Gathered to celebrate the long-awaited release of ‘Shaking Hips and Crashing Cars’, even the aforementioned entrance system (something we haven’t ever seen employed for an instore at this venue before) is testament to the fact that something special is brewing behind the Wrexham quartet. When the band take to the stage to delighted whoops and a little Sunday afternoon jostling, they resist the temptation to romp through budget versions of their instant classics; instead their acoustic offering sees them reimagine and rearrange tracks to twist the anthems into a form which better suits the moment. Instead of feeling like an amateur bedroom run-through, singles like ‘Mrs Narcissistic’ somehow sound like they were always meant to be performed like this (but perhaps not while the audience are jammed between Nirvana biographies and reduced Sepultura albums).
The Royston Club also take the opportunity to explore some of the more fragile moments from the debut album; tracks that you feel might slip from their setlists as the bright lights and cavernous rooms (the band will be back in Manchester for their biggest ever headline show at New Century Hall at the end of October) of their future tours beckon.
The crowd lap up the whole thing and this afternoon serves to highlight just how versatile the young quartet can be. They’ve got the choruses, they’ve got the musicianship to reinvent when needed and they’ve got a growing group of devoted followers; with the venues already growing bigger and the end of 2023 sure to be packed with sellouts and further singles, we can’t help but feel that 2024 is set to be the year of The Royston Club.