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Live Recap: Bastille's Bad Blood X Tour Resurrects Their Landmark Album
“Every day it passes, faster than the last did, and you’ll be old soon, you’ll be old.”- “Weight of Living, Pt. II” by Bastille. These lyrics about the passage of time as you get older rang true for me back in 2013 when Bastille first released their debut album Bad Blood, but they definitely hit even harder when you realize the album is now 10 years old. A decade that felt both fleeting and like a lifetime.
To celebrate this decade landmark of their number one album, Bastille members Dan Smith, Chris “Woody” Wood, Kyle Simmons, and Will Farquarson announced last year that they’d embark on a“Bad Blood X” summer tour around the UK, kicking off Friday, June 30th at Newmarket Racecourses and ending July 23rd at Ludlow Castle. The premise of the tour (you guessed it) being that the band plays their entire debut album in full at these gigs, along with a few other fan favorites from their discography.
As someone who has been a fan of the band for over ten years (fun fact: I saw them perform for the first time on Bastille Day in 2013), the news of the tour conjured up waves of nostalgia and memories of seeing the group perform this album on the original Bad Blood tour(s) in venues ranging from Lincoln Hall in Chicago to Radio City Music Hall in New York. I got the chance to attend their Bad Blood X show in Leeds on July 13th, which was the eve of Bastille Day and the release of the 10 year anniversary edition of the record.
The sold out show took place at Millennium Square in the heart of Leeds, with support from Etta Marcus and Orla Gartland. Singer-songwriter Marcus took the stage first with her 4-piece band to perform a handful of songs, including “Smile” and “Salt Lake City.” The latter got a big cheer and applause from a few fans who had traveled from Salt Lake City to attend the Bastille tour. I’d recommend listening to Etta Marcus if you’re a fan of Faye Webster, Samia, or Julia Jacklin.
Etta Marcus performing
Orla Gartland took the stage next with her drummer and bass player, who were rocking Harry Styles and Taylor Swift t-shirts respectively. Gartland had supported Bastille at two earlier gigs on the tour, and it was clear she’d already gained some new fans in the Bastille community, as I saw several fans singing along to her songs like “Pretending” and “Why Am I Like This?” Gartland introduced the latter saying “This is a song about basically being in your own head” and the song seemed to be a crowd favorite. Towards the end of her set, the singer had everyone in the crowd singing along when she did a medley of different cover songs, including bits of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”
Orla Gartland performing
With the crowd properly warmed up by Marcus and Gartland, the crew got to work setting the stage for the main event. The Bad Blood X stage included street lamps on either end and other bits reminiscent of their OG Bad Blood era, including a hoodie with a wolf on it and Converse shoes that lead singer Dan Smith used to wear during those early days of touring. Just before 8:45PM, the onstage screen flashed an introductory scrawl of “Bad Blood X” in Smith’s handwriting before fading into a montage of video clips from previous tours. While fans eagerly awaited the band to enter the stage, they saw moments ranging from celebrating Woody’s birthday to Will asking the band if they know how to say “goodbye” in Dutch to a younger Dan singing their hit “Pompeii.” The video clip of “Pompeii” transitioned into the band entering the stage and launching into playing the anthemic tune, which felt a little surreal to hear as the first song of the night. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve seen Bastille, they’ve closed with “Pompeii”— but with playing the album in full, fans got to hear it at the start of the set this time.
The show begins…
Next up on both the album and setlist; “Things We Lost in the Fire,” which saw the entire audience clapping in time to the drumbeat of the chorus. After this song, Kyle Simmons addressed the crowd to let them know from time to time they’d be seeing old “embarrassing” videos of their early tour days up on the screen, which were captured by their friend and videographer Tom Middleton. Simmons also mentioned that he and Smith had studied at University of Leeds, which added to the full circle moment and fit the theme of revisiting a part of your past life.
Following the performance of the album’s title track, the audience got another stroll down memory lane with another clip from Middleton’s tour archive. The clip revealed an unglamorous moment of touring; changing a flat tire on the way to a gig. These interludes of past tour footage occurred a few more times throughout the show, but the most beloved seemed to be the video of Farquarson getting a tattoo of the words “Bad Blood” in Texas to commemorate the album going to number one on the charts, which got a loud laugh from the audience.
