Los Campesinos! kick off tour with intimate matinee show

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Los Campesinos! kicked off their UK touring stint in support of new record Hello Sadness yesterday afternoon with an intimate (read as the opposite, maybe “intense” would suit better) matinee show at the Camden Barfly.

Cardiff’s honorary residents but not-Welsh outift put on a blistering display more suited to 9 at night rather than 2pm on a Sunday afternoon.

The band didn’t opt to play an acoustic affair for the special show, limited to just 200 people who happened to be on Twitter at the time of the snap announcement. No, instead the band treated fans to an onslaught of tracks old and others new – which despite not being released yet, many fanatics in the audience somehow knew every sombre word to already.

The packed venue was in a party atmosphere, as lead singer Gareth rightly questioned what else is there to do on a quiet Sunday but “watch Wolves v Wigan”. Heaven forbid.

Gareth himself seemed in a buoyant mood, making his way through – if my counting was correct – six beers over the course of the 45 minute affair, one of which was bought for him by a fan after a between-song public request, reaching the singer just in time for fan-favourite ‘We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’ to kick in.

The band also expressed their frustration at having to play their biggest hit and advert-fodder track ‘You! Me! Dancing!’, joking that leaving it out would be akin to “seeing the Dandy Warhols and them not playing ‘Bohemian Like You’. I would kill myself after that, I couldn’t live with that on my conscience”.

You will be able to read our TLOBF interview with the band at the start of next week.

Los Campesinos! play London again tonight, at King’s College. The seven-piece will put out their fourth album on November 14 via Wichita.