The Verse’s Imara Williams-Simpson tells us what she thought of Sunflower Bean at Concorde 2 on 5th April 2018.
Sunflower Bean performed at Concorde 2, a majestic venue with stain glass windows. Located right on the Brighton seafront, the venue it a bit of a trek, but the gig was definitely worth the walk! The group are currently touring around Europe, later the US and then various festivals over the summer. This follows the release of their second album Twentytwo in Blue. Sunflower Bean are a New York born band, successfully putting a contemporary twist on what many consider rock music.
It was great to see such a wide range of people gathered to watch Sunflower Bean. A range of people compiled the audience, from students out on Easter Break to adults starting off their weekend with a bang.
The venue music came to a pause and the audience immediately started cheering for Sunflower Bean to enter onto the stage. Julia, the lead singer and bassist shouted, “LET’S PLAY SOME ROCK MUSIC”. The audience went into a frenzy of jumping and uncontrollable dancing as the band played Burn It, which is definitely worth a listen.
The moshing continued all the way through the gig, accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol flying up into the air and landing on various victims. A highlight of the evening was the audience’s participation during Crisis Feast: Julia instructed the crowd to shout “NO NO NO” during the chorus, along with fists up in the air and “pits out!”
The Brighton crowd was ruthlessly unafraid of speaking their mind during the gig. When Julia asked, “do you want to hear a cover?” The crowd instantly replied “NO”, which followed with “well you have no choice, we’ve already got the acoustic out”. Despite the audiences’ dissatisfaction with hearing two acoustic covers, they swayed along anyway. One lonely lighter made an appearance in the air by a member of the audience, presumably to set the mood.
Sunflower Bean are a multi-talented band, able to pull off hard-hitting songs like Human For to the melodic I Was A Fool. Watching the band perform live brought a new birth of life to the album Twentytwo in Blue. Each song and lyric became more amplified. Both the band and the audience’s energy lead to a unique experience that is difficult to obtain from listening to the album alone.
