Life is mundane. People get up, go to work, come home, make dinner, go food shopping, go to the pub. These moments are embroidered with holidays, friends, good food, nice weather, but hidden among them are tiny, rarer pockets of magic. One such pocket was The Struts live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
Gethin Davies (drums) walked onstage, followed closely were guitarist Adam Slack & bassist Jed Elliot. We were subjected to the customary half-minute between the appearance of band and frontman before Luke Spiller strode out. The guy’s like if someone took 1974 Freddie Mercury, 1984 David Lee Roth and the dance ability of Michael Jackson and threw them into the Hadron Collider with a pair of purple flares. There was no time to ease into it – the opening chords of Primadonna Like Me promised a relentless mission to subject the audience to an all-encompassing exhaustion.
The groove of Body Talks and the chants of I Hate How Much I Want You had the audience as loud as Spiller (disappointingly, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard didn’t make a surprise guest appearance for the latter). Low Key In Love and Mary Go Round brought the pace down but did nothing to dampen the energy. A mashup which included Put Your Hands Up, Bulletproof Baby and All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go) had Spiller punctuating every verse with the sort of razor-sharp pose which stood as a testament to how deeply each beat is engrained in him.
Everyone was waiting for the same song when the encore came. Could Have Been Me epitomizes the theme of most – if not all – Struts songs. They make you feel like you’re standing at the edge of the world, building and pushing you closer to the brink with every chord progression and melody. Finally, they don’t just push you over the cliff, you’re lifted up and thrown towards the sky. And it keeps going. You soar with every key change, chorus, crescendo. Every time you feel the heart and soul of each member of this band ripping through the music, you go higher.
Never before had I been so desperate for a concert not to end.. Drunk partially on rum and coke, but primarily giddy and full to the brim with joy, the concert energised me rather than tired me. I sprinted across Shepherd’s Bush Green simply to see if it would expel any of the adrenaline coursing through me (it didn’t). I felt weightless with joy.
You should most definitely see the Struts if you can. The sense of joy reverberating around that room, bouncing off the union jack covering the back of the stage and being absorbed by those in the rafters was palpable. It felt like a celebration of life and a reminder that it’s what you make it. So, the Struts command, make it good.