Basement, Colourblind, Stressed, Energy Angel @ Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide 1/3/2025
New Bloom Festival is back for another year and the curators of this magnificent festival need a pat on the back with the killer line up they have put together which has extended to sideshows for Adelaide. The first of those is Basement who in short were fantastic and if it wasn’t for a festival as such, I highly doubt we would have the chance to see them here. I had definitely underestimated the influence of this band playing to a full house of enthusiastic fans at Lion Arts Factory.
The Ipswich, Suffolk five-piece are one of those bands that more people need to have on their radar and having seen them live I’m converted. Basement are also the type of band that isn’t easily defined by a label or boxed in a certain category straddling between alt-rock, emo and post-hardcore.
The spirit of this festival extended to sideshows as well showcasing freshest up-and-coming artists in the scene so this was the perfect opportunity for three Adelaide bands to show their wares and strut their stuff in front of a full house. Energy Angel are still a relatively fresh and exciting prospect who continue to build in stature gigging around town. That raw punk sound was unleashed resonating with a strong crowd already there early and they didn’t hold back. The tunes off newish EP Disappear Here are killer.
Stressed, also hailing from Adelaide, flew the flag proudly. There was plenty of fire and brimstone in their performance giving everything and leaving nothing in the tank after. This hardcore outfit whipped the crowd in to a frenzy with a few circle pits adding to the mayhem. Set highlight included Straight Edged. Attention was then on the last of the Adelaide contingent in Colourblind who really did impress and have come a long way since I last saw them play. Their live sound was top notch and they couldn’t hide the fact that they were playing with their idols in Basement and believe their good fortune landing this gig. Set highlights were ripping new single Learn To Be and Eye To Eye.
As more people started to cram in to the main room to watch Basement the heat and the sauna like conditions made it quite stifling and hard to contend with fuelled by an excitable by excitable energy that increased ten fold when the band emerged to a heroes like reception. The band seemed pretty low key about it all letting the music do all the impressing and it did.
Opening with Whole, Earl Gray and Bad Apple they bowled over one by one songs from an impressive back catalogue spanning four albums and five EP’s since their career took off in 2009. Fading was awesome complete with the audio sample from 1957 An Affair To Remember with the words:
“This is probably my last chance,”
“Mine too.”
“It’s now or never”
So many good songs including the likes of Brother’s Keeper and what was titled on the set list as “New Song” then Aquasun and Spoiled. The magnitude of the show and being sold out was not lost on the band either with singer Andrew Fisher reflecting on “being so far away from home” and being able to do this a job is a dream come true.
Given fans a chance to catch their breath on Oversized which morphed in to Yoke was awesome. It was seriously one hour of greatness as the band powered their way through the back end of their set with Are You The One, Pine and Promise Everything which were all equally anthemic and the impactfulness of these songs could be seen with how the fans sung them back. It was something quite special for sure. With no encore it would have been hard to top the epic show closer in Covet and even thinking about it now makes the hairs on the back of neck stand up. It might have been the intimate surrounds of Lion Arts Factory, but this one had stadium vibes all over it. Fantastic show and the crowd might have been chanting for one more but leaving them wanting to more makes the heart grow fonder for next time.
Live Review By Rob Lyon