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REVIEW: DARWIN DEEZ AT CARDIFF SOLUS (01/06/11)

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The tension in the room is high tonight as chants of ‘Darwin, Darwin’ and yelps of ‘you’re fit’ ‘I love you’ echo around before the Deez boy’s even enter the room. On entering Darwin Smith is met with a raucous applause, but after a few minutes standing side of stage he departs, everyone’s attention fixated on the door through which he just left, suddenly the boys enter through a door the opposite side of the stage, hiding for a few minutes behind the abundance of amps, the entrance music begins. They leap onto the stage with an epic display of perfectly synchronized, choreographed dancing, which infact turns out to become a regular interval to their set between Deez hit’s.

They kick off into ‘Up In The Clouds’ and bendy knees are ubiquitously throughout. By the fourth song of the set ‘Deep Sea Divers’ takes the pace back down slightly. Then the break down of renowned lyrics of Rebecca Black ‘Friday, Friday’ ‘fun, fun’ strangely creep in and pick the pace back up. Another melody of power songs and erratic shape throwing, the Deez boys fly around stage in a form of dancing that is reminiscent of kids in the playground pretending to be airplanes.

‘Bed Space’ ends and flows into a rendition of Paul Simon’s funky pop hit ‘You Can Call Me Al’ which is met by yet more screams. Darwin remarks on the intense silence between songs, ‘I like how much you are listening and paying attention to us’. I find myself fixated on Darwin’s crazy leg movements; skinny jeans really are made for legs like these. An unexpected switch occurs when Darwin puts down his guitar and grabs the mic jumping down onto the barrier and into the crowd raping lyrics from his free for fans album download ‘Wonky Beats’. The band leave their instruments to bounce on stage to the beat with arms outstretched around Smith then into another dance melody but the synchronicity this time is broken when Darwin pulls his own moves for ‘Willow Smith’s’ hit ‘Whip my hair’. Darwin takes time out to somewhat recover and talk with his adoring fans, “This is our first time in Cardiff, we finally made it!” A sea of swaying arms coat the room for ‘The Bomb Song’ then the set concludes with their most well know hit Radar Detector with the crowd chorusing the words so loud you can barely here Darwin’s vocals.

The inevitable encore arrives but is met by an unexpected cover of Coldplay’s ‘Lost’ stripped back with the quirky Deez edge. Last dance into catchy indie pop hit ‘Constellations’. Darwin kisses his flexed bicep before he leaves the stage, as unique an exit as an entrance. This is my first time seeing these boy’s and damn do they put on a show. I can understand now why there is an emblem of a single pair of legs on the official Deez merch. These legs make an impact. Whether you’re a fan of their music or not this is a performance not to be missed, if purely for entertainment value.

Words and photos: Laura Palmer