After an opening slot from Thus Love, American three-piece Dehd took to the stage of Sheffield’s student union venue, The Foundry, ahead of Dry Cleaning’s headline show.
Emily Kempf looks like a boho Janis Ian from Mean Girls, and perhaps that’s why when she referred to Sheffield as ‘Sheffy’ my mind immediately went to “stop trying to make Sheffy happen”.
Meanness aside, though, the band did an admirable job of trying to navigate technical issues — ad-libbing about how you only live once (probably), until the problems were resolved.
The true test of artistry is arguably the ability to improvise when things go wrong — Harry Styles’ recent turntable saga at the Grammy Awards springs to mind — and to this extent, Dehd certainly passed the test. Every song thereafter was followed with a self-congratulatory ‘We did it!’ — an endearingly self-deprecating addition that won over any less-forgiving audience members.
Dehd’s sound is reminiscent of early FIDLAR, with a loose quality in their live performances evocative of the Ramones, particularly in songs like ‘Lucky’.
Luckily the sound issues seemed to largely resolve themselves by the time London band Dry Cleaning were due onstage.
What distinguishes the post-punk outfit from other talk-singy acts like Yard Act is soft-spoken frontwoman Florence Shaw, who far from faded into the background thanks to a hot pink feathered jacket and somewhat scary stage presence.
Her po-faced delivery, replete with enough eye-rolls to convince you she was possessed was quite the show in and of itself.
Musical highlights included ‘Gary Ashby’, eliciting one of the best crowd responses — perhaps unsurprisingly as it’s the band’s most-played track on Spotify — ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ and ‘Her Hippo’.
At times, Shaw was drowned out by her bandmates, but on a night that was already plagued by sound problems, it’s easy to put that down to the venue itself.
Dry Cleaning, Dehd, and Thus Love are currently on tour — get tickets here.
Words by Beth Kirkbride
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