The Dangerous Summer are in the UK on a long overdue headline tour. Tonight they play Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach and they’ve brought along promising Brighton lot Verses.
Opening up the show are a local band from Bridgend by the name of Caesers Rome who quite clearly have something of a following with them tonight. Their set begins tamely but soon evolves into something quite special. There’s a sense of old school Muse in their sound mixed with the sound of Young Guns resulting in an extremely atmospheric set that certainly would have impressed the vast majority of those hearing them for the first time.
Up next are Verses who again have clearly brought a big set of fans with them, things don’t start off too well, the crowd are still coming back in from their cigarette break and the band are yet to look fully comfortable. Thankfully, things improve and Verses get to show why they’re one of the more exciting UK prospects at the moment. The highlight of the set comes in the form of ‘Who We Are’ a song taken from their ‘Come To Life’ EP released this year.
It seems as if tonight the majority of the crowd were here to see the supports because The Dangerous Summer end up playing to a crowd half the size of the band before them. That won’t bother them though, the band have headline dates which have sold out in much bigger cities on this tour. AJ Perdomo and co still put in a hell of a shift. The band come on somewhat quietly to ‘Catholic Girls’ and play through a 14 song setlist rammed with hits with special mention going out to ‘No One’s Gonna Need You More’ which sounds huge in the comparatively small room. They end things on ‘Work In Progress’ from sophomore album ‘War Paint.’ It’s a good finale for a good show and one that sees front-man Perdomo head into the crowd to scream the final bars in a fit of brilliant emotion.
The Dangerous Summer will always be a band that are gonna be horribly underrated but on a wet and fucking miserable night in Cardiff, the band helped put on a show in a little corner of the city that would have brightened the dampest of spirits.
CHRIS MARSHMAN