followed by the Loud-Quiet “Elodie” which echoes the sound of Explosions In The Sky and lets guitarist Paul Gregory let rip and show his excellent skills off. One of their best songs ever is next with “Another Tale From Another English Town” which is just beautiful. “A Kingdom” is as Hazel Wilde explains, is ‘the nearest to a chart topping pop tune as we get’ and indeed it also rocks quite a bit. They bring things straight back down with “I’ll Stall Them”. Ending the set with the wonderful “Not Going Back To The Harbour” brings things to a gracious set finish, especially with the accapella ending.
But it’s not the end as they come out and do 3 more songs as an “encore”. Restarting with just Hazel and piano singing “Green and Gold” then the full quintet coming back out for “Stuck for an Outline” and probably best known song “I Love You, Sleepyhead”, piano led and backed later by the violin is a truly breathtakingly beautiful ending.
In Conclusion I hope Lanterns On The Lake come back to Norwich and have a bigger crowd that this severely underrated group deserve. I and the other 40 or so lucky souls here were blessed with a truly special treat from a remarkable band.
