DE STAAT // THE BORDERLINE, LONDON
De Staat come to The Borderline, London for a long overdue capacity filling Headline, sold out show.
DE STAAT PERFORMING AT LONDON’S BORDERLINE - 12.02.2019
PICTURE BY: MICHAEL HUNDERTMARK PHOTOGRAPHY
★★★★☆ (4.5/5)
You can tell it’s going to be a good night when an eagerly awaiting queue has formed outside The Borderline before the doors have opened. Some even arriving with luggage as showing the loyalty towards the band!
The Borderline has a long history of music, tucked away near where the legendary Astoria once stood. The Building itself dates back to the 1970’s with a downstairs space which has staged bands of the likes of ‘Ryan Adams’, ‘Munford & Sons’ and ‘Amy Winehouse’. The 1975 have even kick started their career down the Borderline. The upgraded sound system certainly does the venue justice!
The show opened with a 4-Part garage elektropunk formation ‘45ACIDBABIES’, originally from Utrecht, The Netherlands. Their sound is rough with audaciously dirty guitars. Influenced by bands like Die Antwoord, Sleigh Bells and The Kills, they put on pandemic grooves.
45acidbabies certainly bring the venue alive with the crowds quickly descending down the stairs early on to get a good view and soon after bring the venue in full with an expressive loud described as a ‘bubbleGumgarage’ set! I do hope, with anticipation 45ACIDBABIES will return to the UK for a headline show in the near future and with some more new material to boot!
As soon as De Staat hit the stage the predominately European, Dutch crowd cheer overwhelmingly wildly for the band on the tightly packed stage, gracing The Borderline as part of a string of shows for their ‘Outrageous Contagious’ European tour.
The Fans made themselves are heard with the opening track ‘Me Time’, a track from the recently released album ‘Bubble Gum’. The guitar riffs and synths fair well in comparison to the likes to Belgium’s, northern European band, Balthazar, hugely popular and the catchy tune that sticks in one’s mind!
The Feel good vibe continues with’ Psycho Disco’ to get the fan base jumping, switching to another new prog-rock style new track ‘Mona Lisa’.
Lead singers Torre Florim’s voice has a lot of breathing space on this track to showcase the impressive range of his singing, from tonality to a more emotional down tempo song ‘All is Dull’.
Overall he has an impressive showcase range of his vocal range, to a tonality emotional take, sometimes with a rap-style. Indeed you can see why Muse choose De Staat as a support slot.
De Staat was started as a one-man project by lead singer, Torre Florim, who later brought the band together. Their first demo was recorded in an apartment in 2007. While still unsigned, the one-man project grew to a full grown band, due to well-received live performances in the Netherlands
In The past De Staat have supported Muse in their Drones World tour and certainly have the sounds to fill stadiums.
The band's album, "O", was released in January 2016 and was met with critical acclaim. And tonight De Staat perform the head-stomping track ‘Peptalk’, The Album subsequently won them a 3FM Award for Best Album and their second 3voor12 Award for Album of the Year in Europe.
This album has probably been their most successful release so far, reaching high in the Dutch Album Charts, with the song ‘Down Town’ from this album featured on the soundtrack to FIFA14 game Their also received an award for Best Rock Artist at Edisons 2014. The band released their fourth album, ‘Vinticious Versions’, which saw the band re-stylize songs from their previous three albums, with a video competition to accompany each of the album tracks running on their YouTube channel.
The electrifying set tonight shows off the bands discology to date with a long encore concluding with the drum beating track, easily to dance to track, ‘Witch Doctor’, taken from the 2013 ‘I-con’ Album.
De Staat’s show was certainly an electrifying, heart-warming sonic experience to watch and hope they return to the UK sooner than later!
SETLIST: | DE STAAT : THE BORDERLINE, LONDON - 12.02.2019
Me Time
Pyscho Time
Mona Lisa
Input Source Select
All is Dull
Phoenix
Pikachu
Witch Doctor
ENCORE:
I’m Out of Your Mind
KITTY KITTY