Live Review: Beach Baby @ Norwich Arts Centre

Words originally for Outline Magazine

L-R: Lawrence Pumfrey, Ollie Pash, Hercules Iraklis, Josh Hodgson 

Tonight’s show marks the best of three for Beach Baby, who previously hit up Norwich alongside Sundara Karma, as well as at Sound & Vision Festival last October. Though they’re far better known now than they were six months ago, the Arts Centre is hardly packed. But with a mostly teenage audience, there’s a buzz of freshness in the air.

Slacker/surf rockers Teen Brains are an act I’ve caught numerous times supporting the likes of Peace and Blossoms, and it’s clear tonight how much their performance has matured with time. They’re slick and groovy, with debut single Annabel standing out as a highlight but also as a clear indicator of just how much the foursome has grown with time.

Main support comes from Babeheaven, a five piece from West London. Their music is quiet but dreamy, a tropical twist running through what could easily drift into depressing territory but delightfully doesn’t. Nancy Anderson fronts, her vocals delicate and innocent over her all male band mates’ instruments. She notes how the audience, “don’t talk between songs… it’s quite nice”, perhaps indicating that people don’t normally listen at their shows. But Norwich is tentative tonight, and why wouldn’t we be, when this act brings such caramel-golden swirls of downbeat electro pop? With festival season coming up, this band is one to catch – Babeheaven play the Lake Stage at Latitude this July.

Sleeperhead gets Beach Baby’s set underway with a long and furious drum intro before its dizzying guitar melodies engulf the Arts Centre like a summer breeze. Lawrence Pumfrey and Ollie Pash are the fronting half of the quartet, both strutting about the stage casually but focussed intently on their instruments. Pumfrey sports a baseball cap, which he quickly loses for the equally jangly No Mind, No Money. Ad-libs come few and far between, perhaps an indirect response to tonight’s audience who are slightly phased out to begin with. But Lost Soul, “for anyone who’s a little lost in life”, ups the tempo and with it the atmosphere.

Beach Baby are a difficult bunch to pin down, musically. The foursome hardly sit at the dinner table marked ‘punk’, although grungey, DIY undertones do surface occasionally within their performance. Rather, they lean more towards the happy-go-lucky summertime vibes of Britpop, no more so than on Limousine, a Supergrass-esque jam that tonight comes with an extended outro for good measure. Ladybird has a similar vibe, albeit with more solemn lyrics – see the ever bewitching hook, “I don’t want to live for nothing, I don’t want to live”.  

Powder Baby is tonight’s (as of yet unreleased) closer, a short but sweet punch of everything Beach Baby provide: there’s fiery drums courtesy of Josh Hodgson as well as a hazy guitar/keyboard combination that suggests big things are to come for this band. Whether they’re set to make it remains to be seen, but tonight certainly looks like the beginning of a bright future.

Lost Soul by Beach Baby is out now.

Facebook: Beach Baby / Babeheaven / Teen Brains
Twitter: Beach Baby / Babeheaven / Teen Brains