On a freezing Friday night in Bristol, BASTILLE brought the warmth with one of their stripped back, special shows on the back of the release of their (now) number 1 album Give Me The Future.

Formed from an old converted warehouse, the Marble Factory is a cracking little venue on the river and, with the dry ice filling the room, the atmosphere was set for a special night.  With many new songs presented in a new, stripped back format, the guys were naturally nervous, well, at least Dan was….. I use the term ‘stripped back’ very loosely as it certainly didn’t seem this way judging by the amount of gear Charlie had in front of him, guitars, keyboards, loop machines and so much more with about 5 miles of cabling surrounding him!  

I love the shot I managed to get of the set list... with the chord progressions on it, interesting stuff to someone who plays music I guess….

The show kicked off with a new track, ‘Future Holds’ and set the scene for the night, a storming melodic pop anthem that closes the new album. Dan then talked about how these shows are going to be a little different, interactive and songs that are not often played live.  

Next up was ‘Happier’ a non album single from 2018. In the 10 song set, there were 5 tracks from the new album as well as a smattering of tracks from Bad Blood and Wild Wood. There were lots of requests included too, from all over the world; Brazil, Germany, New Zealand and..... the Forest of Dean.  

Dan chatted to the audience, messed around with the band and as the night went on, everyone felt involved in this very intimate event. A really fun show.

There was lots of free merchandise being handed out on the way in and the road crew also recorded the audiences accounts of weird dreams which they then played and included in some of the lyrics of their song (interesting dream though, being naked on a zoom call and nobody noticing)…..

This was a great way to get the new album out into the world, and the 1500+  crowd were left buzzing, all ready for the full band tour later in the year. It’s going to be a very different set of shows and are sure to set Bastille on a big trajectory into the stratosphere!

Words and pictures (©) by Glenn Morrison