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WE ARE SCIENTISTS
We Are Scientists is a band whose two skinny frontmen men personify American indie culture . You could almost imagine them in an American teen film as the slightly uncool musicians who eventually make it big. As this seems to have quite literally happened Keith, Chris and
the ir new drummer Andy Burrows (exRazorlight) brought their most recent tour to UEA on the 19th of November. Feeling slightly hesitant that their set was to be dominated by their new record, Barbara, this reviewer entered the gig with some caution. Kicking off with
J(EITH MURRAY Howareyou?
Damn well! Actually I'm finally succumbing to tour illness, has to happen once every tour and it's descended ... The British weather perhaps?
Erm, you know, not to impugn your weather systems but yeah, they have a chill, it's not conducive for wellbeing . Have you played here before?
Yeah, I think this is our third or fourth time in this room and they were really good . At the end of our first record we ended the shows with a karaoke cover of a Boyz 11 Men song and this was the first place we ever did it. We were very nervous, but I distinctly remember doing it here and being incredibly relieved that the crowd were up for it. Is it good touring the new album?
it's been great, this is the first tour we have done since the record came out so its relieving to plays shows and see people recognise the songs, you never really know how it's going when you are away. There has been a lot of appreciation shown
vs.
Nice Guys and soon following with the massive Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt, it was obvious the band had no intention of alienating the crowd, and rapturous screaming, fist-pumping and some serious foot stomping ensued . The lads' energy seemed to be on a constant high; bouncing from their new single I Don't Bite to fan favourite Chick Lit. The hits were relentless and it was only with the announcement of "We're going to slow things down for a bit guys" that the whole crowd seemed to calm . Textbook was the track that followed and although it was meant to be a breather, Keith foolishly decided to venture into the crowd midsong. He was lovingly mobbed by the newly energised audience and the 'attack' resulted in the brilliant line, " I buttoned up this shirt for a reason!" which was a rather futile attempt to quell his female fans . Although you can tell from a glance that music is everything to the band, their on stage banter is always a massive crowd pleaser. Having three cracking albums to choose a set list from, the gig was likely to
be a winner. They st ~uck a balance with the glories of new and old and the last half of ..._ the set was definitely dedicated to those m early followers of the band . The Great _~ Escape, it's A Hit and After Hours were played in quick succession and finishing the encore with the electric Cash Cow was an incred ible way to close. ÂŁ14.50 very well > 0 spent
ALEX THROSSELL
for your new drummer, is there anything you don't like about Andy Burrows?
Do you prefer bigger stages at festivals or smaller venues like this?
in a smaller room that is packed with people > that are excited about our songs. ..._
The dynamic certainly has changed in that we all are much, much happier, we definitely are a pretty fun trio, when we hang out it's a good time, it's not strictly a professional relationsh ip. One thing I will say I don't like about Andy is that his humility is excessive, he apologises for performing well, we'll play a show that was amazing and he'll be like, "ah, um ahm, god dammit why did I, so stupid" and we'll be like "that was amazing, I forgot all the words to the song, but whatever!"
This is always more fun, I'm not the biggest fan of festivals to be honest, especially the main, main stages where you are kind of soft away from the closest audience member, who isn't necessarily there to even see you, maybe they are excited that you are playing but it's not like they came to the festival to see We Are Scientists. lt is always nice to be
Any thoughts about the rest of the tour?
I think we are all gon na be pretty excited to l!> z go home eventually but it is really nice to end in the UK, we are a lot bigger here than ..._ we are in the U.S. so it's nice to end on the a: highest notes, it does legitimately feel like a 3 homecoming .
In terms of writing, you have 3 albums already, are you writing on tour?
We aren't really very good on tour writers, our song writing scenario generally involves extreme privacy and exclusion which is impossible to find on tour, so we tend to not really write on tour, soundchecks are very, very brief affairs. So tour is more your time?
On the actual tour no, we are excessively social, then we get home and it's time to write, like for Barbara I moved to Georgia (from LA) and just lived there for a while . c
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