On the 28th September, I saw Blondes supporting Courting at Sidney and Matilda. Initially, I was confused as to why a band with such a large number of monthly listeners were only supporting at Sidney and Matilda, having seen them play Rock City at Dot to Dot festival last year. I considered myself lucky, and went downstairs to Sidney and Matilda’s low ceiling basement for Blondes’ set, which was already pretty full due to the gig having sold-out.
Blondes packed a punch with their indie pop tunes and the first thing that took me by surprise was singer Will Potter’s incredible vocal range. Most of the band’s songs to me felt as if they were inspired by the dreampop genre, with jangly guitars playing simultaneous layering melodies and soft-spoken reverb-heavy vocals. The band have described themselves in a recent interview with Yorkshire Magazine as giving the listener “a sense of reliability and nostalgia” which was exactly what I took away from the gig, having seen similarities in bands like The Night Café and Swim Deep.
I said earlier that most of the band’s songs were dreampop-like due to the band having played some new material, not yet on any streaming platforms, which was very different to the other songs they had played in their set. Their performance included some new songs which a mate and me agreed felt far more American and was reminiscent of pop-punk bands like Paramore. That being said, it certainly displayed the range of music the band had in their locker.
Some of the songs they performed like Minimum Wage and Coming of Age (which I am sure you would have heard on TikTok during the first lockdown), share similarities in their jangly guitar accompaniment and falsetto vocals in the breakdown, which is so reminiscent of the 2010s indie genre. While their songs were very catchy, I thought the band could have done with slightly more energy in their performance, and could have interacted a little more with the crowd,. However, I could sense their nervousness, and it can be understood from a band relatively new on the scene.
I, like many others, are excited to see the direction the band goes in and, as a fellow Nottingham resident, wish the best to the band who live in a city with a criminal lack of musical artists despite the size of the city. I hope to see the band at Dot to Dot or Beat the Streets in the future, where I can assure all on the dancefloor will not be disappointed by their bouncy indie tunes.
