Los Campesinos! at the Social, Nottingham, 1st March

When it comes to a band’s first tour, few have had the publicity of new indie darlings Los Campesinos! All in their third year at Cardiff University this five date tour has been scheduled around the band’s reading week, which in many ways has helped stunt the growth of a band who only formed 11 months ago.

Tonight Nottingham’s Social is their first date, and their 20th gig overall. Spirits are high and as the small room quickly fills to the sound of Leeds’ Sky Larkin, the audience are quick to respond almost as enthusiastically as their performers.

Then as the room fills with balloons, there is a calm atmosphere. Tonight Los Campesinos! Have a right to be nervous, it’s their first show of the tour yet as they duck and dive around each other onstage, attempting to set up their equipment everything feels natural. As the stage clutters with a flux of instruments including a glockenspiel and some fairy lights the seven members squeeze onto the tiny stage.

Despite Los Campesinos! Current single being a mixture of twee indie melodies paired with animated vocals their ethos onstage is quite different. As they begin to play lead singer Gareth takes a more punk rock attitude as he stumbles over the other members, screeching his vocals while playing his glockenspiel like a child having a tantrum. Unlike on record, many of his lyrics are hard to distinguish and he’s not the clean cut shy frontrunner you picture when listening. Also although the band remain stable they do appear a little disorganised.

This is until they begin ‘You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives’ which begins with the band shouting to each other across the stage, and from then on Los Campesinos! Cannot be faltered. Apart from a few technical difficulties the band pull together creating the perfect live partner to those demos you’ve worn out over the past two months. Even the weak vocals on ‘Death to Los Campesinos!’ go by unnoticed as keyboardist Alex joins Gareth for their sweet vocal contributions.

Unfortunately due to National Rail the rest of the Los Campesinos! Gig is unknown, but if the first half their set is anything to go by, the amount of gigs or number of weeks the band have been together is now irrelevant. As their demos have already proved, Los Campesinos! Can create brilliant indie tunes almost effortlessly, something they also translate onstage. So if you’ve managed to catch this band on tour, think yourselves lucky, next time you might find yourself fighting for a ticket.

To get a free download of Los Campesinos! Debut single 'You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives' go to their official website here.