NGOD are an up and coming indie band from Bradford, who blend conventional indie with some heavier sounds, creating an alien mix. But it’s a good mix.

The support band were decent, but they were not on the same level as NGOD. Their frontman struggled to fire up the crowd; asking “how’s Leeds tonight?”, it was painful to hear just one guy reply “wooo!”. They didn’t exactly warm me up enough. Just before NGOD took to the stage people flooded the floor and the overhead lights them went low. When they did eventually come on (what a tease!), the audience, surprisingly, cheered… a lot! Half of them weren’t wearing shirts and Sam (frontman) was being very mellow, making me quite sceptical of what was to come. But it was when they opened with their two hits ‘Blue’ and ‘Can You Hear Me?’ that I was astonished, as they sounded even better live. There was a much better quality to the backing vocals and you could appreciate the keyboard playing all the more by seeing it.

Sam was moving around all over the place, dropping the mic stand, knocking a cymbal on the floor and carrying on like it was nothing, later falling into the crowd and continuing his performance right there. It’s this sense of showmanship that elevated their performance many notches.

Apart from that the performance wasn’t over-extravagant, allowing me to appreciate their sound just that bit more. They conquered a slower track of theirs- despite the aforementioned heavy influences – but gradually the foot tapping turned to head banging, as the pace sped up and everyone really got into it. The guy next to me graduated from moving his feet to his whole body, even if the dancing was bad.

NGOD managed to absolutely own the show despite the fact they didn’t have many well-known tracks. It felt like the whole idea of ‘rocking on’ and ‘crowd interaction’ was natural to them, which is why somewhere down the line I could see them tearing up the stages of the biggest festivals, if they’re lucky… Glastonbury?

Will Nelson

Image: [Will Nelson]