Live

The Temper Trap

Paul Cook 18/09/2009

Passing up the opportunity to see Jay-Z live in London seemed like a near impossible thing to do but given that The Temper Trap were gracing the intimate and atmospheric venue of Norwich Arts Centre the same night, the decision was almost a no-brainer. Thankfully, the Melbourne-born four piece didn't disappoint delivering all ten tracks of the fantastic debut Conditions in awe-inspiring style.

After phenomenal success in the UK with their number 15 single and sound of the summer Sweet Disposition, The Temper Trap kicked off their first UK headline tour here in Norwich. Given it's their first visit to the city the show selling out is proof enough of this bands immediate impact, something which is certainly a key part of their performance style too. The fully instrumental Drum Song opened the night before the band soon got into playing their most popular material, particularly Sweet Disposition which had the entire crowd singing along in full voice.

The Temper Trap's music fantastically soars and uplifts making them a genuinely thrilling band to see live. Down River and Science of Fear demonstrate their ability to play both fast, up-tempo rock music alongside more gentle acoustic numbers. Lead singer Dougy Mandagi's vocals are the perfect blend of power and grace whilst the many layered guitars and keyboard create a sound full of intricate depth. Based on the nights performance The Temper Trap are a band I will actively strive to see again and again live.

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Earlier in the day I had a quick chat with the band:

Your chart track 'Sweet Disposition' has been described as 'The Sound of Summer' - What's your response to that?

I just think the fact it has had so much air play like being used in 500 Days of Summer, on an ad on Channel 4 and on the soccer highlights show has contributed to people actually being able to hear the song. It's hard for me to say it's the “sound of summer” but I guess that's the way it works. It's had the same effect back home in Australia. It came out and didn't really get going until the beginning of the summer.

What single do you plan to release next?

Yeah it's going to be Fader. I'm not sure when it's going to come out, probably in November or something. It was more of a record label decision than ours but they think that would be a good follow up to 'Sweet Disposition.

Do you have any early plans for the next album?

Yeah, we've been asked that a lot recently actually. We've all been playing around in our own time and stuff. We've just had 2 weeks off but we think it will be quite a bit of time before we get back into the studio. We've got a few ideas of where we want the new material to go but it will be a while before we start working on that.

This tour has now sold out completely, are there any shows your particularly excited about playing?

Well we're excited to go to Norwich as we've never played there before. We had to cancel a show in Norwich before unfortunately so we're interested to see what the crowd there is like. We're hoping the places we haven't been to before will surprise us the most. We're also really looking forward to playing London as it had to be upgraded to a bigger venue which is cool. It's now at 'Heaven' which is a gay bar apparently so that'll be interesting! We're excited to play all of them - to sell out a tour in England is just really exciting for us.

You're doing a European tour soon with The Joy Formidable, did you meet up at Reading this year and did you specifically choose them to support you?

No we haven't met them yet actually but we wanted to tour with them here in the UK but we were both busy. We're really looking forward to playing with them in Europe but we haven't really ever seen or met them so it will be a new experience for us both.