PHILADELPHIA, PA | Royal Blood made a stop on their “Back to the Water Below” tour at the Fillmore in Philadelphia Saturday night. Touring to support their brand-new album of the same name, they’re bringing punk upstarts Bad Nerves along for the fun.
The night kicked off at 9PM, when Bad Nerves took the stage for a kinetic, loud, and fun set. The young punk band from Essex, in southeast England, released their debut album, Bad Nerves, in 2020. They wear their influences on their sleeves, as front man Bobby Nerves donned a Ramones shirt under a jacket onstage. The rest of the band is straight up throwback punk—they look the part and have the chops.
Bad Nerves has tons of attitude, the confidence of a veteran punk band, and are a ton of fun to watch. In true ’70s punk tradition, their garage punk riff heavy songs clock in at 2-3 minutes each, so their 30-minute set packed in 10 songs. They clearly seem excited to be on tour with Royal Blood, later coming out to watch their set, hang out at the merch stand, and greet fans like old friends. I’m kicking myself for not picking up a shirt.
Royal Blood (singer-bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher) took the stage at 10PM sharp. There were no worries about an unenthusiastic audience at the Fillmore Saturday night. From the opening notes of new release “Mountains at Midnight,” to the final notes of “Figure it Out” over an hour later, the Philadelphia crowd was loud and fully focused on the duo. Everyone knew all the words to all the songs and sang just as loudly as Kerr.
Sandwiched between those two were a string of Royal Blood’s patented loud and sexy songs. From the thundering “Out of the Black,” which I listened to on an endless loop back when Royal Blood released it as their debut single in 2013, to the funky “Boilermaker,” from Typhoons, Royal Blood fired on all cylinders. “Tell Me When It’s Too Late” from the new album made its live debut in Philadelphia, and Bad Nerves’ Will Phillipson joined on guitar during “Waves.” It was a great night.
This stretch of U.S. dates wrapped up at New York’s Webster Hall on October 3. There’s far more to come as Royal Blood heads to the UK and Ireland over the rest of October before coming back to the States in November and moving on to Australia and New Zealand in December.
BAD NERVES
Royal Blood Set List
Mountains at Midnight
Boilermaker
Come on Over
Lights Out
Triggers
Trouble’s Coming
Typhoons
Pull Me Through
Little Monster
How Did We Get So Dark?
Tell Me When It’s Too Late
Loose Change
Out of the Black
Waves
Shiner in the Dark
Figure it Out
Bad Nerves Set List
Don’t Stop
Baby Drummer
Palace
Terminal Boy
Radio Punk
Electric 88
USA
Can’t Be Mine
Mad Mind
Dreaming
