Live
Arcade Hearts
Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
September 28 2018
Words/Pictures: Debra Stone
With an accomplished four-track EP just out, Arcade Hearts are headlining one of their biggest shows to date in front of a hometown crowd. No pressure! The stage at the Wedgewood Rooms is set with pot plants and the neon sign brandishing their iconic logo, and there is tangible excitement in the crowd as the quartet come on to rapturous shouts, screams and applause.
Straight into 'Crawling' from the new EP, the boys are bouncing and don’t stop throughout the 50-minute set of their 80s styled alt-pop with added synth infusion. The two guitarists, Frankie Drain and Harrison Adams (bass), whirl, bend, twist, and make full use of this big stage on this hooky indie pop opener, interacting with each other and with frontman Dan Surridge-Smith.
Dan, he of the silky vocals and the big hair, puts the former at least into play on 'Bleach', sugar-wrapping his tonsils around the synth-dominant number with honey-dripping melodies. It's a little less in your face as some of their other songs, and allows the band a chance to show their lyrical depths.
The guys play off each other during every song, from 'Settle Down', 'Vanity' and 'YU?' to 'Honey' and 'Different Place'; and when Dan removes his guitar the energy tops a new level. He jumps onto the drum riser to join drummer Brandon Squibb, then bounds around the stage before taking centre-front stage to lean out over the crowd.
The set climaxes with 'Humble', the infectious first single cut off the EP, which sees the whole of the front rows jumping as one now, as the energy reaches around the room. Dan comes off stage into the pit to sing to the crowd who lift him onto their shoulders and end the set with a triumphant, and well deserved, crowd surf to the back of the venue.
Having pleased the crowd so much there was no way they were getting away without an encore. As they later modestly told Little Indie, this was not something they had been expecting, and having already covered a large part of their catalogue, it fell to a reprise of 'Crawling' to finish things off. Not that anyone seemed to mind in this party atmosphere they’ve created, Arcade Hearts prove that out of humble beginnings, great successes come.
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