Rolo Tomassi

By Megan Walker

Despite their rather late night start, Sheffield progressive hardcore band Rolo Tomassi kicked up a fuss at The Well in Leeds on the 11th May.

The band had not played The Well for over a year, Rolo Tomassi had been busy amazing the crowds at Leeds and Reading festival last year and with this, it seems their huge fan base does not stop expanding.

Opening with a prelude ‘Katzenklavier’ – The Spence siblings and their crew walked on stage, the audience, although sweaty from the support band, did not stop cheering as the band entered the stage to a mixed array of people screaming ‘Tomassi’. It was from then on that the energy in the venue doubled.

Instantly throughout the first few songs, especially in “French Motel” the heat in the venue increased, the constant circle and mosh pits that occurred in the front section of the small venue just contributed to the heat and energy of The Well.

“Kasia” a slightly slower, yet still heavy song was dedicated to the band member’s Mum’s who had come to Leeds to see the show. This also proved a crowd favourite with the numerous drops in the song, which influenced dancing in the audience.

The band played songs from both their first album “Hysterics” and their second album “Cosmology”. Including songs such as “Tongue-in-Chic” and “Party Wounds”. In addition to these, the band also chose to play a song from their “Credit Card CD” – “Fuck The Pleasantries, Let’s rock”. Despite not being know by a lot of the crowd, it proved a huge crowd favourite encouraging absolute crowd carnage – as mosh pits proved the only option.

Throughout the whole set lead vocalist Eva Spence gave an amazing performance. With having such a stage presence, constantly smiling, dancing/bouncing around and yet, despite her small petite frame which proved rather deceiving , she gave her vocal performance justice with some of the best female vocal screaming in the music industry.

Interestingly enough, many of Rolo Tomassi’s songs seem to incorporate a few musical genres with catchy and quirky synth riffs from James Spence – to grungy riffs played on the bass guitar by Joseph Thorpe. The instrument choices here really help open the band up to a varied audience, whilst still creating a new genre in themselves and still sounding outstanding.

Overall, Rolo Tomassi played an incredible fourteen song set encoring with “Fantasia”, which when including “I Love Turbulence” played for about fifteen minutes straight and really took all the remaining energy out of the crowd. Despite this,It definitely came across as a crowd highlight and pleaser. Rolo Tomassi are set to play a free show at Sheffield’s own TramLine’s festival in July this year and are definitely worth checking out!