Nothing But Thieves concert review
By Sonam Kaloti, Arts Editor
5/5
I have never headbanged for that many hours with no desire to stop.
Hailing from the United Kingdom, rock band Nothing But Thieves performed at Vogue Theatre in downtown Vancouver on September 21 and it was one of the best, if not the best, concerts I have ever attended. The band is composed of five members: lead vocalist and guitarist Conor Mason, guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown, guitarist and keyboardist Dominic Craik, bassist Philip Blake, and drummer James Price.
After a long hour and a half wait (they weren’t late, it was just scheduled like that), opener Demob Happy arrived on stage and immediately threw all their energy into their music. Their passion rang through the venue and pumped up the audience for the headliner. The intermission between sets went by quickly, and suddenly Nothing But Thieves was rocking extremely hard, making use of the entire stage.
The stage lighting was incredibly dramatic in a good way and changed for each song. Each number featured a light show composed of blinding strobe lights and flashes of colour everywhere.
Frontman Mason made sure to thank the audience and Vancouver at every opportunity he could. Nothing But Thieves did not have a single intermission, besides the short one directly before the encore. The energy they displayed was incredible—it honestly seemed like they couldn’t run out of stamina. The entire band was playing their instruments to that rock level, while also dancing and running around.
Despite the extreme differences in the high and low range and musical difficulty in their songs, Mason remained on pitch and had superior tone quality throughout the entire hour-and-a-half-long set. The band members constantly interacted with each other, goofing around and shooting each other grins. Watching them genuinely enjoying themselves made the entire concert much more enjoyable to watch as a spectator. During the last song, “Amsterdam,” they even began playing catch with a rubber duck thrown onto stage by an audience member, while still playing their instruments.
The audience had a tremendous amount of energy, screaming, jumping, dancing, and singing along to every song. Riot yells rang through the crowd during “I’m Not Made by Design,” while tears flooded during “Particles.”
Modern-day rock bands almost feel hard to come by due to their lack of media coverage. We must find them on our own nowadays. This prevents people from being introduced to so much amazing music, such as Nothing But Thieves as well as many other bands that deserve more recognition. It really is a shame anytime skill and talent get overlooked for seemingly no reason.
“Number 13” and “Amsterdam” were the best songs to witness live, since they were the fiercest performances. The guitar and bass players shredded, the drumsticks probably should have been broken, and the vocals powerfully matched up to the strength of all the other instruments.
There was no major flaw in Nothing But Thieves’ performance and there were many phenomenal elements to the show, which is why this concert deserves its five out of five rating. It’s hard to imagine anything else from a band where every member is as skilled as the next. While they have stolen the Vogue Theatre this time around, I predict the rest of Vancouver’s rock lovers will be soon to follow.
