A quiet mid week night in Pennine town Hebden Bridge was turned on its head when cult band heroes rocked in to play.
The foundations of the Trades Club may never be quite the same again after one evening with Palma Violets, who descended on the legendary venue for a special intimate gig amidst a worldwide tour.
Formed in 2011, the psychedelic-garage rock band have been inciting packed crowds of devotees into frenzies everywhere they play.
This show was no different, where the audience bulk shattered into dozens of uncontrollable atom like pieces only seconds after the first chord was struck.
Laying into their raucous set, band members Samuel Thomas Fryer, Chilli Jesson, Jeffrey Peter Mayhew and William Martin Doyle had fans dangling like puppets waiting for the next chorus or wave of sound before collapsing onto each other in a half mosh pit, half rolling wave.
It’s hard not to be caught up in the moment as the band belted out songs from both their debut release 180 and upcoming album Danger in the Club, which at once evoked the gritty garage of early Zutons with the pounding bass lines of The Jam but also a new raw sound that strikes some sort of match in the souls of everyone in the venue.
One song that best exemplified this was the band’s first single, Best of Friends, a song of simple lyrics whose exhilarating and loud choruses gripped the audience and made them scream the words as loud as they can right back.
The one hour set is all over too quick after the band launch into a quick but equally impassioned encore.
And then comparative silence and calm suddenly descends on the venue, similar to that in the aftermath of a tornado, where those who were caught up in it are left stunned haze after being dropped back down to earth.
Able to compel such feelings from the audience, it is no wonder that Palma Violets have gained one of the strongest cult followings in recent years.
