BODEGA + CIEL – CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON 28.5.24
Bodega 9:15 – 10.37
Following April’s USA tour dates, the ‘Brand on the Run Tour’ hit the UK for some festival dates and just two standalone venue dates, the last of those being here in Brighton tonight. But Bodega are no strangers to Brighton, having played The Prince Albert and Resident Music back in 2022, the Concorde 2 back in 2019, The Haunt (now Chalk) and the Green Door Store in 2018, they are no strangers to this city. To be honest I have no idea how I’ve never seen or heard them before, they only came to my attention with recent airplay on BBC6 Music with their very catchy singles ‘Tarkovski’ and ‘Cultural Consumer III’ which prompted me to search them out, Bandcamp their album and be extremely happy that Brighton was on the map for this short UK tour.
I almost didn’t make the gig having found out the A259 was going to be shut after 8pm, which meant a frantic last minute dash for a train and then the long walk in the wind and rain to the Concorde 2 along the seafront. Oh how I wish those arches were repaired at times like this, it always used to be a lovely sheltered walk along there. Anyhow I digress, I got to the gig on time and squeezed on in at the front with no intention of moving until everything was over and I’m glad I did as the venue filled right out with very little wriggle room down in the pit which got lively as the gig went on.
Bodega are an Indie-punk quintet from New York City, their sound is a mix of shoegaze, post punk, sub-indie pop and it’s a sound I utterly love. This tour is promoting their recently released third album ‘Our Brand Could Be Ur Life’, an excellent album theming on rallying against capitalism’s effect on pretty much everything. The album works brilliantly and should be listened to in order with all the voice links, even ‘Cultural Consumer’ has 3 different songs. Amazingly the band actually put out a Low-Fi 33 track album of the same title under the name Bodega Bay back in 2015, but revisited the tracks thus creating this new full on version of the album, those political messages don’t change, but the sound really makes this a timeless masterpiece.
And talking of those often political links, as the band came on stage at 21:15, with the Bodega switching banknote and ATM machine becoming the backdrop, vocalist Nikki Belfiglio told us first we have a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for you “The world is made up of two classes, The Brand and The Branded”.
Now Nikki is one hell of a front person, whilst vocal duties are shared between her and Ben Hozie, she is positioned at front centre stage with a large high hat cymbal to one side and a Roland SP-404SX Linear Wave Sampler to the other. Dressed in black and using her drum stick like a cane or a pointer, she commands full attention, almost like a headmistress, she is not one to be messed with, but at the same time it is all done in a playful way, utterly captivating.
On the subject of dress sense, I’ve never been to New York, but there is something about Bodega’s dress style that instantly just screams New York City to me. Dark and very cool attire is the name of the game here, I love it, just how I’d imagined in my mind.
The first song is the excellent catchy ‘ATM’, with Ben Hozie positioned to the left of the stage wearing his trademark big fluffy hat, Ben plays guitar and sings, whilst Nikki chants ATM, a fine start to the set. Next up was an earlier song ‘Shiny New Model’, a solid indie banger of a song which got a massive cheer at the end.
A slight change of tone with the next song ‘Margot’ from the 2018 album ‘Endless Scroll’, this one was sung by Nikki, bass player Adam See’s bass line on this one was a throbbing marching heartbeat, Nikki’s vocals reminded me of the B52s. Throughout the evening, Nikki and Ben would tag team seamlessly between and during songs with vocals with various songs leading straight into the next one with no break or gap, the whole band were insanely in tune with each other, one example of that was Ben breaking straight into a new song ‘Network’ following Nikki’s closing line of ‘Margot’ which brought back those frantic guitar sounds from Dan Ryan and Ben.
Keeping the high energy guitar going we were treated to another new song which was very punk sounding called ‘Guess What’. Adam Shumski really was giving some power behind his stand up drums and percussion set, I don’t think in all my gigging over the years I’d seen a stand up drummer before. Ben took to his Roland drum machine for the next song and Nikki was back on vocals for ‘Territorial Call Of The Female’, this one had quite the tribal feel to it, a lot dancier and Dan’s guitar was fantastic. Ben introduced the next song ‘Art And Advertising’, clambering out on the unit at the front of the stage to blast those lyrics out to us, he was practically in touching distance of us on the front barrier.
