Wolf Alice @ Keele University

Keele University welcomed the BRIT nominee and 2 NME award winners Wolf Alice came as part of their UK Tour with Keele being stop number three with the support of Bloody Knees and Swim Deep.

Bloody Knees a very stylish heavy alt-rock quartet was certainly a good crowd starter with the majority of the crowd at the front just asking for a mosh pit throughout the whole gig. We personally never heard of Bloody Knees before and was urged by Wolf Alice (after our interview) to watch them in action. The long-haired boys in their denim dungarees producing some rave-like music with heavy rocky guitar flicks and a smashing drum beat would get any crowd pumped for Wolf Alice.

At 8.30 psychedelic indie pop band, Swim Deep come out onto the stage to play hit song King City with an almighty roar from the crowd throwing up hands into the air. Admittedly they don’t sound anything like Bloody Knees or Wolf Alice, but they are one hell of an amazing band to see live. Their tracks like ‘Grand Affection’ and ‘To My Brother’ seem as if they were made for live performances. 

Swim Deep unfortunately had one slight problem with their stunning set. For their final song Feuiho Boogie, as James Balmont’s Keyboard had a technical issue. So as all great band do, carry on in style and finish off with their classic track off the debut album ‘Honey’. 

Wolf Alice went straight into songs ‘You’re A Gem’ and ‘Your Loves Whore’ with more huge mosh pits from the crowd, creating a huge sense of adrenalin, even with some members of the crowd already dripping in sweat.
Continuing to keep the crazy pumped crowd going was popular tracks ‘Freazy, Bros and Lisbon’ the atmosphere was louder than ever beer and cups of water getting thrown gives you the refreshing feeling like when an ice cube gets dropped down your back. Now the air has got hot and sticky from a very hyperactive crowd, Wolf Alice move into their calmer tracks 90 Miles High, Silk and The Wonderwhy’.

Theo and Joff try and get the crowd even more involved by swinging their guitars as if they were from ACDC or The Rolling Stones.

Once you think you’ve finally cooled down and wiped the sweat from your face ‘Fluffy’ get the crowd back into action but was only to be short lived after Ellie, Theo, Joff and Joel all put down their guitars and drum sticks to head off backstage.

Everyone in the crowd starts to shout ‘Wolf Alice!’ as loud as they can and stomping their feet on the floor so loud you would almost thing the 1^st floor of the Student Union building would collapse. After a couple of attempts to bring Wolf Alice back on stage for their grand encore with massive hit track ‘Giant Peach’.

As Giant Peach won ‘Best Live Song’ at the NME Awards it deservedly goes last on their set list it felt like a life time achievement to witness this song. The atmosphere especially was immense, so it’s well worth the mosh pit!