Leeds grunge kings, Dinosaur Pile-Up made their way to The Academy in Dublin on June 17th for a rescheduled gig. It was to be a night to leave your Granny at home, she wouldn’t be able to rock that hard.
Nova Static started off the proceedings and have had a chance to open for a couple of UK acts lately. It shows. The band are coming on in leaps and bounds and lead singer, Daniel Heffernan is growing in confidence. They can be clearly placed at the heavier end of indie and the audience show their appreciation for the Laois four piece.
There’s no airs and graces with Dinosaur Pile-Up. Matt Bigland, Harry Johns and Mike Shiels come to the stage themselves and get their gear ready for their set. Once they’re ready, there’s no leaving the stage again and no set list. They just get stuck in.
From the opening first notes, it quickly becomes apparent that even with ear plugs, this is LOUD! Face meltingly so. This is the only gig ever where I moved back down the venue a bit, standing near the speaker, I could feel every drumbeat and bass go straight through me, so much so I thought I was going to be sick.
Both the band and the audience are up for a grunge fest. Yes, there is a lot of Dave Grohl influence in the Dinosaur Pile-Up sound but this what the audience are after. It’s interesting too that the band seem to have cross age divides as the audience is made up of a decent cross section, mostly blokes, from late teens to early forties. It doesn’t matter what age they are, they know every word.
‘Mona Lisa’ takes everything up a notch, if that’s possible, before the band play a new song called ‘Shit’. Singer and guitarist Matt Bigland introduces the song saying ‘If you wanna have fun, please lose your shit!’.
‘My Rock n’Roll’ gets hands in the air and heads banging, some at the same time. It’s at a gig like this that The Academy 2 comes into its own. Yes, it’s sickeningly loud but the cavernous venue is perfect for a rock gig like this.
There is so much rock in the air that several times on stage Matt, crashes into his mic stand, sending it flying. Helpful members of the crowd act as roadies. The band ask what the first DPU song the audience heard was before launching into ‘Birds and Planes’. Each song they play eggs the audience into more of a frenzy, it’s Friday night, they’ve all weekend to recover.
The uptempo ‘Traynor’ gets an outing and is stonking live. I make my way back towards the front of the venue as the band start their last track ‘All Around The World’. I’m glad I did.
Bigland moves his micstand to the centre of the audience and faces the stage to finish the track. Harry is still playing his bass and Mike, his drums, they are joined by 7/8 audience members dancing and giving it socks on stage. An en-mass mosh takes place with the crowd pushing the band as far as they can. Harry throws his bass to an audience member beside me who bangs it making as much noise as possible while he, dives headfirst into the audience.
Mike, the only member of the band still on the stage, gets a heroes’ hugs from the stage crashing audience, while Matt and Harry are engulfed by the crowd. This is what a proper rock gig is like. Fcuking awesome!
