LIVE FROM THE PIT: SELF-DECEPTION, AS DECEMBER FALLS, AND NORMANDIE

On a miserably wet Thursday in Camden, two of Sweden’s finest and an independent quartet of Nottinghamshire brilliance took the stage at the beautiful Electric Ballroom. In only one of two UK nights on Normandie’s UK & Europe Tour 2024, and Normandie’s biggest UK headline to date, it’s fair to say the energy was indeed nothing short of electric.

Self Deception, a band who “create whatever the f*** they feel like” according to their website, punched out of the gates with pure rock anthems - and unanticipated references to Matthew McConaughey. Heavy drums and screeching guitar line their tracks, and Andreas Clark’s rock-racked voice punctuates the ears though tracks including ‘Fight Fire with Gasoline’, ‘The Scandinavian Dream’ - and yes, ‘Matthew McConaughey’. Not to mention, in a move to outdo themselves, the four-piece even left the stage for an encore. If your gig experience needs more large pink balloons being set loose over the audience, they can do that for you too.

As December Falls came up next, getting the audience dancing to pop punk bangers ‘Go Away’, ‘Alive’ and ‘Little by Little’. From Ande Hunter jumping up on the amps to thrash out a guitar solo, to Bethany Clark's powerful vocals taking the crowd on a euphoric ride, they set the tone and got everyone moving. There were clear fans of As December Falls in the crowd, whooping as they intro-ed ‘Join The Club’ and celebrating their success as an un-signed, completely independent band, doing what they know and smashing their set out of the park.

Then the time for the headliners, post-hardcore band Normandie with a more electronic feel of their most recent album, ‘Dopamine’. From start to finish the crowd was in the palm of their hands, as the room quaked with hundreds of people jumping. Punching right into the set with ‘Serotonin’, an angry beast of a song, the audience was right there with them screaming the lyrics back. Then came the classics - ‘Jericho’ and ‘Holy Water’, off previous albums, both have an anthemic quality to them that ripped through the building. Yellow balloons bearing the smiley-face logo of ‘Dopamine’, given out at the merch stand, bounced back and forth over the crowd as they returned to the new album with ‘Hourglass’, a moody guitar riff the central focus of the melody, and frontman Philip taking Dani Winter-Bates of Bury Tomorrow’s scream through the breakdown (which, he did admit, he quite enjoyed doing).

With a discography as impactful as Normandie’s, they had plenty of choice to go to for their set list, flicking between older hits such as ‘Awakening’ and ‘Renegade’ and giving ample space for ‘Dopamine’ through ‘Butterflies’, opening powerhouse ‘Overdrive’, smoother ballad-like ‘Sorry’ and simply sublime ‘Flowers for the Grave’. One thing they like to do, to keep things fresh, is give the audience some choice over what tracks get played; through Instagram Stories vote, Mission Control was picked to thump drums from the stage, and the live audience later selected the iconic long-standing shout-it-at-the-top-of-your-lungs hit Collide over Colourblind. Handing over to guitarist Håkan Almbladh and bassist Lucas England to deliver the votes, we’ll gloss over the fact Philip was unaware of what songs were prepped and happy to go with the flow, even lamenting that Collide which no longer appears on their set list as a regular track sounds better when the audience wants to hear it.

For their encore in the now extraordinarily hot and sweaty Electric Ballroom (once again, from all of the jumping), Normandie cranked out the big guns. ‘Babylon’, ‘Hostage’ and ‘White Flag’, all bonafide bangers got their rightful place, and a little visit from ‘Ritual’ off the new album too. Philip remarked that this gig was nerve-inducing owing to it being their biggest headline thus far, but it didn’t show in the vocals or in any aspect of the band’s stratospheric performance. Not every band can say they have a back catalogue of 100% winners, but Normandie certainly does, and we can’t wait to see where their return to the UK in the future takes them.

Words: Ali Gibson

Photo: Ali Gibson