I first heard ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’, the song that earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance in 2016, sometime in late 2014 or early 2015 either after hearing it on Spotify or seeing their manager Steven Taverner post something about them on Facebook and was lucky to have caught them in 2015 at the now closed Demo in St. Louis, Mo to a crowd of around 25-30 people just a few months before their debut album ‘My Love Is Cool’ was released. This would be my fifth time seeing the North London band, twice now on the ‘Blue Weekend’ tour. With each album the band continues to outdo themselves. For the past few weeks guitarist Joff Oddie has been back home in Cornwall as a family member has become ill but hopes to be back as soon as possible.

The band has a very dedicated fan base. Before the show I was talking withone fan who had drove up from Memphis and coincidently we had both attended their show in Nashville last November. Like her Wolf Alice has become one of the handful of bands I will drive a good distance to see.

The band kicked things off with ‘Smile’, the second single off ‘Blue Weekend’, also the bands third album to be nominated for the Mercury prize. The nights set was heavy with songs off the new album with eight of the eleven songs of the seventeen song set. Front woman Ellie Rowsell does little talking between songs and bassist Theo Ellis and guitarist did most the talking wether it was to whip up the crowdn not that that really needed to be done or talking about the tornado warning that was in effect.

The band can definitely do the loud and quiet with songs like ‘Smile’ and ‘Play the Greatest Hits’ on the louder side to ‘Safe From Heartbreak (If You Never Fall in Love)’, that saw drummer Joel Amey join Ellie at front of stage for this duet and ‘No Hard Feelings’ that had Ellie sitting at the edge of the stage and said that it was her break up song. As the band brought the night to an end with ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’ Ellie thanked the crowd for having them and looked forward to returning.