Live Review: The Orwells - The Leadmill, Sheffield 29/08/2017

Our photographer Hollie Wright caught the Orwells, along with a bit of on stage drama, while they played the Sheffield date of their UK tour. 

The Orwells are one of those bands that I have been wanting to see for years but for some reason never managed to attend one of their previous UK tour dates. However, Tuesday 29th of August was the day. The Orwells were playing the smaller room at The Leadmill and although the gig wasn't officially sold out, there were plenty of anticipating bodies waiting for the band to hit the stage.

With the band all set up and ready to go, front man Mario Cuomo entered the stage to a big cheer from the crowd. One of the recent singles Black Francis, off of The Orwells new album Terrible Human Beings, was the first song of the set. Beer starting soaring through the air and the barrier suddenly became very crowded. Mario's energy reacted to the crowd as he was very interactive with the audience; it was so hard not to keep watching him. The next tune Dirty Sheets was next on the set list, old but gold. Everybody seemed to know this tune just by the drums and guitar chord in the first three seconds. The pit opened up and The Leadmill lit up.

The set consisted of a brilliant mix between new and old songs, all having that classic raw sound of The Orwells. As the set got into full swing, everybody was becoming a lot more rowdy and excited as more and more familiar songs were being played. At one point a fan got put on stage by his friends and started dancing; but not being disrupting or destructive. Mario took an immediate disliking to the peaceful stage invasion and decided to take matters into his own hands and removed him himself, a little too forcefully in my opinion...

Following this, Mario voiced his disgust quite 'colourfully' shall we say and stormed off stage and never returned. Looking a little bewilded, the rest of the band carried on the gig and did what they could. Massive hats off to Dominic, Matt, Grant and Henry for managing to conclude such an eventful gig without their front man. It was good to finally see one of my favourite bands live, even though i wasn't expecting it to be quite as eventful!

One thing is for sure, when Mario stormed off stage and never returned, I can imagine that the fan felt very much like a Terrible Human Being.



Photography and Review by Hollie Wright