“Are you ready to lose your shit?” frontman Ben Gregory questions the crowd before him. “I know I am.” Balanced on a knife edge between grace and ferocity, Blaenavon turn everything up to eleven.
It’s a wondrous world that the trio’s music inhabits, echoing in splendour and underlaced with a a driving distortion. Performing at Reading Festival, that’s exactly where they take their crowd. Shimmering hooks and pummelling rhythms abound, bright melodies tinged with a darkness that boasts enticement by the barrel full.
The band’s ferocity floods the tent in next to no time, Ben Gregory throwing himself around the stage with a reckless abandon. Bassist Frank Wright eventually forsakes his instrument completely, throwing it to the ground to join Harris McMillan behind the drums, while Ben dives head first over his audience, losing himself in the fray as the final chords ring clear. Crowds remain gathered by the stage front in excitement, waiting for a glimpse of the group they hold dear. Reading: accomplished. Next stop: the world.
Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett