Reeling from the release of their highly-anticipated debut LP Lullabies from the Lightning Tree, indie-rock four piece Sad Boys Club bring everything but sadness to Nottingham’s The Bodega...
As the album had exceeded all possible hopes for perfection, I was excited to see exactly how these guys fare in the live space. The band started off strong with hit single Delicious (an hors d'Oeuvres if you will) and it becomes immediately clear that this is a band with a real zest for live performance. Frontman Jacob Wheldon slips easily into his infectious onstage persona, so much so that I began to forget how small the venue was. He commands the stage with the life and passion that most sold-out arena artists desperately dream of. Not only does he have a vocal tone which encompasses all the best bits of emo-rock and British Indie, Wheldon delivers a master-class in stage presence.
In To Heal Without A Scar (Is A Waste Of A Good Wound), Pedro Caetano sculpts a full-bodied bassline which evokes the most delightful sense of dread. Aspects of gritty rock influence began to tear through in Chris Holmes electric guitar, elevating the track to a space of violent euphoria. This was followed immediately by fan-favourite American Spirit. It is easy to see why it’s one of the band’s biggest tracks, as it embodies a lyrical surge with feelings of true, unbridled passion and fury; desire and regret. This classified indie-banger takes on the form of a whole new beast live, a beast which howls in the form of a Jacob Wheldon vocal belt.
Everything came to a standstill for Lumoflove, almost as if the entirety of Nottingham was holding its breath in anticipation of Wheldon’s solo performance. It was the only moment of the gig in which the vocalist closed his eyes to sing. I became humbly aware of my presence within such a deeply intimate moment, as while Wheldon directed his own poetic lyricism to somewhere inward, Lumoflove vulnerably sought resonance among every person in the room.
Drummer Tom MacColl took the album’s titular metaphor to a more literal plane with a thundercrash of symbols during Your Mind (Makes Mine Seem Fine), a thread of earthiness which was echoed in 2Bites2It, a track which began with a brief interlude of surrealist auditory imagery.
Undoubtedly my favourite track of the night, Kukachu solidified the gig’s status as best of the year thus far for myself. Performed live, this track from the band’s 2019 EP Four Shades of the Transitional Phase, demonstrates Sad Boys Club’s ability to extract inspiration from a plethora of different musical genres and creative mediums, and experiment in such a way that still feels so inherently individual and stylised. The body of the track beats with the heart of indie-rock, and yet there is something incredibly unknown about the steady interplay between joy and angst.
Sad Boys Club’s debut full-length album Lullabies from the Lightning Tree is available now, and promises to test your emotional boundaries in every-which-way. The band are also set to support Swim Deep for a few shows of their upcoming tour.
Sad Boys Club played at The Bodega on 11 May 2023
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