Friday April 22

There’s this thing with local bands where you say they’re good but always with the unspoken disclaimer that you mean it in a different way than a band you might get into via the radio or other means. You’re doing it out of a sense of loyalty to your local area and because, you know, it’s always good to see live music. It’s a rare occasion when you take that band home and become properly obsessed with their songs.

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Then Thickens are that rare occasion because they are utterly fantastic.

The last two years have been spent gobbling up their releases to the point where tracks like Tiny Legs and My Sunday rank among my very favourites. Go and listen to them when you’ve read this.

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Friday, they live up to (nearly) everything I wanted my first Then Thickens gig to be.

Their tracks are built dramatically in a way that lends itself naturally to the live environment and they create moments of drama and tension you’d probably associate with an arena band more than someone to see in your local venue.

Tiny Legs, My Sunday and Restart Your Heart form an early triple salvo of tracks that rivals anything I’ve seen this year. The only downside to that wonderful run of songs is that we believed they’d shown their hand too early.

We were wrong in that closing track My Amsterdam is a slow-burning thundering track that needs that spot at the end of the set, away from the better known tracks. It doesn’t just steal the show, it rolls it up and devours it.

We had a fear that the band would miss the female backing singer that appeared on first album Death Cap at Anglezarke but that wasn’t the case. They do, however, arguably lack something in stage presence. The Ferret was rammed for them and if they had played off that a little more it would have been a better night. The setlist is also missing Any Other Thing, which is one of their better songs for sure.

Splitting hairs though really, aside from that time I saw Royal Blood perform to a crowd of three, this was the best gig I’ve been to at The Ferret. I’ll be seeing them again as soon as I can.