The Blackheart Orchestra

Little Buildings, Newcastle

15 September 2024

The Blackheart Orchestra aren't an orchestra. They're a duo. Both sing, both play keyboards, both play guitars, and both play percussion. And usually, all of these things are happening at the same time.

It's hard to believe that six months ago I had literally not heard a single one of their songs, and now they are already on my must-see-live-at-all-costs shortlist. This band is phenomenal live. The choreography as they move around their multiple keyboards, play different instruments with different hands, harmonise perfectly, and make such a huge, rich, deep, complex sound when there are only two of them, has to been seen to be believed.

But the spectacle isn't the reason to see them. It's the music. Simply beautiful music. By the second song, the anthemic Raise Your Heart, I am inexplicably in tears. I still don't know their albums well enough to name every song, but the majority of the set appears to be drawn from the new (and I think best by far) album, Hotel Utopia.

It's hard to put them in a genre. They themselves seem surprised that they've been adopted by the "prog community". They joke that The Flood is "our only prog song", and claim it will last 10 minutes "if we play it slowly enough". I don't know if I would call them prog really. But as long as the mainstream doesn't seem interested in intelligent, heartfelt, complex music like this, then we in the "prog community" are happy to claim them as our own.

The great tragedy is that the audience is so small. I think there might be 16 of us. Probably not enough to pay for the band's petrol tonight. But they take it with good grace and humour, remarking that the intimacy of the setting is nice, and joking that if any of us want a toilet break we should just raise our hands and they'll wait for us to come back. You've got to love this band.

Honestly, best concert I've ever seen. And my new favourite band of the decade.