There’s nothing better than a band playing their hometown, especially a small and intimate venue such as the Institute’s Library. This was the second of two dates in Birmingham for Peace, preceding the release of their second studio album Happy People. Another local band, Juice, certainly warmed the crowd up with several mosh pit-inducing songs before Harry Koisser and co. burst onto stage.
The band opened with both ‘Higher Than The Sun’ and then fan favourite ‘Follow Baby’ from their debut album In Love. This was a sign of things to come, the crowd pushing and shoving each other to the beat from the very first note (being second row, I gave up apologising to the girls in front of me very early on). Wearing his signature fur coat and jumping around on stage from the get-go, Harry Koisser introduced several new songs from their new album, ‘O You’ and ‘Gen Strange’, with majority of the crowd jumping and singing along to the latter in particular due to its previous 2014 release. This was followed by ‘Perfect Skin’ and previous single ‘Money’, setting the tone of Peace’s second album as much more of a quirky effort, but also retaining their signature bass and deeper lyrics. Their lyrics questioned the notion of beauty and whether people really need money to be happy in their own lives, while still making the whole room jump in time.
After a brief interlude with which the entire crowd sang along and swayed as a collective to ‘California Daze’, the four-piece launched into ‘1998 (Delicious)’, a song heavily requested to appear on the setlist when asked on Twitter for suggestions. The song is a standout track on the band’s debut EP, EP Delicious, and the crowd devoured all 9 flawless minutes of bass and haunting vocals – one member of the crowd even managed to escape the clutches of security to take a selfie with Harry during his final solo, this eliciting many cheers and laughs from the rest of us.
Another stand-out of the night came in the form of single ‘Lost on Me’, Harry’s vocals almost being drowned out by the crowd singing the lyrics back. The only disappointment was that the band didn’t launch into their dance routine from the song’s music video, though this was to be expected. The dancing instead came from the crowd, especially when launching into ‘Bloodshake’.
Ending their set with a four-track long encore mainly consisting of new album tracks, the crowd lapped up ‘Someday’ and ‘I’m A Girl’ before going absolutely raucous at ‘Lovesick’. If there’s a song everyone associates with Peace, it’s this song, and for me is a song that reminds me of summer with friends. Setlist closer ‘World Pleasure’ was met with several loud cheers and cries, especially when it came to the amazing bass solo from Sam Koisser. Never have I wanted a gig to last forever as much as I have this one, it was a joy from start to finish, and I cannot wait to see them play again soon.
Check out Peace’s brand new album Happy People here.
Words by Kirstie Sutherland
Kirstie Sutherland 