Champagne Butterflies – Wild Youth Gig Review

That title is a track to listen out for. A brand new song (click the link to read a full review of the Champagne Butterflies single) to kick off a brand new tour. A song that I can only hope makes an appearance as a single in the future or on an EP because that one song got the entire audience bopping with an earworm of a chorus. As the first song of the set, playing a brand new track is definitely a risk for bands but, for Wild Youth, the risk paid off. This song will get stuck in your head even if all you know is the tune but that is almost a staple for Wild Youth by now. As a brief introduction, Wild Youth, a four piece band from Dublin, consists of:

• Front man: David Whelan
• Keyboardist: Conor O’Donohoe
• Guitarist: Ed Porter
• Drummer: Callum McAdam

and they are joined on their live adventures by session bassist Twiggy

The ever wonderful Ryan Mack appeared as the support act and humble as always, his performance was incredible. In between performing songs that were extremely well received by his fans in the audience, including ‘Sofa’ and ‘Got You Covered’ and a new call and response song, Ryan was eternally grateful for his friendship with Wild Youth and their invitation to join them on tour. I will admit I was hoping his track ‘I Don’t Wanna’ would make an appearance but, as always, Ryan is an ideal support act for the band. Ryan will be joining Wild Youth for all their dates in Ireland and you can of course follow him on Instagram and Twitter (especially if you want to see lots of stories about his cat) and stream or download his EP ‘Someone Else.’

The guys from Wild Youth are back with a bang after what seems like a very fruitful and productive writing session and they kicked off their latest tour in Cyprus Avenue, Cork. As full of energy as ever and with some slick suits for the front man, David Whelan, and keyboardist/backing vocalist/percussionist/guitarist/lyricist, Conor O’Donohoe. And, yes, you read that correctly, Conor O’Donohoe decided to show off his musical skills in Cork. Not only can he stand on a kick drum and make it look easy, he played guitar and seemed to drop guitar plecs for sport (RIP to possibly six plecs that ended up scattered around the stage) during one of the new tracks that was performed for the first time. Performing these songs is “pretty special and sh*t scary” according to David but they need not have worried because those new songs fit effortlessly into the existing Wild Youth repertoire. As always that wild energy is contagious and it doesn’t take long for the whole crowd to bop, dance and sing along, even to the three brand new songs and the still unreleased “Anywhere With You” but, with the promise of new songs in early 2020, Wild Youth fans have plenty to look forward to.

Throughout the entire show, all five of the men on stage looked like they were having a blast while they rocked out to pop songs. It is always an absolute joy for me to watch the band as a whole perform together because you can see on their faces that they love what they are doing. David makes spinning and dancing through the whole set look effortless and hits high notes like it’s no big deal. Callum, perched behind his drums on a platform at the back, is a blur of activity and smiles for days; seems like behind those drums Callum is always as happy as a clam and his fan designed pillowcase, taken from the front row, got a spot of honour on top of the kick drum. Twiggy is nearby bopping along happily with what I believe was a 1-up mushroom on his bass… I did see that right, right? Wild Youth please confirm this for me, the video gamer in me is dying to know! Was there a Super Mario reference on stage in Cork? All that aside, seeing Twiggy bopping onstage is always a win. Ed Porter makes looking serious an art form but when he smiles you know it’s genuine and it’s always a treat to catch him smiling especially for those lucky enough to catch it with a camera. As a whole, with all the drumstick breaking and dancing, Wild Youth really lived up to the name.

But it’s never just about the show. There’s music to talk about here. New tracks ‘Champagne Butterflies’, ‘Superficial Love’ and ‘Where Are We Now’ all made their debut appearances in Cork and, though ‘Where Are We Now’ quickly became my personal favourite, Champagne Butterflies is the clear contender for the radio airwaves. I won’t spoil any of the new songs for those of you who will be attending future dates but I will say that these new songs are somewhat different from what has come before but still fit nicely into the Wild Youth style of music. As I said earlier, these new songs work seamlessly into the existing Wild Youth track list and fan favourite ‘Outsider,’ which is still unreleased as well, made an appearance. Unfortunately, ‘Give Me Some Of You Love’ didn’t get an outing in Cork but perhaps the set-list was trying to tell a different kind of story. The songs currently available to stream and download seem as fresh as new releases during their performances while the crowd sings back lyrics to the band. One of the real stand out moments was the very stripped back performance of ‘Drinking About You.’ It was raw and real and a true representation of the emotion of the song which is often imitated but rarely duplicated. This really and truly was something amazing. But a Wild Youth gig doesn’t really end unless they perform three of their biggest bops as the band’s encore. After disappearing ever so briefly, the band closed out the show in style with ‘Long Time No See‘, ‘Last Goodbye‘ and ‘Can’t Move On.’ Oh. My. God!

Of course, as is always the case, it wouldn’t be a Wild Youth gig if the threat of legs getting tangled up in leads wasn’t imminent at all times. There were moments were injuries seemed unavoidable but somehow the band managed once again to escape almost unscathed as a story from later in the night showed David with his hand wrapped. What occurred, we may never know but, hopefully, David is back to his spinning, dancing ways for the rest of the tour. To keep up with Wild Youth, follow them on Instagram and Twitter and, of course, you can stream and download their latest single ‘Long Time No See’ and their EP ‘The Last Goodbye’ and there are some tickets available for the remaining tour dates in December from ticketmaster.com.