As I emerge from the underground at King’s Cross, the neons of Scala nudge their way into view. This venue has been on the list for quite some time: a disused cinema from the 1920s where artists come to cut their teeth in London.
What a welcome committee. Opener Dylan Cartlidge is a ray of sunshine swaddled in tie-dye bearing his heart on his sleeve and sporting ‘Sandy’ the Bass. Watching Dylan and his band (which includes fiance Holly) is like walking in on a recording session – he’s ‘feeling the sauce’ and from the undulations of the crowd, I’d say he’s not the only one.
With all this sweet, nervous energy in the room, it’s taking a conscious effort to remember that this isn’t the headliner for tonight.
The stage appears to be under siege. It’s a good few seconds before the noise of the crowd dies down and what turns out to be Superorganism comes into focus.
Lead vocalist, Orono is a boilersuited and walking booted bombshell. The first few squelches of ‘The Prawn Song’ sound out and it’s an underwater experience.
Superorganism – similarly to AJR – refound their fame when TikTokers embraced them and they doubled-down generating tracks that sound like they’re lifted from an alien coming of age movie.
The sound is infectious. I can’t not join in with the screams of ‘Everybody needs to be a superorganism’, ‘I wanna be a superorganism’, ’I have to be a superorganism’. This is the stuff cults are made of.
If anyone here is entranced, it’s B (name unknown) the background vocalist, dancer and general musician who appears to have been plucked from cabaret and thrown into the most immersive sci-fi thriller.
This is the last night of the European tour and the crowd are doing their absolute best to embalm this memory in applause.
Orono once again cuts through the vibe with a request to the lighting tech for more colour – ‘Are you pissed off with me right now? If you are, you can punch me in the face later, I just want to put on a good show’ – and gives the order for a mosh pit.
This was honestly the last concert I expected to result in moshing but it kind of really worked.
As Orono sings while repping the push-ups, the crowd buzzes and braces itself for the zeitgeist that is ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’. If you’ve forgotten how it goes, put it on now, that distortion you hear plinking around in the back is doubled when they perform live – and it is as satisfying as an ear irrigation.
What the point of pretending there wasn’t going to be an encore would have been, I don’t know, as without hearing ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ this crowd isn’t going to leave.
Now, Dylan’s back, he’s given us the proper rendition of ‘It’s Raining’, a smattering of the crowd have been invited on stage, it’s time for the tour to come to an end.
If the rest of their shows were even a fraction of what I’ve seen tonight, they’ve had a fantastic run. Superorganism went out with a bang that left my ears ringing.
Words by Catherine Woolley
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