Someone asked me, before Two Door Cinema Club came on stage, why they were headlining the Friday night at this year’s Tramlines. Are they that good? Half way through the set he turned to me and said he knew they were.
They’ve been together for over 10 years, and were greeted with enormous acclaim when their first album Tourist History came out in 2010. In fact the singles from that album are still being played on the radio to this day.
That sort of ‘instant’ success can ruin a band’s long term prospects, but they listened seriously to Frank Sinatra when he sang ‘Nice And Easy Does It’, and didn’t rush anything.
The three albums they have released since then have been all the better for taking the time to get things right. In that time, they have allowed themselves the time to write some of the most perfect pop music of recent years.
Before Two Door Cinema Club came on to Nulty’s Main Stage tonight, I’d not seen them since they blew the roof off the Leadmill in 2010, so they’ve a few more years’ experience behind them now. And it showed.
This is the first year they’ve achieved ‘festival headline’ status and they certainly know how to up their game to perform in front of a crowd as massive as this. Established fans and newcomers alike all marvelled at their ability to knock out one catchy melody after another. They skilfully mixed old hits like ‘Undercover Martyn’ and ‘What You Know’, with newer material throughout the show, and they managed to dispel the rain clouds to send everyone home knowing they’d more than met the challenge of giving the best performance of the night.
