Live Review: Mallory Knox - Cavern, Exeter 09/10/2019
On their fifth last-ever gig, on their last-ever tour, following on from their last-ever album, Mallory Knox graced Exeter with one of the most comfortable and adored performances in recent memory. Support came from Dead Ground and Led By Lanterns.
On a cold October’s night, plagued by heavy showers — which, due to the doors opening late, meant everyone waiting to get in ended up soaked — Mallory Knox graced Exeter for what’s set to be the final time. After ten years, four albums and countless sweaty and gloriously fun gigs, the Cambridge lads are calling it a day — and rock music is all the worse for it.
First up, once the excited — if slightly melancholic, given the situation — fans flicked through the front and down the stairs into the cavernous (hence the name) underground stage of Cavern, came Exeter locals Dead Ground. Opening with the as of yet unreleased Can’t Escape You, which starts as a lovely instrumental number, before embarking on an auditory journey, flitting between nicely heavy and addictively poppy— though because of the afore-mentioned delay with the doors, they were forced to start before much of the crowd had really gotten into the venue; as such, they were greeted with a rather tame reaction.
By the second and third songs, however, people had started arriving — and were really getting into it. With atmospherically haunting and lofty vocals soaring above the crowds — and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the great Matt Bellamy — Dead Ground nicely differentiated himself from what you’d have expected from a band supporting Mallory Knox. We All Feel The Same, especially, added a new dynamic — less striking in the studio version, but live the guitar riffs strongly resembled late-era Nirvana.
At this point, the set took a turn — Small Love, the fourth song of the set, started gently but quickly grew into a nicely heavy number which was greatly appreciated by the growing audience, with head-banging galore erupting front-to-back. The same with Going Nowhere — their latest single, which started with just Ollie Harris on his guitar almost setting free some emotive, contemplative lyrics, before having the band slowly coming in — if it had been any gentler, I’d call it a ballad.
Finally came In My World, shaped around a dark and almost rage-inducing riff rivalling even the best metal songs — a phenomenal first support, and an incredible way to set the tone for the evening: brilliance.
Next up was Led By Lanterns. To put it simply, these were brilliant fun. The three-piece from Birmingham, and Mallory Knox’s official support for the tour, blend vibes from Mallory Knox’s origins — the indie rock style of Deaf Havana, Mallory Knox, You Me At Six and the like — and were perfect for the night, acting almost as inheritors of Mallory Knox’s legions of fans. Their pop punk sensibilities combined with moments of throat shredding, screamed vocals and moments of almost Thirty Seconds To Mars showmanship led to a brilliant set.
Coming onto an almost dial tone welcome, phones left ringing, unanswered, they tore straight through their opening number, Smoke Screen, and their debut single, Recovery. Their catchy pop-punk, and ultimately easy to enjoy tunes had the crowd bopping up and down and forgetting both about the weather outside and the finality of the night — helped especially by their cover of Dua Lipa’s New Rules, which works surprisingly well when revamped to fit pop-punk and pop-rock, which had the band members and audience alike jumping up and down as if their lives depended on it.
After came Composure, a song shaped around it’s addictive drum beat — which in the tiny room of Cavern worked wonders. Ending on their latest two singles, Disconnected and Alive, their set managed to retain its energy and joy from beginning to the end, as well as getting enjoyably heavy by the end. Every song was polished, confident and ecstatically good fun, and left the crowd wanting more — though that was nothing compared to what came next.
After a short wait, culminating in the iconic and world-renowned classic Final Countdown, by the inimitable Europe — which in hindsight, given the context, takes on a very somber tone — Mallory Knox took to the stage. Opening with the single Sugar, one word came to mind — woah. On the tiny stage of Cavern, the (now sadly broken up) four-piece screamed confidence, both in their abilities and in the crowd’s adoration. It whisked away the finality of the night and had the crowd rolling and revelling in each and every single, almost cathartic in the track’s strength. Every song, from Sugar onwards, was one huge mosh pit, and the band were loving every minute.
Even with the next track, Wherever, the crowd knew every word — which for their reasonably recent release is saying something, with the same explosive reaction.
Next up, Beggars. But this time, it had a short story behind it, with Sam asking the crowd “Who saw that music video, with us all dressed in white and Dave in a fucking beret?” At this point, Sam broke into a smile before exclaiming “thought we were going to get killed that day. Anyway, this is Beggars”; cue screams of almost incoherent ecstasy. Playing the opening track from the debut album seemed almost as if it had brought the band full circle, which felt right somehow. Especially when followed on by riff-heavy The World I Knew, another track from their new album — preceded by Sam’s eloquent introduction of “this is a song off our new album; fuck it, we’re breaking up anyway”.
Up next came a fan favourite, Getaway, dedicated to producer Gill Norton, there that night, for “helping to create our album Asymmetry, the best we ever did”. Notably, Sam used the word did, rather than have done — presumably an entirely subconscious choice, the word carried with an unintentional sense of sad finality, as if saying that this really is it, that this really is the end. Both this, and the next up, Ghost In The Mirror, had everyone singing along and running at each other, often at the same time.
The band, then, toon a little interlude, with Sam talking to his audience. Letting his band members catch their breath, he spoke candidly and honestly to us all, about their shared experiences as Mallory Knox; how he was asked to join the band and the struggle of trying to make it.
“It took us two fucking years to get here, it was not what we thought it would be, but we’re fucking here now... We’re going to play some old shit after this one, but first we’re going to play the best Mallory Knox song we ever did. And it goes like this”, before breaking into the lead single of their recent self-titled album Mallory Knox, White Lies. An interesting choice, perhaps, given the number of songs to choose from, and it’s creative birth after the departure of Mikey Chapman — but, at the same time, ending a band after some of what they consider to be their best work is the best time.
As the final notes faded away, Sam was all smiles — “I can’t believe we did a decade of this shit” (in a good way, of course). “I never fucking foresaw this band would take us to America, to Australia, and if you’ve supported our band I fucking adore you. This was the first song I wrote for the band, and this riff is the best I could do — this song is called Oceans”. Said riff was even more impressive live, and it’s sudden eruption was a perfect tonal shift after the melancholy of his messages — and having the original writer of the song being the lead singer for it felt oddly poetic.
Here came the final three songs: Wake Up, Lighthouse, and Better Off Without You. Wake Up was particularly impressive, with two crowd members surfing over their peers, which in such a tiny venue was... astonishing. The sudden change in the second verse, too, with the vocals suddenly shifting to throat-raw screams was a welcome and abrupt shift; not to say the rest of the set wasn’t enjoyable — obviously! — but small changes like that throughout kept it exciting and new.
Lighthouse, then, another fan favourite from their debut, actually had screams of joy from select individuals. An emotive rollercoaster, it’s simply just a beautiful song, with an anthemic and easy to pick up chorus that brought smiles to everyone in the room.
Finally, then, came Better Off Without You — ostensibly the choice for finale as one of their biggest and most popular songs, like most bands do, given the context it took on a new meaning. As the final song by Mallory Knox that (presumably) everyone there would hear, perhaps the choice was intentional, a goodbye to tell us that we’d be fine without them. It’s upbeat and fast-paced nature throughout the song, which had the crowd enjoying the final moments with the revered rocking — jumping for “one last time” — was the perfect panacea for the evening.
Words by James O’Sullivan