“How’s everybody doing, that bad huh” Ben joked sarcastically to the crowd before the band broke into a run of 4 songs that run concurrently into each other on the new album, ‘Born Into By What Consumes’, and ‘Cultural Consumer I, II & III’. This was bloody brilliant. The first 3 tracks slowly built up momentum and the message before exploding into the guitar soaked ‘Cultural Consumer III’, during this Nikki threw fake bank notes in the air, many of us in the front were hoping one might float our way, but only 3 actually landed on the floor. Next we had Nikki back on vocals for ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Drum’ then Ben for ‘Doers’, I really liked this one, peppered with space invader type effects from Nikki’s sampler and Dan maxing out the sound from his guitar.
Another couple of highlight tracks for me from the new album followed soon in the set ‘GND Deity’ and ‘Bodega Bait’, but the cream was yet to come with the song that had first introduced me to the band ‘Tarkovski’. Dan had one mega extended guitar spot during this, climbing out onto the storage unit at the front of the stage, jamming his guitar against the speakers. The band were on fire, playing a near 9 minute version of the song bringing in a bit of ‘Protean’ and ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ to the mix. Plenty of smiles on stage and plenty of the crowd chanting “Take me to the zone”; honestly I could listen to that song on repeat for hours.
The tempo was brought down a little with the slower more melodic ‘Major Amberson’ after which Ben thanked the crowd for all coming to down to the beach to hear them play, announcing they had a few more songs left to play, the official setlist had 2 more left ‘Statuette On The Console’ and ‘Quantify’ which did get played. But at this point song requests started getting shouted out from the crowd so that plan was about to go out of the window. Ben said “We’ll finish the programme then we’ll get to that shit”, so after the full on explosion of sound of ‘Statuette’ on the console;, the fan request for ‘No Blade Of Grass’ was met with the whole band all dropping to the floor as they hit the last note. Ben thanked the chap for asking for that one as “they don’t play it so much these days”. Ben said they could go off and come back and do some more once they are finished, or they just could skip that and stay on stage and play even more, the cheers from the audience pretty much made that decision stick. So Ben continued “okay, you’ve had one (choice), and now this is one for me, it’s a brand new one, it’s not even on the new record, its’ newer than that, but I want to see some dancing, it’s a hard-core song”, the song was ‘Quantify’ and it was definitely the most hard-core, thrash like song of the set, one the mosh pit certainly were enjoying behind me.
It was now bonus song time for us all and we were treated to two songs from the album ‘Endless Scroll’, ‘Jack In Titanic’ which was a crowd request, I loved this one. Another mosh pit friendly song followed ‘I Am Not A Cinephile’, that was a short and frantic one. “Okay what else? what else?” quizzed Nikki to the crowd. The band formed a huddle formulating the close of the set, “Right this is your encore” said Ben as we were given the Bob Dylan cover ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, Nikki joined Adam over behind the drums for this one. More conferring went on between the band and the final two numbers were ‘Warhol’ and ‘How Did This Happen?’! Both also from the ‘Endless Scroll’ album.
All in all, the 1 hour 17 minute set all seemed to be over too soon. It was a full on powerful end to the gig, live they really are a powerhouse, the noise levels are way more ramped up compared to the studio album, my ears will be bleeding guitar for the week to come. I loved how at the end they so could easily go off script in terms of set list and take requests, when you look at other setlists from this tour, you can see that the song lists get mixed up and changed regularly, the shows are not carbon copies of the previous night. Each member of the band is an essential component, whilst Nikki and Ben are more the focal points, Adam See’s bass is the constant engine that keeps on running throughout, so dominant and loud, never faltering. Then there is Dan’s guitar, with him bossing and teasing gorgeous sounds wherever he can, and don’t forget Adam Shumski, he may have been at the back of the stage, but there was no rest for the wicked as he banged those rhythms out.
It was great to see all of the band over at the merch stall area afterwards, Nikki and Adam were both rocking little ATM toys dangling from their clothes throughout the gig, I didn’t see them on the stall, but they all kindly signed the CD I bought and one of the fake $1000 bills Nikki threw in the air during the gig. What a night it was, it is already in contention for my top 5 of the year list.
Now I’ve found Bodega, I 100% will be making sure I go see them next time they venture to Brighton.
