Review by Daniel Phillip Neale. Pics by David Court & Erin Robinson

Monday night’s isn’t traditionally the best time to go see a band but when the act in question are one of the more credible pretenders for “Band of 2014″(c) its even enough to get our weary arses out of the office. Even more to their credit Royal Blood have managed to sell out The Forum (cap 300) in Tunbridge Wells so it seems a few others have a shared interest.

Kicking off proceedings are Tigercub ; These grungy rockers were hand picked by Royal Blood to support them on the tour. Comparisons to Nirvana are sloppy but with songs like “Little Rope” and “Centrefold” crashing about it’s no bad thing. Grab their debut ep now on iTunes. This could be the last time they’re on the back benches.

And so on to the heavyweights of the evening. Fair to say that half the crowd are made up of (new) die hard fans while the other are there out of curiosity. Royal Blood have been touted from everyone from the NME to BBC in their pick of 2014 and this duo from Brighton have even been blessed by the Arctic Monkeys to support them on their stadium tour this coming summer – seems a lot of people are expecting big things. If the pressure of beckoning stardom was getting to them they didn’t let it show.

Sauntering casually onto stage and breaking right into “Hole” the combination of Mike Kerr on vocals and bass and Ben Thatcher thrashing the fuck out of his drums was a formidable one.

New single “Little Monsters” was tossed into the set early on creating some frantic moshing and even sparked the odd fight (woah – steady T-wells!)

A blistering rock-fuelled 40 minutes later the duo closed with first single “Out Of The Black”. It would be easy to throw in Led Zep and White Stripes references at them but when they make a noise this primal, this urgent, this melodic and still sound this fresh that can’t help get moved and you can’t deny them the (arena) doors that are going to open up for them very shortly.

Check out the set list below and also…don’t know much about Royal Blood? check out “Little Monsters” and “Out of the Black” below…