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The first time we ever saw Nothing More in Birmingham, they headlined the small ‘Temple’ room at the top of the O2 Institute. Tonight, just over eight years later, they’ve made it to the larger, main room of the building. It’s the final night of their Spirits UK tour, which sees Siamese and SiM as the two opening bands, both impressing us and being ones to watch, the Japanese band SiM, in particular, putting on an exciting and dynamic show (look for a live video of ‘Baseball Bat’ on YouTube, if you haven’t seen them, and you’ll see what we mean). It's not until 9.35pm that Nothing More make their entrance.
After an intro tape of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’, there’s a boom, before the Alan Watts recording used in ‘Convict/Divide’ precedes ‘Let ‘Em Burn’. It’s just the scorching opener needed, with rabid calls of ‘Everybody, everybody’ in the opening line. While bassist Daniel Oliver wears sunglasses, frontman Jonny Hawkins is elaborately covered with splattered body paint over the left side of his torso. Joined by Mark Vollelunga on guitar and Ben Anderson on drums, the four-piece rip through the caustic number. With bare feet, Jonny covers all corners of the stage, stepping on and off the riser at the front. ‘Do You Really Want It?’ and ‘Don’t Stop’ both continue the frenetic tempo, with Mark and Dan coming together in front of the drum kit during the latter. New single ‘If It Doesn’t Hurt’ features an array of emotions and sees the crowd sing along to the awakening chorus of ‘If it doesn’t hurt at all, then it doesn’t mean a thing, I never knew that I could feel this way’. ‘Go To War’ is combative and the perfect follow-up to ‘If It Doesn’t Hurt’.
“Does anyone have a Jenny in their life?” asks Jonny, before the band’s acclaimed single, ‘Jenny’. It’s bassist Dan’s birthday at midnight, we’re told. The band’s tour manager brings out some balloons, a birthday sash, which is put over Dan’s head, and a cake. Dan puts the largest balloon in front of his mic stand, while the crowd sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.
“This guy was the one who convinced me to drop out of college and tour in a rock band,” says Jonny. Dan replies, thanking everyone, and says that he’s been playing with the guys for pretty much half of his life and that it’s the coolest life. The band play a new song, ‘Angel Song’, which features a lot of clapping along to the funky, brisk beat. It has a very quirky guitar riff in it, and an exhilarating sound, which makes the next album promise to be all the more exciting.
‘Tired Of Winning’ with its funky bassline, the in-your-face ‘Face It’ and the more docile ‘I’ll Be OK’, which goes out to anyone ‘dealing with some shit’, all add to the quality set. ‘Fadein/Fadeout’ is a special song, going out to all of the father figures that Mark says really showed us the way and lit the torch in the darkness. He wrote it in relation to his own father. It’s quite an emotional song that really tugs at your heart. The show ends, not with an encore, as Jonny tells the audience that the band don’t do encores, but with one final number, ‘This Is The Time (Ballast)’. The band incite the crowd to jump up and down as high as they can, and towards the end of the song bring out drums, which Mark, Dan and then Jonny all drum on, Jonny bringing two drums down to the front row of the crowd. It’s an exciting ending that wraps the show up perfectly, leaving everyone eager to see Nothing More back in the UK again. This show did not hurt at all – in fact, it was nothing but sheer pleasure.
A review of this show will also appear in Black Velvet Issue 110
An interview with guitarist Mark Vollelunga is also in issue 110 of Black Velvet.
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