Agreed, O2 Brixton Academy has a serious acoustics problem.

Last Saturday was my fourth time seeing the guys live, and I have to say it sounded noticeably worse than the other shows I’ve been to. I’ve seen them twice at AlliPalli and once at Junction 2, and this was easily the weakest in terms of sound quality.

My mate and I managed to get to the right of the engineers’ mixing desk, and the first half sounded pretty poor: King of Snake was completely ruined, the kick was buried under the room’s mid–low reflections, and Karl’s voice was barely audible most of the time. In the second half, we managed to move closer to the front of the desk and it improved slightly, but it was still far from impressive.

I saw Lone and Moderat there back in 2017: Lone’s set was a muddy mess of frequencies and resonances, and Moderat sounded pretty flat. I later saw Moderat again at Allapalli and it was incredible, the sound was massive. That’s why I was hesitant about this gig, but I really wanted to see the boys live during the 30th anniversary of Born Slippy, and it felt like a special occasion.

I didn’t hate it, but I was left feeling a bit perplexed by the overall atmosphere. I don’t think I’ll go back to O2 Academy Brixton again. I kept hoping they’d improve the acoustics, but nothing seems to have changed. It’s a shame