Noah and the Whale live in Birmingham

The Student Guide's Andrew Watts reviews Noah and the Whale's performance at Birmingham's O2 Arena

I have to start by confessing, I have been looking forward to the musical geniuses Charlie, Matt, Fred and Tom that make up Noah and the Whale for a number of weeks now. So when the night finally came around I was buzzing with excitement.

Arriving at a packed out 02 arena with the supporting band playing out their last few tracks that didn’t capture anyone’s imagination, especially not my own.

But when the lights dimmed and NATW burst onto the stage in their suits to the tune of Give A Little Love. Naturally the crowd came to life and I definitely had the sense that I was in for something really exciting.

The beginning was promising as they delivered their up-beat melodies Just Before We Met and Give It All Back absorbed the crowd. About a third of the way through the set, Charlie announced that the NATW set would be set in three parts – ‘New’, ‘Romantic’ and ‘Fun’.

By the time we had My Broken Heart, Rocks and Daggers and Blue Skies there was a definite air of romanticism about the whole set.

When NATW announced Blue Skies, one of - if not my favourite NATW song, you could hear a pin drop in the arena as it appeared everybody was stunned to silence as the dramatic opening drums of the melody were played out.

The early energy the crowd appeared to possess was soon zapped out from them but they soon got the crowd buzzing and singing along again by bringing the ‘fun’ element into the set.

An infectious karaoke vibe took over the whole of the 02 with their popular hits Tonight’s The Kind of Night and 5 Years Time.

Inevitably NATW ended the set with their most popular hit L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N (Say that when you’ve had a couple). By this point, all’s NATW had to do was play instruments and look pretty on stage because everyone in the crowd were fully responsible for the vocals.

NATW came back on stage to play a surprising, but very interesting encore to their set.

After the initial excitement died down, haunting piano chimes of Old Joy began to sound around the arena as people began to sway from side to side joining in chorus of You’ll Sing Day By Day, Old joy Comes Back To Me.

The First Days of Spring brought the whole set to a shuddering climax. For anybody that knows this song, knows there is a long instrumental part and, as before with Blue Skies, the sound of the intense drums echoed around the arena.

The parting crowd, still with the sound of the intense drums from The First Days of Spring firmly ringing in their ears, seemed content with the night’s set. NATW provided what I thought they would: pleasant melodies and a master class in how to play a variety of different instruments.

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