It’s not often that Finsbury Park’s summer gig series comes freighted with so much emotional weight. Tonight (July 5), though, Wolf Alice’s moment under the north London sun has plenty of special sentiment behind it. Not only is this their biggest headline gig to date – the culmination so far of years of hard touring – it’s also closely tied to the band’s history. Frontwoman Ellie Rowsell and bassist Theo Ellis both grew up not far from here, while the first gigs Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie played as they formed the band are a stone’s throw away.
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It would be easy for Wolf Alice to play it cool, but you can tell how much that connection means to them as soon as they step on stage. After a vibrant ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, punctuated with early bursts of white confetti, Rowsell looks out at the crowd as if she’s surveying something magical. “I hope you have the best day ever!” she says, face lit up with joy.
It’s impossible not to, with the setlist that the band have put together tonight – a fine balance between latest album ‘The Clearing’ and their back catalogue. There are some surprises: ‘My Love Is Cool’’s sweet, springy ‘Lisbon’ arrives early on, while Rowsell performs the gorgeously stripped-back 2013 B-side ‘White Leather’ sitting on top of a column that’s positioned in the star-shaped hole at the back of the stage. A cover of ’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in the encore helps bring things to a riotous close.
