Irish House Olympia

Goldenplec Irish Music MagazineKaiser Chiefs at the Olympia live ...

Photos:  Sean Smyth

Kaiser Chiefs rolled into The Olympia on August 23rd in support of their current album ‘The Future is Medieval’. An early start and two great openers mean we’re in for three hours of music and still don’t have to race down the street for a last bus.

It’s seven thirty start and getting proceedings going were The Aftermath. The now five piece line up, complete with female backing vocalist, have nailed their 21st century indie Brit sound. Starting off with ‘Are You Not Wanting Me Yet?’ they treat the growing crowd to a solid set featuring tracks from their ‘Friendlier Up Here’ album. Frontman Johnny Cronin is an amicable character thanking the crowd for showing their appreciation with ‘You’re mighty, Bless yiz’.

As their set progresses, the band show themselves as confident performers and give a new single ‘In Loneliness’ an airing. For this one, sax player Daire O’Reilly is brought onto stage and the extra layer gives their already full sound an extra boost. Great opening set.

I hadn’t seen Royseven before. I knew they had an album a couple of years ago and were back with with a new one and their song ‘Lover’ has been all over the radio this Summer. Where I was wrong though was assuming that the radio hit belonged to a nice little pop band. Royseven are a whole lot more.

The first striking thing is that they know what they want to look like. Singer Paul Walsh waves a Royseven flag as the band come to the dark stage, accompanied by striking white light and a pop star reception from the audience. Royseven are a lot rockier then my preconceived thoughts had imagined. The melodies and hooks remain intact, their guitars hold a little more Grr! than on record. From the opening strains of ‘Every Line’s The Last One’, the band have the audience claps and singing on command.

I love when a band wows, they deliver the unexpected and Royseven did just that. Every song they play in their set is as strong as the next and there are no weak links. Musicianship and performance is top drawer stuff and Paul Walsh is a fantastic front man. He dances round the stage like he is enjoying and keeps egging the crowd on to give more. Musically, his vocals are purely stunning, there’s a certain eighties pop quality to them but with the band’s instrumentation, are perfection.

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