Since the end of July, four-piece rock band, Don Broco, have been touring across the UK, and playing two dates in each city.
What’s special about this tour is that on the first date they play their 2012 album Priorities in full, and on the second date, they play their 2015 album Automatic in full.
On these particular dates, the 31st of July and the 1st of August, the guys were playing at the o2 Institute in Birmingham, a reasonable sized venue which still had that intimate feel to it.
Sunday 31st July 2016 – Priorities
It had just past 9pm, and the crowd were getting antsy for the guys to get on stage.
The support act joining them on tour, MassMatiks, had already played their set and now it was time for Don Broco.
Tonight was Priorities, the first debut album from Don Broco way back in 2012.
The album was a beautiful mix of all four members’ talent.
The striking vocals from frontman Rob Damiani, every unique riff from guitarist Simon Delaney, every thrum from bassist Tom Doyle, and every hard beat from drummer Matt Donnelly.
At 9.07pm they came on stage, accompanied by cheering and shouting from the crowd.
They kicked the night off with “Priorities”, doing their infamous walk and getting the crowd rowdy.
Damiani sang the words at us, and we sung them right back at him.
Those in the middle of the pit had their arms in the air, were singing at the top of their lungs, all whilst jumping around and moshing.
The same couldn’t be said for those around the outskirts of the pit, they played it safe, and rather than bumping into everyone around them, chose to nod their head in time with the beat.
Still singing at the top of their voices with their arms in the air though, naturally.
For the most part, when bands have played a particular album in full, they follow the track listing of the album.
Although Don Broco started the night with “Priorities” and ended with “Actors”, as per the album, the songs in between were jumbled up.
Once the last note of “Actors” had gotten lost in the cheering and applause they left the stage.
Chants erupted from the crowd, and soon their wish was granted as the guys came back and played an additional four songs as their encore.
The full set list looked like this:
Priorities
Back In The Day
Yeah Man
Hold On
Here’s The Thing
Let’s Go Back To School
In My World
Fancy Dress
You Got It Girl
Whole Truth
Actors
Encore:
Everybody
You Wanna Know
Money Power Fame
Thug Workout
“Thug Workout” has become a staple in a Don Broco set, and once again saw many lads dropping to the floor doing pushups.
And just like that Damiani was thanking the audience and saying “good bye until next time”, which was either the following night, or October, when they are supporting Bring Me The Horizon on tour.
The crowd exited the venue with a certain buzz about them, already looking forward to Automatic the following night.
Monday 1st August 2016 – Automatic
Similar to last night, they strayed from the original track listing, bar the first and last song of the album.
Tonight’s set list looked like this, with a slight change to the encore as well.
Superlove
Automatic
Keep On Pushing
Fire
Tough On You
You Wanna Know
What You Do To Me
Let You Get Away
I Got Sick
Further
Money Power Fame
Nerve
Encore:
Everybody
Thug Workout
Even though this album was more recent, the crowd were still singing it as passionately as they were with Priorities last night.
Every song was as beautiful as the one previous.
All four of them put a lot of hard work to get where they are today and it shows not only in the quality of their music, but also how well the crowd responds to them.
Don Broco have a certain type of energy about them and frontman Damiani really feeds off of it which energises the crowd and makes them want to go as crazy as possible and lose their inhibitions.
With five cities still left to hit, the guys will finish the tour in Bristol on the 15th/16th of August, which will leave them plenty of time to recuperate ready for October.
In the mean time, check out their music video for their newest single, “Everybody”, featuring a cowboy theme as well as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”-esque dancing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6JZ6IgCKKo