Good Neighbours are testament to the power of the TikTok generation. Their fast-track success story is built on the textbook viral template of our social media age. As we have become accustomed, these moments can also quickly dissipate, falling away as quickly as they came. Online popularity is a fickle beast, with a shorter attention span than your average eight-year-old on a sugar high. As the group display on Glastonbury’s Other Stage in the early afternoon on Saturday, their viral moment is surely no fluke. The group are a slick live proposition, unleashing waves of gigantic sound that trammels all in its path. It’s quite similar to the sort of widescreen indie pop sound that Everything Everything have perfected during their career.

In truth, the crowd starts out sparse for Good Neighbours initially – too many Glasto goers seeking shade from the sunshine and also nursing first-night hangovers – but the sheer iridescent might of their stellar songs soon draw in a large crowd. ‘Ripple’ and ‘Blue’ are both infectious and joyous in equal measure. This applies to the whole set of songs that offer little let up in their energy levels. The group appear to revel in the spotlight, pledging ambitiously that they intend to climb the bill as the years approach. It would be churlish to mock them for such proclamations.
Perhaps predictably, their breakthrough song, ‘Home’ is the one that garners the greatest acclaim. Its backstory is an interesting one. When the snippet was uploaded to the social media site, only the chorus existed. When it exploded, they realised that they faced an unusual proposition in that they needed to build verses around it. And so, they dabbled in a spot of reverse engineering. The work that they undertook worked a charm.

What they also display at Glastonbury is that this infectious, inescapable song was no one-off. They are amassing a fine catalogue chock full of Grade-A bangers. Their sound is the textbook definition of ‘anthemic indie’ and these are anthems that the masses can get behind. The future looks as bright as the Somerset sun on this sticky Saturday afternoon.





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