On the 8th October 2014, Lillywood graced Village Underground in Shoreditch with their second ever London show.
They were supported by the intriguing barefoot electronic duo Parasite Single from Berlin who made their own London debut in matching outfits to a bemused audience.
Lilly Wood and the Prick is comprised of Parisians Nili Hadida and Benjamin Cotto, although tonight they played with a full band who all seemed extremely comfortable together on the stage, grinning at one another like old friends and going full throttle the whole way through their set. The setlist was relatively long to begin with, and was fleshed out by instrumental breakdowns in several of the songs. This was definitely to their credit though, as these musical interludes between the sing-along-pop-songs gave them a chance to really show their talent as musicians.
Far from being a too-cool-to-dance Shoreditch audience, the crowd sang along and fed off the band’s energy – and seemed to be mostly French themselves. Nili introduced the band and herself by saying, “We’re French!” and when this was responded to with deafening cheering, she asked “is anyone here French?”, to which almost the whole room responded in the positive.
They played a lot of songs from their 2010 album Invincible Friends, and bravely saved Prayer in C (one of their best known songs which was remixed by Robin Schulz and released as a single this year) for the encore. By the end of the song the whole band were left out of breath (particularly Nili who had been drumming AND singing very energetically). Their indie-poppy sound isn’t anything particularly new or exciting in itself, but what they do they do very well. They’re great musicians, very tight as a band, segued seamlessly from one song to the next and put on a bloody good live show.
Complete Setlist:
California
Long Way Back
Let’s Not Pretend
Middle of the Night
This is a Love Song
Jonie Mitchel
Hopeless Kids
Water Ran
Mistakes
Guys in Bands
Le Mas
Into Trouble
Down the Drain
Hey It’s OK
Prayer in C
My Best
Little Johnny
