Dinosaur Pile-Up, O2 Institute, Birmingham review - grungy punk poppers end the weekend on a high

Dinosaur Pile-Up may have been around for more than a decade, but it would be fair to say that their career has been something of a slow burn. Indeed, while thanking tonight’s support acts, main man Matt Bigland claimed that they’d supported more bands than any other group in the UK.

The release of 2019’s Celebrity Mansions album looks like it may be the shot in the arm that Dinosaur Pile-Up have been waiting for, though. This weekend saw them sell out Birmingham’s O2 Institute. The smallest room at the Institute to be sure, but a sold-out gig nevertheless: last time they played Britain’s second city, it was in the back room of a pub. This was not lost on Bigland, who seemed genuinely chuffed to have the attention on a cold Sunday evening, miles away from home.

Kicking off with a lively “Arizona Waiting” from 2015’s Nature Nurture album, it wasn’t long before the packed-in crowd of teenagers with their teeth in braces, balding grunge veterans and all points in between, were similarly showing some appreciation for the threesome on stage. It was an appreciation that only grew during the show and by the time Bigland, Mike Sheils and Jim Cratchley were finally stumbling off stage, after a scorching version of “Backfoot”, the mosh pit had taken over at least half of the room’s floor space.

Dinosaur Pile-Up’s setlist took in all four of the band’s albums, but it was Celebrity Mansions that took the lion’s share of the performance, with all its tunes getting a share of the spotlight. Particularly incendiary were “Stupid Heavy Metal Broken Hearted Loser Punk” and “Pouring Gasoline” but energy levels were high throughout until Bigland calmed things down with his solo spot, “Derail”, which saw Sheils and Cratchley leave the stage with an undue haste that suggested that a race to the urinals might be going on.

The final strait before the encore saw them rachet things up further and hit a couple of tunes from their debut album, Growing Pains. “My Rock’n’Roll” and “Traynor” saw Bigland and his confederates seriously put their collective foot down before launching into the slash and burn of the mighty “Eleven Eleven”. The beefy riffs got the crowd going ape with younger members climbing on each others' shoulders and a bout of vigorous headbanging and flashing of the Devil’s horns particularly possessing a group at the front of the stage.

After a brief break, the Yorkshire trio were back for an encore of the few songs from Celebrity Mansions that the band hadn’t yet played. Launching into “Long Way Down”, the audience ramped it up yet another notch and when the band laid waste to “Thrash Metal Cassette” the mosh pit was expanding by the second as bodies leapt and bounced off each other without lurching into hostility. Inevitably, it was final tune “Backfoot” that got Birmingham giving its all though, howling back words for our time in “I guess I’m getting used to feeling like I’m always on the backfoot” as the band let rip.

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