The Roundhouse in action

 

Oh Wonder/Roundhouse/13thSeptember

Oh Wonder are something of an anomaly in the music scene today. In an age where artists regularly drop a full album with very little preamble, Oh Wonder had 12 of the 15 tracks that make up their debut album available online prior to its release. The London duo set themselves a challenge in 2014 of releasing a new song each month. This meant writing recording and adding the finishing touches to a new song every 30 days. Not something many other artists would be willing to try. But one way or another they managed it, releasing 12 complete songs followed by their self-titles album in September 2015. It was around this time they played their first live show, to an intimate 300, having previously been solely based in the studio. Fast forward to now and a having toured the world they are back in their hometown to play a sold out night at the roundhouse. 

I saw the band live at latitude festival earlier this summer and was taken aback at how polished their live show was considering the short amount of time they had been playing together. This in part is due to their separate experience, with Anthony having played in indie band Futures and Josephine having played numerous solo shows. However, there is something magical about the two live, how in tune and in sync they are with each other that makes it seem like they have been playing together for years.

Playing their own headline show they take it to another level, helped along by the crowd that seems to know every word to every song. On stage Josephine comes alive, with Anthony taking more of a backseat role as she dances around the, all eyes on her. There are a few moments when their inexperience playing venues this size shows, long pauses between songs particularly when they changed the staging to an intimate piano and acoustic guitar around a lampshade set up. Despite the few teething problems they are well worth checking out live, their music comes into its own taking on a whole other life with an audience. They even threw in a cliché outfit change for the encore, I mean what more do you want.