Bodega:
Ben Hozie – vocals, guitar, Roland drum machine
Nikki Belfiglio – vocals, cymbal, Roland SP-404SX Linear Wave Sampler
Dan Ryan – guitar
Adam See – bass guitar
Adam Shumski – Stand-up drums & percussion
Bodega setlist:
‘ATM’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Shiny New Model’ (from 2019 ‘Shiny New Model’ mini album)
‘Margot’ (from 2018 ‘Endless Scroll’ album)
‘Network’ (new)
‘Guess What’ (new)
‘Territorial Call Of The Female’ (from 2022 ‘Broken Equipment’ album)
‘Art And Advertising’ (from 2023 ‘Xtra Equipment’ album)
‘Born Into By What Consumes’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Cultural Consumer I’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Cultural Consumer II’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Cultural Consumer III’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Drum’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Doers’ (from 2022 ‘Broken Equipment’ album)
‘GND Deity’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Bodega Bait’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Tarkovski’ (w/ ‘Protean’ and ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ (C Berry) lyrics) (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Major Amberson’ (from 2024 ‘Our Brand Could Be Yr Life’ album)
‘Statuette On The Console’ (from 2022 ‘Broken Equipment’ album)
‘No Blade Of Grass’ (from 2022 ‘Broken Equipment’ album) (crowd request)
‘Quantify’ (new)
‘Jack In Titanic’ (from 2018 ‘Endless Scroll’ album) (crowd request)
‘I Am Not A Cinephile’ (from 2018 ‘Endless Scroll’ album)
‘Highway 61 Revisited’ (Bob Dylan cover)
‘Warhol’ (from 2018 ‘Endless Scroll’ album)
‘How Did This Happen?!’ (from 2018 ‘Endless Scroll’ album)
Ciel – 20:15 – 20:45
I make no lie CIEL are one of my favourite Brighton based bands, so I was a happy chap when they were added as support for Bodega here at the Concorde 2 tonight. Having seen them previously at the WaterBear Venue, Green Door Store, The Prince Albert and The Hope & Ruin, it was fantastic to see them moving up and playing to a bigger venue in their own home town.
CIEL are a grungy-pop trio formed of Michelle Hindriks on vocals and bass, Tim Spencer on drums and Ruby Taylor of Yumi and the Weather fame on guitar.
As the lights dimmed at 20:15, all three members of CIEL walked on stage, popped down their setlists and with no further ado away we went with a short but solid 30 minute set mostly composed of songs from their three most recent EP’s. The brilliant ‘Make It Better’ being the first of those that got played to the now well packed room. It is pleasing to see so many people these days getting in early for the support acts; it really does make all the difference in terms of atmosphere for the audience as well as the band looking out on stage.
As with all previous time’s I’ve seen CIEL, Michelle’s gorgeous bass work really is what I think drives the songs, it’s the loudest heartbeat to each song, layered up with Tim’s banging drums and crashing cymbals and Ruby’s pedal switching guitars can often make it feel like you have more than just three musicians up there.
It was nice to hear ‘Naked’ an early song from their 2017 ‘Anxiety’ EP, to hear it live now really shows how their sound has evolved over the years from what was initially a calmer shoegaze feel to the far more grungy and heavier sound.
Proceedings stopped briefly as Michelle told us it’s their first date on their tiny tour with Bodega and how happy they were to be back playing Brighton, she also reminded everyone of their double EP record will be over on the merch stall and welcomed people to come over for a chat and a beer.
Next up was the double whammy of ‘Baby Don’t You Know’ and ‘Shut In My Body’ two of my personal favourites, the latter really ramping up the guitar and noise level. At the start of ‘Talk’ Tim counted in the song hitting his drum sticks together, one broke and flew into a gap at the front of the stage, “we’ll start that one again” he said reaching for a replacement stick, prompting some laughter on stage and from the crowd. The set closer was another crowd favourite ‘Fine Everything’, a perfect end to a perfect set. I must say CIEL were on brilliant form this evening, it was their first time playing the Concorde 2 venue and they went down very well with the Bodega crowd, they have such raw energy.
CIEL, will support Bodega on the first French 3 dates of their on-going tour which now heads to Europe. Their latest double EP ‘Make It Better / Rather Be Alone’ is still available on their Bandcamp page, well worth picking up before it sells out, I have it myself as well as everything else from their merchandise stall and highly recommend it.
CIEL:
Michelle Hindriks – bass / vocals
Tim Spencer – drums
Ruby Taylor – guitar
CIEL setlist:
‘Make It Better’ (from 2023 ‘Make it Better’ EP)
‘Seeking’
‘Circles’ (from 2023 ‘Rather Be Alone’ EP)
‘Back To The Feeling’ (from 2022 ‘Not In The Sun, Nor In The Dark’ EP)
‘Naked’ (from 2017 ‘Anxiety’ EP)
‘Baby Don’t You Know’ (from 2022 ‘Not In The Sun, Nor In The Dark’ EP)
‘Shut In My Body’ (from 2023 ‘Rather Be Alone’ EP)
‘Talk’ (from 2023 ‘Rather Be Alone’ EP)
‘Fine Everything’ (from 2022 ‘Not In The Sun, Nor In The Dark’ EP)
