Live Review: British India

23 April 2013 | 2:57 pm | Bryget Chrisfield

British India have a factory-tested live show; they offer up solid riffs, sing-along anthems and the opportunity to forget your woes for the set’s duration.

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The venue is so rammed tonight that it's a case of 'good luck getting to the toilet and back without missing half the gig and copping a deliberate elbow to the face'. British India are performing before a home crowd and their four album-strong catalogue has undoubtedly soundtracked many first pashes, crowd-surfs, bongs and/or break-ups. Every skyward punch is delivered with gusto and there's beer spillage galore as fans recognise 'their' song's intro playing out within this one-and-a-quarter hour set. The band play a generous smattering of material from their debut Guillotine set, including Run The Red Light and Tie Up My Hands, and it sounds weird to hear frontman Declan Melia introducing a song thus: “Let's take it back to '94” – have they really been slogging it out on the live scene for that long?

Wearing a casual selection of flannies, hoodies and V-neck jumpers, British India don't dress any differently from their audience. And it's details like this that make British India's fans feel like their onstage heroes could double as their besties. There's an enthusiastic clap-along during new song, and band realisation, We Don't Need Anyone that shows this ain't a case of 'I like your old stuff better than your new stuff'. The stage is bookended by projections of new album Controller's artwork and this Melbourne four-piece is clearly chuffed with their latest outing, even though Melia confesses it's always nerve-wracking to approach each touring cycle off the back of a new release due to trepidation as to whether anyone will turn up. Frenzied crowd-surfing during Another Christmas In The Trenches provides evidence that British India need not have worried about the reaction to their new material. The kicking riff in Safari shows off Nic Wilson's chops and the further we plunge into this show, the more triple j Hottest 100 inclusions are revealed. Lovers sway and sing in unison to I Said I'm Sorry, possibly getting a few apologies in the bank for impending bad behaviour.

There's a mass stage invasion during Black & White Radio and it's all a bit where did Melia “GO-GO-GO-GO!” They've never done encores (and definitely no encore fake-outs), so British India exit stage left while the exhibitionists clamber from the stage and quickly check their friends' smartphone footage for proof of their five seconds.  

Far from Vanilla, British India are more like a trusted brand: as hard as your tight-arse granny might try to convince you that bootleg Bonds are as good as the genuine article, we all know the truth. British India have a factory-tested live show; they offer up solid riffs, sing-along anthems and the opportunity to forget your woes for the set's duration.

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