Will Farquarson of Bastille
The video interludes weren’t the only moments of the Bad Blood portion of the set that nodded to the band’s past. They made sure to bring back many traditions tied to these songs —for example, Woody left his drum set to come to the front of the stage to lead the crowd in swaying their arms during “Overjoyed” and holding up their cell phone lights during “Oblivion.” One tradition that has remained since day one is what has been deemed the “Flaws walk” by fans—which is when Smith hops off the stage during the performance of their first single “Flaws” to walk and dance his way through the audience. The song has remained a staple in their setlist, even on the tour for their fourth album Give Me The Future, so Smith has kept up the Flaws walk for years. On the night of the Leeds show, Smith started on the house right side of the crowd, made his way all the way to the back of the square, and re-entered on the left side. Quite the feat considering the size of the audience and the venue, but Smith has always impressed me with his ability to maneuver through frenzied crowds. Smith also impressed me with his ability to jump up and down while singing just as much as he did in the early days, but I did notice he swapped out his Converse shoes for more sensible New Balances.
Bastille’s performance of their debut album on this tour wasn’t just a redo of their early songs, it was a revival and a chance for them to breathe new life into the music they once performed as novices, now as seasoned performers. While they still had plenty of callbacks to their beginning days in 2013-2014, the 2023 tour also introduced more advanced production aspects and more live band members, including multi-instrumentalist Charlie Barnes (who has been a touring member of Bastille since 2015) and vocalists Bim Amoako and Senab Adekunle.
Another pleasant change with touring Bad Blood 2.0 was the addition of the song “Weight of Living Pt. I” to the setlist. Before playing the song to close out the first part of the set, Smith told the crowd that this track “really dates” the album because it was a hidden bonus track on the record, which isn’t a common feature on records nowadays. Prior to this tour, Bastille had only played Pt. I of “Weight of Living” a handful of times—the first time being in 2017, well after the album’s original tours. The live version of this song sounded incredible with extra vocal support from Bim and Senab.
Kyle Simmons, Dan Smith, and Charlie Barnes of Bastille
The entire band left the stage at this point, returning promptly to perform other fan favorites for part two of their set. A graphic on the screen reading “Beyond Bad Blood” marked the transition into music from other eras. “Good Grief” and “Send Them Off!” from their second album Wild World were both featured during this portion—the latter being fan-voted by a poll on the band’s Instagram Stories the morning of the gig. “The Draw,” which was a song featured on the (super) extended version the debut album called All This Bad Blood, had been played by Bastille on past tours, but this time around fans got to see Smith perform it on guitar, giving it a little extra edginess. We also saw Smith on guitar for the performance of the band’s 2020 single “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???”—but the real star of the show during that song was Barnes, whose showmanship was on full display as he jumped and flipped around the stage.
Smith then addressed the audience to tell them they’d like to “finish with a party” before launching into their hit collaboration with Marshmello “Happier.” Smith stood up onto the barricade rail for this song, balancing on it like a tightrope as he walked from one end to another, at one point holding the microphone out to a fan to sing part of the chorus. The party vibes continued with “Million Pieces” from their album Doom Days, which Smith introduced by saying “This is our attempt at a rave song, but as usual it has to be about the world fucking falling apart.”
Smith walking along the barricade during “Happier”
True to their word, Bastille rounded off the set with pure party vibes by playing “Of The Night” and “Shut Off The Lights.” During their performance of the former (which is a mashup cover of 90’s tunes “Rhythm is a Dancer” and “Rhythm of the Night”) Smith once again recalled a tried and true tradition at their shows by asking everyone to crouch down just before the chorus, then jump up and down with him during the chorus. During the final song of the show, Smith and his bandmates sang “shut off the lights, we don’t need them to dance” and dance we did.
After all the dancing I did at this show, I found myself in McDonald’s afterwards with several other concert attendees getting their post-gig fuel. The best conversation I overheard while waiting for food was a man singing “they put the chips in the fryer fryer fryer” to the tune of “Things We Lost in the Fire.”
A wise band once said “does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?” And with Bad Blood X, the changes are there with the increase in the size of their fan base, the newest live band member additions, the more supportive sneakers, and Smith’s stage demeanor, but the changes signify growth and the joy of living. Here’s to hoping we see the band when they’re older and full of (more) stories to be told for Bad Blood XX.
If you missed out on the shows in the UK, the band will be playing one US show for Bad Blood X in Los Angeles on August 25th. Check out all of their upcoming tour dates here, and see the full gallery of the Leeds show below.
