The Blackout - Leeds Festival 2012 review
'A noticeably slick affair'
Photographer:Rachael Emily
Virtual Festivals - 25 August 2012
“So far the Reading crowd gave us a much better response,” bawls vocalist and frontman Sean Smith,
and the guileless crowd roars its protestation en masse. This is fairly symptomatic of the performance The Blackout are giving; raucous audience participation and heavy-handed (albeit successful)
stage tricks on the part of the two vocalists.
The Welsh post-hardcore act’s easily recognisable tunes and
shameless crowd provocation elicits mass chanting and whooping, right from the very start. Opener Children Of The Night was
anticipated and demanded by the front rank of fans, and its pounding refrain sees oceanic bouncing from left to right.
Secondary singer Gavin Butler’s impressive self-garrotting mic trick invites squeals of joy from the youthful
mob, and soon enough the sea of teenagers is whoaing along to the repetitive lyrical refrain of ‘Save Our Selves’,
a highlight of the set.
The show is a noticeably slick affair, and perhaps this illuminates the flaw in the otherwise
rapturously received performance as upraised arms violently sway from side to side: there is something immature and disingenuous
about The Blackout’s brand of Americanised tunes. The memory of last year’s vomiting incident illustrates the
cheapening of their reputation, and casts a certain doubt over the tween’s enjoyment of the set.
-- Sam Lindsay
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