Won’t lie, a few looks of ‘erm so what is happening right now’ were exchanged but the minute Dan stood up, grabbed his mic and gave a warm ‘hello Margate’, the energy shifted as if we were all in on a special secret, a once in a lifetime raw moment together, 2 lads from Bastille and about 800 fans.

‘This is unlike any Bastille you will ever see’ Dan says, ‘We’ve been travelling up and down the country playing this show for the last two weeks and we’re still messing this up, this is the last time we get to play our songs out like this and we’re sad about it’, ‘This will be more like a Q&A but with music’

What followed was exactly that, the two became more and more endearing as they laughed, swore, and played through a setlist of both new, old and even songs created there and then using content collected from fans entering about what they dreamed about the night before – absolutely manic, hilarious and thoroughly entertaining.

The classics were played stripped back, without backing tracks, a vocoder and loop peddle were used to create depth of sound and it truly felt that this may be the only ever time the songs would be played exactly as we heard them.

They joked with the audience about tech errors, our expectations for upbeat dance-worthy classics that they were about to play downbeat versions of, answered questions and even sang happy birthday to a 9-year-old round – Big vibe.

Show highlights were ‘The barn dance version of Happier, you never knew you didn’t need’, played early in the setlist a slow ‘Good Grief’ which had everyone singing along and ending with some audience participation they taught the crowd the pre-chorus to their latest single ’1 note, 10 words’ which they recorded and looped to create a beautiful effect which quite frankly had us singing ‘Shut off the lights we don’t need it to dance’ all the way up the seafront to our respective houses.

The show did its job, utterly enamoured with the two musicians and have been playing the new album on repeat.

Check out all 13 tracks of ‘Give Me The Future’ on all streaming services or I dunno buy it if that’s one of those vintage things you do to support artists. A great booking from local indie record shop Elsewhere, alongside Margate Live, whose programming is something to always keep an eye on if Margate is based or if a regular Kent coast visitor.

Written by Lucca Joy

whygeneration.co.uk