Don Broco - Live Review

Don Broco on a Tuesday night at the O2 Academy Oxford. Is there a better way to spend an evening?

We were lucky enough to catch the boys last summer when they played their Download Festival warm-up show in the same venue, so we knew we had to be on site for this visit too. This time around it was a release show outstore event in collaboration with the legendary local Truck Store Oxford, celebrating Nightmare Tripping which had only dropped a few days earlier (Friday 27th March).

The night kicked off with two tracks from the new record: “True Believers” and “Nightmare Tripping” (the Nickelback collab) before dropping straight into “Gumshield”. Not a bad way to start. From there, the set dipped in and out of new and old material all evening, giving everyone the best of both worlds: the favourites and the first chance to see the fresh material live.

A Don Broco show is one you need to catch, and the audience were completely up for it tonight. Oxford, normally a more reserved crowd, must've had their Weetabix for breakfast, because they were well and truly game. Rob summed it up perfectly, calling the room “rowdy as f#ck for a Tuesday night”, and the crowd took that as a cue to go even harder. Getting clobbered by security in the photo pit during the second song while trying to catch a crowd surfer is not something that normally happens in Oxford… but it was exactly the kind of chaos the night needed.

A few songs later, after Rob had orchestrated the crowd into one of the largest circle pits this room had seen, there was a shout from the audience between songs. "I've only got one shoe" was the shout, as the crowd erupted into laughter trying to catch their breaths. No idea if that shoe was ever found...

The band took time to thank Truck Store Oxford for putting the show on, everyone who’d picked up the new record, and the Oxford crowd for coming out to support. They also retold what they said was probably their funniest moment on tour. A previous Oxford visit where they ended up chasing someone who’d run off with their merch. When they finally caught up, the culprit was just extremely drunk and didn’t really know what was going on. All’s well that ends well.

By the time the band came back on for the encore, the crowd knew what time it was. T-shirts were already coming off in preparation for the now-legendary “T-Shirt Song”, ready to be whipped around overhead in unison. It was a real moment: looking around, you could see people just letting off steam and enjoying music as the release it’s meant to be. Then they wrapped things up with “Hype Man” from the new album. A cracking way to end.

Don Broco mix heavy, punchy riffs with softer melodic harmonies, so even at their loudest there’s still something smooth running underneath. The kind of contrast that makes their sound so addictive and leaves you wanting more.

Go buy or stream the new album and help them out.

Don Broco Tour later this year

SEPTEMBER

• 28 - Engine Shed, Lincoln, United Kingdom
• 29 - Octagon, Sheffield, United Kingdom

OCTOBER

• 1 - Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
• 2 - Academy, Manchester, United Kingdom
• 3 - Guild of Students, Liverpool, United Kingdom
• 4 - City Hall, Newcastle, United Kingdom
• 7 - O2 Academy, Birmingham, United Kingdom
• 10 - UEA, Norwich, United Kingdom
• 14 - The Prospect Building, Bristol, United Kingdom