Reaching the finishing line of their first UK headline tour in four years, Two Door Cinema Club put the final touch to a hugely successful period with two nights at a packed Alexandra Palace. After last year’s third album, Gameshow, tweaked their original indie sounds into a more mature pop direction, this tour has shown how they can perform the tricky balancing act of catering to all their different fanbases.

First support of the evening, and one of 2017’s hot tips, Sundara Karma took to the stage. Currently enjoying great critical acclaim with their debut album Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect, frontman Oscar is already a star in the making. Bathed in light while the rest of the band played in the shadows, he is truly hypnotic on stage. Songs like ‘She Said’ already indicate that this band can soon start to look forward to headlining tours of their own. Next up were Circa Waves, who kicked off with a blinding strobe lighting effect and a more beefy sound than Sundara. Their second album, Different Creatures, is due to land next month, and new song ‘Goodbye’ offered a tantalising glimpse of what it may sound like, with a much heavier guitar vibe than previously heard. Finishing off with crowd favourite ’T-Shirt Weather’, the band left the quickly-filling arena crowd exhilarated and ready for the main act.

Two Door Cinema Club hit the stage and quickly launched into an opening salvo that reminds you of the strength of their debut album, with the first four tracks all coming from Tourist History. The festival season of 2010 was dominated by hits such as ‘Cigarettes In The Theatre’ and ‘Undercover Martyn’ and the band quickly reminded you of those feel-good feelings. The decision to front-load the set with some of their biggest hits was a bold one, but it was proved to be the right choice as it got the crowd bouncing from the start and allowed them to change gear into some of their newer work while still riding a euphoric wave. Last year’s ’Bad Decisions’ is a track that is very different to their earlier work but it sounds very now, seeming to cater to a completely different fanbase with shades of Duran Duran in the bass-lines. In a similar way to The 1975, the band are now operating in a place that straddles pop, indie and rock, with each track being impossible to categorise as one thing or another. This helps them to appeal to as wide a group of people as possible, which is reflected in a very diverse crowd.

Interaction between band and crowd was kept to a minimum throughout, with very little patter between songs. Yet each intro brought a rapturous response from their fans, at least during the early parts of the set. The stage show itself was an incredible sight to behold, with the lighting techs working hard as each track had a different aesthetic and effect. The band played with a ceaseless energy and infectious joy that fed through to an audience who were here to party. As the set continued however, it was noticeable that the debut album still looms large over their later releases, as nearly half the setlist came from Tourist History. While the likes of ‘Next Year’ from Beacon got an ecstatic response, some of the newer tracks got a more muted reaction and the middle section of the show prompted a few temporary exits to the bars. It was still the likes of oldies such as ‘I Can Talk’ and ‘Eat That Up, It’s Good For You’ that received the loudest and wildest reactions and, anticipating that, TDCC continued to drop in older songs every few tracks. Whereas trouble may come in a few years if the band tries to leave those earlier tracks behind and move on with their sound, right now nobody cared about that and the party ended with the monster hits ‘Sun’ and, of course, ‘What You Know’. During that joyous last song, we were all back in the summer of 2010 and nobody wanted to leave.

Jamie MacMillan

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