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Tickets: £15 - available here: https://wegottickets.com/event/655525/Allo Darlin' were formed in 2008 after Australian Elizabeth Morris arrived in London and bought a ukulele from the Duke of Uke shop in Shoreditch.
Like a whole host of Australian musicians before her, Morris had headed to London to realise her musical ambitions, a young woman with the small instrument in the big city with even bigger ideas. Once there happenstance, chance encounters and a Bruce Springsteen cover for a compilation would all conspire to create the crack squad that has endured, Morris being joined by fellow Brisbanite Bill Botting and the British duo of Michael Collins and Paul Rains.
From its first line ('Will you go out with me tonight, lose it on a disco floor?'), the self-titled debut the foursome released in 2010 fizzed with the effervescent, intoxicating energy and excitement of the opportunities and experiences it offered. From frosty night buses through to fiscal inadequacy and everything in between, it was an album which presented the city as a blank canvas where everything was fair game for romanticising and celebrating, and a world where most of life's tribulations could be solved with the warm embrace of a loved one. Fresh, bright and unashamedly hopeful and idealistic, blissful exuberance ran through it like the sound of a band in love with being in a band.
Writing in his 1,200-word essay on the album for Australia's The Monthly (later featuring in his writing compilation Ten Rules Of Rock And Roll), former Go-between Robert Forster suggested that the band 'now have doors open before them'. Thus follow-up Europe could be viewed as the album The Go-Betweens dared them to make, culminating in the sparkling pop perfection (and throwback to Morris' native Queensland) of lead single Capricornia. Their sophomore effort simultaneously looked at the Europe of her present alongside the Australia of her past, offering a stunning reflection on belonging and sense of place and a band at their most dazzlingly technicolour that built on the eagerness and immediacy of the debut with contemplation, sophistication and ambition.
Successor, 2014’s We Come From The Same Place dwelt on belonging in terms of new beginnings and documented Morris' journey into a new chapter in her life, resulting in an album that saw her flit between the uncertainty of starting anew and post-resettlement confidence.
Allo Darlin's songs work because, to borrow from Don Draper's Kodak Carousel pitch in Mad Men, they take us to a place where we feel loved. Emotional trust falls, they often take us to parts of ourselves we've either suppressed or have yet to discover and then are always there to catch us if and when we get there.
'Breezy rom-pop brilliance' - NME
'Classic indie pop... doesn't rewrite the formula for wistful bedsit charm as much as show that it can still be carried out masterfully' - Pitchfork
'A masterclass of modern cult pop' - the Guardian
'Terrific, witty and heartfelt, like a less moody Belle & Sebastian' - The New York Times
Support comes from dreampop heroes The Hobbes Fanclub.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Old Cold Store, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Tickets
