The Thekla, 29th September 2022
It isn’t rare to see a band put on a stellar show. Neither is it rare for a crowd to be up for a show. What is preciously seldom in occurrence are those magical nights where the band & crowd become one. Feeding off each other and becoming so emotionally connected it becomes hard to tell them apart.
Thursday at Thekla was one of these special nights.
The Dangerous Summer returning to a favourite city felt more like a reunion of friends than a gig. The band mingling with the crowd before their performance & taking time to catch up with long standing friends & fans alike.
Once the performance did get underway & the strains of “coming home” reverberated around the packed hull of Bristol’s iconic boat, it really did feel as though the band had come home.
It’s been a long while since I’ve been to a gig where the raw emotion of the evening was genuinely tangible in the air. Every word of every song echoing from the crowd inside the wrought iron structure. The front row with arms aloft like a scene from a evangelical church service. The band feeling & feeding off that visceral, emotionally charged atmosphere.
Some bands make great music, but it stops there. The Dangerous Summer pour so much depth of themselves into their music, it’s so frank, open & honest that it becomes inherently relatable to those who have cemented it into their souls. The band and their music genuinely mean so much to so many. You just get the feeling their music has helped people in some of the more challenging moments of their lives.
Tracks from the new album were received already like old friends. Whilst classics such as “Fuck Them All” & “The Permanent Rain” took up their mantle of modern day anthems to close us out.
A powerful night, from the most humble of bands.
The Bristol Nomad / @bristolnomad_gigphotography
