Bombay Bicycle Club @ 02 Academy, Birmingham

It’s pretty impossible not to look forward to a Bombay Bicycle Club gig. The four-piece from London are so normal that they’re unbelievably charming. I remember thinking this exact thing when heading to Birmingham in 2009, to see them play the 600 capacity O2 Academy 2.

Returning to Birmingham to catch the band on their third album, something has clearly changed: their move to the 3000 capacity Academy 1 is a sign of the mania surrounding them now - and it's clear the band have taken to this with great joy.

As soon as the first bars to ‘Shuffle’ rang out, girlish screams filled the Academy and were lapped up by the band; the crowd rocked dutifully back and forth shouting the chorus at whoever would listen. When third song ‘Dust On The Ground’ fought its way out, the band was almost completely drowned out by the frantic chanting of the crowd; something that has most definitely become the norm at BBC gigs.

The band’s set hurled out classics from all three albums, but strayed quite far away from Flaws, playing only ‘Rinse Me Down’ and ‘Ivy & Gold’; both of which received the same amount of wild screams and elbowing as tracks from their first and third albums.

When ‘Cancel On Me’ was thrown into the mix, a mosh pit of sweaty teenagers broke out and Jack Steadman was completely hidden from those of us lucky enough to be just on the edge of the madness. Then, by the time BBC get to their huge hit ‘Magnet’, anyone near the centre of the crowd had no control over their body; we were flung about from side to side, unable to breath - and no longer able to see the band at all!

And yet it was so easy to feed off their energy; I've never seen BBC play so effortlessly. During set highlight ‘Always Like This’, every single person shouted each lyric frantically at the band whilst being thrown in every direction. I don’t think my feet touched the floor for more than about two seconds during the whole song.

Thanks to Artrocker and Boxfresh, I managed to get myself into Bombay Bicycle Club’s dressing room, a surprisingly small place, just after the gig. As public transport has no sympathy for late night meetings, it was an extremely quick visit involving mostly sweat comparisons. Ending with a photograph and free curly wurlys, it’s safe to say that the band is exactly what they appear to be: wonderful.