Irish rock band Kodaline took to the stage at The Nick Rayns LCR in Norwich warming autumn-chilled hearts with a mix of emotional love ballads and lively upbeat tunes.
The show, on November 10, marked the halfway point of the quartet’s UK tour and saw the band entering the stage in a calm and confident manner to start their performance with Follow Your Fire from their latest album Politics of Living.
Kodaline started off at a high tempo playing four songs consecutively before addressing their audience, but despite this, the concert was off to a slow start – it felt more like listening to a recorded live-version of the songs rather than being present at a gig. Fortunately, this was soon to change.
When lead guitarist Mark Prendergast swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic one and played the opening notes to nostalgic song Way Back When the concert, and the audience with it, really came to life.
Spirits rose further as lead vocalist Steve Garrigan performed a solo number with only an acoustic guitar, playing beautiful The One from the band’s second album Coming Up For Air. The audience chimed in and a thousand voices filled the room to sing the song, originally written as a wedding song for a friend of Garrigan’s. As the final tones of the ballad rolled out over the audience, the rest of the band returned to the stage, cranking up the energy levels with catchy Love Like This, a song showcasing Garrigan’s ability to multitask, seeing him play the harmonica and mandolin simultaneously.
The evening proceeded with a mixture of new and old songs, including hit Raging, originally performed with Norwegian DJ Kygo but here in a fresh take. The band rounded off the main set with Love Will Set You Free.
For the encore the band re-entered the stage to perform their arguably most successful songs, All I Want followed by High Hopes.
The 1500-strong audience sang to their hearts’ content and passionately belted out the notes before bringing the evening to an end, dancing home through the night to keep the ecstatic feeling alive and fight off the November cold a little longer.
- Support act Patrick Martin opened the evening with a number of engaging songs expected to feature on his debut EP set for release later this month. The American offered a few personal anecdotes in between songs, only to switch gears and bounce energetically across the stage dressed in a pair of shiny red boots, performing dance moves that would have made Freddie Mercury proud. “What a legend” exclaimed a member of the audience approvingly.
