One of Leicesters’ hottest reggae acts By The Rivers smashed it again, supported by local bands Ash Mammal and Will and The People. Most of the crowd arrived at the Leicester O2 venue just before By The Rivers, the tension built by the minute and looking around the room I could feel the excitement beforehand.
They began with a stellar reggae beat, the lighting was impeccable and matched their vivacity of voice all to the background of kaleidoscopic imagery. The third song they played was a track from their 2016 EP, ‘One Step Two Step’, such a jammy beat and definitely a favourite from the new songs. This was the first album the band released on vinyl, a trend coming back stronger with each calendar year. What was so lovely about this performance was the variety of age groups in the crowd, this band really did bring the community together. There were entire families present, which is quite a rare occurrence nowadays as most gigs are either filled with youngsters or elders, not both.
By The Rivers were equally as pleasing throughout their set as their melodies, an element in which their musical talent shone through. There was a slight technical difficulty changing guitars mid set by lead singer Nile, but nothing a quick on stage tech meeting couldn’t fix. It by no means ruined the show as Will chimed in with a spontaneous clarinet solo. The cornet was a nice touch too as bridges in the less intense tracks, it was used in a few separate tracks and brought some nostalgic emotion to the songs. They also played their most well-known anthem ‘Vulture’ from the self-titled album, with a nice twist of techno space sounds, giving the song a fresh makeover.
To finish things off they played ‘Rock Steady’ with the help of Will and the People, a heart-warming moment, and from what Nile spoke of, something at the very heart of By The Rivers, “friendship and shared success”.
During the interview beforehand lead singer/ guitarist Nile spoke of their plans for the next year, in which he expressed their progression on their new EP that is “ready to be released within the next year”. Brogan, the bands new bassist mentioned how heavily involved he has been with this new EP and also how incredible it felt to go from watching the band to performing on stage with them in the space of a year. In general the band plan to be busy with gigs and have said to: “expect to see a lot more online sessions… next year we’ll be throwing a lot of new stuff out there for the world to see”.
