BRITISH INDIA - The Corner Hotel, Richmond 26/03/2011

Text and Photos by Matthew Hallett

                                                                   

British India is a band committed to its fans. This was ever so clear as they played to a full house at the Corner Hotel. This show was just the fourth of what is a 26-date national tour, starting in the band’s home state of Victoria, and then heading all across the country. The boys are in the process of writing for album number four and hope to record at the end of this tour, but for now it’s all about reconnecting with the fans. 

Declan Melia (Vocals/Guitar) thanked everyone at the gig saying, “It’s great that we can go away for a while, and come back and see all of you here again”. But the mutual appreciation between band and crowd was certainly a two-way street, with fans fervently jumping around and singing along at the top of their lungs.

British India emphatically opened the show with new single and tour name, March into the Ocean and followed up with an equally energetic rendition of Safari. By this point anyone meandering up the back of the Corner Hotel, had well and truly joined the rest of the crowd towards the front of the stage. 

The show was a good balance of hits like Run the Red Light, Vanilla, I Said I’m Sorry and Tie up my Hands, as well as album tracks such as Teenage Mother, This Dance is Loaded and Mona Lisa Overdrive. The boys also threw in an unexpected cover of The Offspring’s Self Esteem which went down a treat. Apart from March into the Ocean, British India only chose to play one other new song, She Prefers Older Men, Melia reasoning the band didn’t want to bore the audience with songs they wouldn’t know.

There were relatively few static moments throughout the set, mainly for tuning, but these were covered well with healthy banter from frontman Declan Melia, and his constant interaction with punters, whether it be stepping across and singing into their faces, or giving one punter his Melbourne Bitter Stubby because they shared the same name as him, or even after the end of the set when Melia, eating a burger, walked out from behind a curtain covering the stage and personally high-fived and thanked fans until security sent him back behind the curtain. 

The band’s final number Black & White Radio summed up the night’s gig perfectly; powerful, energetic, and highly sing-along-able.