Royal Blood, "Touched by Midas"

Brighton Band Turns Revolution Live into a Madhouse.

June 11, 2018.

A certain sense of something brewing was held above the crowd in Fort Lauderdale, dropping slowly like a ball on New Year’s Eve. The Monday night concert brought an overwhelming wave of Rock N’ Roll to Revolution Live in South Florida that left all attending with messy hair and ringing ears.

When I arrived at the entrance of the local Fort Lauderdale venue around 7:00, I figured that I, along with the doors, would be the only ones entering the venue two hours before the headlining gig. How I was mistaken. I was greeted with a line of some 100 people curling off of the sidewalk well into the parking lot. In front of the long line waiting to get into the club was another crowd of people already filling in the pit and buying drinks from the bar in the back corner of the venue. People in the front row had said that they got there at about 5:00 to get their quality standing spots.

A few minutes after 7:30, four people emerged from backstage to front and center of the growing crowd. A man of almost exact stature and physical features to Frank Zappa took the microphone, and the show began. Cheers and hollers flew through the air as the members of Turbowolf. The man so similar to the 1970’s Zappa was Chris Georgiadis, lead singer and keyboardist of Turbowolf. Their 8-song set was fulfilled with head-banging tunes, but at an occasional loss of the rhythm and groove that seems to be present in their studio recordings. The band’s stage consisted of the sharp dance moves and pointing by Georgiadis, a dark corner of the stage filled by a loud bass line in Lianna Lee Davies, a symbol-banging presence towards the back of the stage by Blake Davies, and a surprisingly similar movement by a guitar player comparable to shirtless Slash in the early days of Guns N’ Roses by the Gibson Firebird-shredding Andy Ghosh. As the crowd was moving to the music of Turbowolf, it seemed obvious that there was a growing anxiousness for the headlining show that they all came to see.

Turbowolf ended with a bang and the group was off of the stage a few minutes after 7:30. The crowd still increasing in size, by the way, chants of “Royal Blood!” began to break out in segments.

As the minutes past 9:00 ticked away, Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher strutted onto stage just as people began to think that the show must have been scheduled for 9:30. The background singers also strutted onto the stage landing on a raised platform at the back of the set. Kerr grabbed his black Fender Starcaster bass and then grabbed the mic stand, glancing at the drums in anticipation for Ben Thatcher to rev up their show. Thatcher, whose one-of-a-kind drumming can be a melody on its own, took a quick survey of the venue, then began the show with the quick symbol riff that begins the title track of their second album, “How Did We Get So Dark?”

The crowd definitely was picking up everything that the heavy-hitting rock group was putting down, and the night progressively became louder and louder. This majorly due to the lead bass and vocalist’s five Fender Amps and unique pedalboard that turns what is normally a background instrument into a powerhouse. After every few songs, Kerr would make comments to the crowd in intermission between two numbers. A memorable exclamation was, “I can walk and talk!” referring to his foot injury that he received at the Boston Calling festival in late May, and also referring to the Laryngitis he was diagnosed with in early June. This show seemed to be the first one since both injuries where everything worked its usual function.

The brewing feeling that hung above the crowd was making its way into the bodies of the people watching the show, and the entirety of the noisy, sweaty crowd knew it was about to hit the fan. With nudges throughout their spectacular set, the speedy outro to the band’s “Loose Change” flipped the switch and a completely wild mosh pit broke out about 15 feet back from the stage. There was shoving, pushing, raging, and the people not in the frenzy were still listening to the music, not seeming to care. From the perspective of the middle of the pit, the scene looked like something out of a “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” breakout clip with the addition of the guitar guy from “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The power of the noise sunk into everyone’s skin and even the security guards could feel the Rock N’ Roll in the air.

Royal Blood continued to ride out that feral feeling throughout the night and throughout their set, ending with an encore of “Ten Tonne Skeleton” and a performance of “Out of the Black” for the ages. Their final number included Ben Thatcher hopping off the drums and into the crowd, tequila bottle in hand, sharing high-fives and looks with fans. Thatcher joined Mike Kerr back on stage to complete their set as Kerr played bass with his left hand, and smashed a symbol on the drums with his right. A long low note played by Kerr was the final sound of the night, as he walked off of the stage, followed by Thatcher, who karate-kicked the mic-stand as his last hoorah.

Shuffling out of the tightly packed venue, there was no one in the crowd who was disappointed. I was shoulder-to-shoulder with other RB fans, including a woman who was talking to the person next to her. She, along with everyone else, was in awe, and remarked, “Those guys have been touched by Midas!” Midas, the Greek god whose touch turned everything into gold, might have been in Revolution Live that night, and with all of the great earned success that Royal Blood has received lately, I would not be surprised if they do have the Midas touch.