It’s easy to see why some people are getting fed up with festival line-ups.
‘It’s the same old bands playing every year’, they say. ‘I’m getting a bit sick of it’, they moan. ‘Nobody’s willing to take a chance on a headliner anymore’.
To an extent, we see where they’re coming from – after all, the likes of Kasabian, Muse, and Coldplay have become staple acts at the majority of the UK’s biggest festivals, and it’s getting increasingly tricky to not see The Killers live if you’re a regular attendee of any of the country’s major weekenders.
There is hope for us all, though
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. Every now and then, a band will make the leap up to the big leagues, and find that they’re really, really suited to it. Foals and Biffy Clyro, to name just two, have made the jump in recent years, and now they’ve well and truly established themselves as bona-fide festival headliners.
Forgive us if we’re wrong, dear reader, but we’re firmly convinced that Royal Blood are going to be the next homegrown band to make the jump from midday-slot Main Stage openers to stadium-straddling festival headliners. Their show at Cornwall’s beautiful Eden Project was an hour of sheer rock power, and left us with no doubt whatsoever that they’ve got the talent, the charisma, and the tunes to make the leap sooner rather than later.
We defy you not to enjoy a Royal Blood show
From the minute they storm onto the stage and blast into Where Are You Now?, it’s clear that these guys are determined to blow the metaphorical roof off of the Eden Project stage – and, by the time they close with the powerful one-two of Ten Tonne Skeleton and Out Of The Black, they’ve succeeded in both turning the Eden arena into one giant mosh pit and winning over each and every member of the sold-out crowd.
In all honesty, we think that’s where their real strength lies. Even if you’re really not a fan of rock music, we think that you’d still enjoy a Royal Blood show. For a start, you can’t help but to be impressed by the sight of two guys standing on a stage and making the sort of heavenly rock racket that most five-piece bands would struggle to emulate. They’ve had more than enough hits to keep a casual attendee happy, too – the likes of Figure It Out, Lights Out and Little Monster have enjoyed heavy rotation on mainstream daytime radio, and we defy anybody to not be singing along to the chorus of I Only Lie When I Love You by the time its last note rings out.
They’re more than ready to rise to the occasion
So, that’s that. They’ve got the hits, and the stage presence, to pull off a slot on the biggest stages of them all; and, of course, they’ve got the songs. Mark our words, dear reader: we think that it’s only a matter of time before we see Royal Blood making the step up to festival headliners, and we think that they’ll absolutely smash it when they do.