Peace LIVE @ Kazimer, Liverpool 15.01.15

On Thursday night I was lucky enough to head down to one of Liverpool’s most beautiful and intimate venues the Kazimier to catch the opening night of the relentless 36 date UK & Europe tour from Peace. The tour sandwiches the release of ‘Happy People’, the second album from Peace – released February 9th.

This is my third time seeing the Birmingham quartet, but the intimate setting of Kazimier is hugely different from their triumphant main stage appearance at Leeds Festival where they played to an audience of thousands last summer. There’s a much bigger sense of anticipation amongst the tightly packed audience who were lucky enough to snap up tickets to tonight’s few hundred capacity show.

Escaping the bitterly cold wind we arrived to catch the support band, who’ve been – quite rightly – hotly tipped for 2015. Liverpool’s The Vryll Society warmed up the crowd with ease with a nice psych-rock set, successfully captivating their hometown crowd.

There was an eager buzz in the room when Peace took to the stage to open with ‘Bloodshake’, the front row filled with glitter-clad fans ready to sing their hearts out.
Continuing with previously released material the band played ‘Higher Than The Sun’ and ‘Follow Baby’, quickly turning the young crowd into a sweaty, euphoric pit.

The band moved onto to some new tracks, giving the audience a well-received taste of ‘Happy People’, as well as an album track they’d already be familiar with in the form of the infectious ‘Lost On Me’.

Fan favourites ‘1998 (Delicious)’ and ‘Float Forever’ were also included in the hour long set, during which some questionable attempts at crowd-surfing took place. Harrison Koisser delivers gorgeous vocals effortlessly, but my favourite aspect of the live set is the backing vocals from bassist Samuel Koisser.

The encore featured latest single ‘I’m A Girl’, which the band describe as Peace at their loudest but most delicate. The 17 track setlist came to an end with an attempted stage invasion to ‘World Pleasure’ with various fans surrounding the band before being directed back into the crowd by security.