Sea Girls - Leicester O2 Academy2 Review: Anything but a festival warm-up
Sea Girls returned to the sweaty room of 02 Academy2 Leicester for a no-nonsense warm-up ahead of a ‘f**king massive festival’, jam-packed with indie anthems and x2 new tracks.
★★★★★★★★☆☆
Credit: Sea Girls 📸
On 27th May 2023, Sea Girls re-visited their ‘hometown’ to play a special warm-up show ahead of festival season.
Returning to the smaller room of Leicester’s O2 Academy2 is both familiar and re-invigorating for the group, headlining the venue at the tail-end of 2019 with an extended encore on demand of the crowd. Back then, there were no albums, just singles fuelled by an intense hype for what was to come.
Credit: Leicester, 2019, Give It A Spin 📸
Practically 4 years later, the indie outfit have toured multiple times, selling out rooms far bigger every time – including Brixton Academy (5,000) and then Alexandra Palace (10,000). After following the band since early 2019, attending the original Leicester show, and both of the above; seeing the boys return to this small sweatbox (at this point) in their career was special.
Credit: Brixton (left), Ally Pally (right) Give It A Spin 📸
It undeniably proved that Sea Girls are a band that can command rooms big and small with their energy and music alone, which is enough reason to hand over the keys for an arena tour in the not so distant future. All in good time, for now they’re basking in the glory of Alexandra Palace, a live album and preparing for another sunny festival season.
The night opened with fan favourite Damage Done, in similar fashion to Ally Pally. But with the unbelievably loud welcome, you’d be forgiven thinking there were 10,000 people here too – prompting the room to light up with excitement and anticipation.
Henry screaming “I don’t care if you’re getting off with him” and “you’re not the reason for this song” the crowd responding with what they do best – singing, dancing and smiling.
Following a bold start, Sea Girls burst into Ready For More, a track that hadn’t even been released when they played here in 2019. It went down a storm, with people hanging off their every word, before an “Evening Leicester” and an acknowledgement that this city is their hometown.
Next up was Too Much Fun, giving the crowd a moment to test out their vocals with an electric rendition before Sea Girls had even started. When the chorus kicked in, several pits opened up and people of all ages began bouncing – Henry grinning at the sight of what was unfolding.
Chants of ‘Sea Girls’ filled the sweatbox, preceding Closer. Those riffs unleashed a joyous euphoria in everyone before we heard the debut of Weekends and Workdays, an upbeat and catchy new tune that’s on the way (hopefully) very soon. The crowd loved it – continuing to initiate even more ‘Sea Girls’ chants for a solid 2-3 minutes afterwards.
Sick, a favourite of mine, got its moment too. Leicester sang every word, and the big finale of ‘they’re all f**king boring’ did not disappoint. “Are you enjoying it? I’m fucking loving it. It’s hot. It’s only gonna get hotter. We need to kick this room up, don’t you think? Fuck some sh*t up.” exclaims the lead singer, and he wasn’t lying, launching into Do You Really Know and Paracetamol Blues.
This time chants rang out for ‘Rory’ (lead guitarist), which gave him a little blush, showing no amount of jangly indie riffs will take away his humble nature. By this point in the evening, the atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive, with most people dripping in sweat (or beer).
The concert prepared to come to a natural conclusion, with fan-favourites All I Wanna Hear You Say, a song that since its release has become a staple of every indie playlist, and debut track Call Me Out.
After a small slip-up on Call Me Out, the song was restarted to an applause of support, the band claiming “this is a warm up for a massive f**king festival, but this is a moment right here, you know what I mean?”.
Whilst it makes sense for these songs to complete the evening, an encore is to be expected, which is where you’d usually see them slot in. The fact the group played these songs earlier in the set and ditched the concept of a ‘walk off, come back on’ encore, shows they’ve got more than enough energy, tunes and attitude.
Violet and Fall Out followed, with a short interlude where a bra ended up on stage and the band gave a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for those who support their music. To wrap things up, another new track was debuted, Come Back To Me (?), which combined the likes of The Smiths and The Cure with Sea Girls’ signature sound from the Homesick record, before finishing with an acoustic version of Lonely.
:: Round-Up ::
It’s difficult not to compare the performance to what unfolded in 2019 (in the same room), but it also wouldn’t be exaggerating to say the difference is unbelievably staggering. Sea Girls have found comfort in being centre stage.
There was buckets of optimism originally, which shone by trying to prove themselves. This time – the optimism is still there (if not more so), shown through pure confidence, with nothing to prove.
Sea Girls kept the room sweaty, and full of fun, but offered something maturer. Refined and considered, stripping away any bulls**t and adding a playful element.
It was simply a room full of people enjoying their favourite band, and that band at ease, enjoying every second of it.
See full setlist on Setlist.fm. Were you at the show? We’ve posted a 2019 vs 2023 comparison video:
Rating: 8/10
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