Royal Blood
w/ Hot Wax
The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA
Thursday, November 9th, 2023
Review/Pics: Manuel Gay
Royal Blood is undoubtably one of the best rock bands that came out in the past ten years. The duo from Brighton, UK has been imposing their ever-evolving unique sound and style over the course of four albums. Earlier this year, they released Back To The Water Below, the logical follow-up to 2021 Typhoons. After a first round of US shows in September, Royal Blood came back for the second leg of their North American tour that kicked off on November 9th at The Wiltern in Los Angeles and we were there to catch it.
Support on this tour is provided by Hot Wax, an English trio Based out of Hastings, which makes the two bands almost-neighbors. With twenty-year old band members and under three years of existence, most people in attendance were not acquainted with Hot Wax yet. But I would bet that nobody will forget their name. The band opened with “High Tea” which gave the audience a good introduction to the band’s style. A playful bassline, a fuzzy guitar tearing the air and banging drums.
Songs like “Treasure” or “Rip It Out” seemed to display some form of maturity in both sound and construction, which was striking for such young musicians. Songs from the 2023 Invite Me, Kindly EP felt more energetic with an early 90’s alternative rock energy. I personally loved the recently released banger “Drop” from that same EP. It is probably safe to say that Hot Wax is on the right path to making a name of their own very soon.
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At 9pm, the lights turned off as Royal Blood got on stage to one of Ennio Morricone’s western tunes. The sold-out venue exploded immediately and the energy never came down from that point on. “Mountains At Midnight” from the new album was the opener of the set. Even though their more recent songs are more orchestrated and electronic, this song still carries the original raw and heavy sound from their earlier years. This made for a seamless transition into “Come On Over” from the 2014 self-titled album. With four records and a few singles out now, Royal Blood are able to dig into an increasing repertoire of songs to build a setlist that displays a variety of songs from the past decade.
Thanks to a pedalboard which details are mostly kept secret, Mike Kerr’s bass sounds like a thousand guitars hitting you in the face with Josh Homme-like riffs. Ben Thatcher hits the drums as precisely as a machine and as hard as a blacksmith with his hammer. That is the Royal Blood basic recipe. On more recent material, the bass is less heavy and arrangements with keyboards and electronic programming fill up the gaps when necessary. A third musician joined them on the side of the stage to play extra instruments on “Boilermaker” and most of songs from their last two albums.
The British band knows how to work the crowd and kept interacting with us. Ben took a walk amongst the crowd while Mike kept playing on stage. Later, we were treated with an amazing drums solo during which Ben teased the crowd with the huge gong hanging behind him, pretending to hit it a few times until actually doing it. The crowd loved it. Personal favorite “Little Monster” live was a killer. After “Out Of The Black” the band left the stage while the Wiltern crowd got as loud as physically possible.
After a moment, Mike and Ben came back, along with their additional musician and Hot Wax’s frontwoman Tallulah Sim-Savage to play guitar with them on “Waves”. Royal Blood closed the setlist with two crowd-pleasers “Ten Tonne Skeleton” and “Figure It Out”.
I have over the years introduced Royal Blood to people who do not listen to rock and dragged them to their concerts. To this day I can proudly say that I remain at a 100% new-fan-conversion success rate. In lesser words, if you get a chance to see Royal Blood live, whether you’re familiar with them or not, make sure to go. Otherwise, you could miss out on a fantastic show and potential life-changing discovery.
Related Links:
Royal Blood
Hot Wax
