If there is one thing that Liverpudlians love, its passion.
And tonight the Zanzibar sees this in the shape of Titus Andronicus. Here you have passion defined; defined in sweat and a lack of faith in the American dream, defined with profound one-liners and breakneck brilliance.
In Titus Andronicus you know one thing for certain; they really really care about what they're doing, why they're doing it, what they're saying and why they're saying it.
Take the lines “You'll always be a loser” and “The enemy is everywhere” these are lines built on the very foundations of song writing; sadness and hatred, disappointment and worry.
For many bands, it takes three verses and a break to reach this climax of craftsmanship, for Titus Andronicus, they make you feel worthwhile every other line.
As hiding behind their songs and the desperation that their bouncy live performance exudes is hope – something that Americans are born with and we have to learn about.
To describe this concert as intimate is an understatement, it didn't just feel close because the Zanzibar roof is low or the fact people were piled in, it felt close because everyone was standing in appreciation and twisting their heels in blessed togetherness.
In one very special moment of a tremendous performance, Patrick Stickles, turned to the audience and with out of breath genius screamed “Now watch me” before exploding into a Chuck Berry guitar solo. It was perfectly adorable and a sign of immense love for his art.
It's moments like this that make Titus Andronicus constantly more majesty than tragedy.
Next up is O. Children –who blitz the stage at The Kazamier. What stands out about O. Children is that they take the brooding genre of quasi-gothic punk and make it completely their own.
They take the gloomy sound mastered by Joy Division and copied by White Lies and lace it with ironical wit and deep choruses of humour and fun – converting doomed sentiment into bold live shows with the joy of life constantly behind their dastardly persona.
Their front man, Tobias, is a force of lurching interest. His bottom waggling, hip-shaking and elusive hand signals seem the complete opposite actions you'd expect from someone of his daunting shape to take part in - though they are combined in equal measure with the thrusting of his microphone and violent thrashing of his impeccable hair.
It makes O. Children seem more than the baritone philosophers most would have you believe.
In fact, in this short set of seven songs, including the hilarious “Ace Breasts” and the recent single “Dead Disco Dancer” O. Children look more like the arrogant nephews of Nick Cave.
Not only have they taken their name from one of his songs, but they've also taken his satirical, sardonic poetic style and added a dosage of horror to it.
Enhancing their image of modern gravediggers and confirming them as the spokespeople for the street urchins of broken Britain; doing their best with guitar screeching, beer drinking and phenomenal live shows, to break it even further.
Los Campesinos! is the most important band in Britain since The Smiths – simple as that.
At this gig, in the O2 Academy, a Maccabees headlined spectrum of indie, they proved once more that their honesty, effort and passion constantly prevails in the face of a scene too often trivialised to the point of saddening uniformity.
In a set that fuses the most heart wrenching tales of guilt and guts with an exhausting energy, Los Campesinos! managed to dispel the myth of their twee-popping past and prove exactly what they are; a lonely cry of originality, spelt out in letters of wit and intelligence, crafted from a chewed Biro found underneath train seats and underlined in a felt-tip stole from a lover’s pocket.
There has always been something unsettling about the screams and gasps of Gareth Campesinos! and the tremble, ever more resigned to impeding loneliness as the beautiful strands of hope and heartache present in their most recent album “Romance Is Boring” sound just as assured as their earlier long-players, if not even more so.
Still fond of a crowd-splitting exercise, Gareth, the football fanatic and lead singer of this troop of clever courage parts the Liverpool audience with sweating palms as the riotous curtain closer “Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks” implodes into a wonderful mosaic of a cappella poetry.
“One blink for yes, two blinks for no” the band sing holding tight to each other, such innocence and naivety underpinned by the beauty of youth.
A Los Campesinos! gig is always special, but tonight it felt more than that, it felt vital.
Pointing to a new age of misery in music, Los Campesinos! probably had The Maccabees shaking in their skinnies backstage, thinking with heads in their hands: “How on earth can we top that?”
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