By Jase Walker
To say I’m excited for this particular show above everything else that I could possibly be doing this year is a bit of an understatement. Nevermind the massive shows with insane production value or shows with rambunctious crowds that would leave even the most pit hardened of folk a bit wary of their own safety. Tonight I am watching Bôa.
Bôa are a band that are responsible for penning one of my all time favourite songs, ‘Duvet’, that is also the opening theme for one of my all time favourite anime series, ‘Serial Experiments Lain’. It went much further than that with me picking up their ‘Twilight’ album from HMV many years ago and they unfortunately faded from the public eye until the same song went viral on TikTok and they took a chance to build on it and here we are at Paradiso for tonight’s show. Not just that but I’ve had the fortune to be able to sit and have a chat with Jasmine and discuss a bit about their history and incredible resurgence.
Along for the ride on the European dates are Francis Of Delirium who are a new band to my knowledge and ears so as usual, I am here at doors because every support act deserves a spin.
It’s pretty obvious the crowd is fully engaged already considering how loud they cheered for Francis Of Delirium taking the stage.
Feeling very much in a similar vein to Bôa with a slightly fuzzy indie rock sound that feels a bit similar to The Strokes except the vocals are actually really good. I’ve definitely picked the right spot again with the front balcony, the acoustic feel of the venue is doing a fantastic job of cultivating the band’s sound. I also think this is the first band I’ve ever heard from Luxembourg as well.
One of the slower songs about falling in love with your best friend gives me some early Coldplay vibes, a bit sombre, a bit dreamy, a straight up nice ballad. As much as I’m really enjoying them on this sort of stage and venue, I keep thinking about how nice it’d be to witness them up close in a tiny dive bar.
This sort of stuff would be fantastic in a venue where you can’t escape the pervasive fuzziness of the guitar and ends up feeling closer to a shoegaze experience. They’ve got solid rock and roll chops too, it’s not just three people standing there playing pleasant funny music, they move a lot and are genuinely very entertaining to watch and clearly love playing their hearts out to the crowd.
Evidently if there’s one thing the Dutch can get on board with is doing their best to outclass the French. Francis Of Delirium does well with getting the crowd to sing along and getting people’s phone lights out as well by putting them against the previous Paris show, and wow, the crowd really are giving it balls on the sing-along.
They finally finish their set with a jumpy anthem and Francis Of Delirium can walk off triumphantly from this show considering how much everyone is into them. Fantastic opener set from these.
- Francis Of Delirium’s new album, ‘Run, Run Pure Beauty‘ will be released via Dalliance Records on 29 May.
The sudden darkening of the room signals the start of Bôa‘s set and the room erupts into screams, cheers and clapping. Jasmine revels in it for a moment before kicking the set off. The venue is absolutely rammed by this point, with the vast bulk of the audience crammed into the floor space as people opt to get a ground level view over spreading to the balconies.
The difference in sound between their show at Tolhuistuin last year and Paradiso’s fantastic main hall is exactly what I hoped it would be and Bôa’s sound is complimented fantastically, their music having more air for it to fill sounds immense. You’d think that given the whole virality of ‘Duvet’ that it’d be easy to write off people being here based on just that but looking around at the crowd with every subsequent song it’s pretty obvious that the rest of their catalogue of songs has connected well with people too. There’s barely anyone I can see that isn’t at least enthusiastically swaying to the music and hugging themselves or a close one while singing along.
For a bit more of an observation on the band themselves, the balance of the instruments is spot on, with each component part of the band being fully audible from the bass to the keys. All filling their own respective spots in the overall texture of the music, to the point where it’s genuinely super easy to focus in on each part and follow everything they’re doing.
‘Rain’ still gives me the same chills it did the first time I listened to their ‘Twilight’ album years ago, and clearly others feel the same given the volume of people singing it back. A quiet moment is pierced by someone loudly screaming “I love you!!”, a feeling that clearly resonates with everyone else in the room given the round of whoops and cheers that immediately followed it.
I’ve been so utterly transfixed on the set that I’ve not even noticed that we’ve blasted through nearly an hour already. It’s hard to really take stock of a lot of happenings when you’re so engrossed in a show that you completely forget everything that’s going on and the passage of time becomes non-existent.
While Bôa are a far cry from the frantic and mental shows that pepper most of my days, there’s something so heartwarming and familiar about settling in to watch Bôa after thinking I’d never get to see these live for the rest of my life, let alone get to interview Jasmine!
I do need to give a special mention to their guitar tech because that man is properly speedy with his switches and always has the courtesy to sort the jack lead out as well.
‘Fool’ serves as the end of the main set and its peak sets the whole crowd off bouncing around and cheering, a fantastic main set closer that builds from a slow start to a huge bouncy finish. The crowd is far from done though and makes deafening noise to usher Bôa back to the stage for the encore.
I wasn’t expecting the first encore song to be ‘Duvet’ which fully blindsided me and the waterworks started in seconds so I’ve spent the whole song watching the band with blurry vision, whoops. And lastly the one-two combo of ‘Twilight’ and ‘Walk With Me’ to finish off an emotionally exhausted man and send him packing back to his bed with a smile on his face despite the red teary eyes.
What a band, I’m so glad they’re seeing such incredible success now. I’ll be back time and time again.
- Photos courtesy of Bôa.