When you hear of a band made up of family members the first thing you think of is definitely not what you would describe as Haim. Este, Danielle and Alana are as cool as it gets.
When the girls arrived in Dublin they made a pit stop the night before to watch Beyonce as she played the O2 and Alana even took to twitter to praise the Olympia theatre’s beauty (probably the best looking venue in Ireland, with its old school charm).
Support on the night came in the form of New Zealand outfit, Broods. Getting the crowd behind them for their whole set, providing energetic rhythms and a sound you may describe as a more dance influenced Lorde, serious potential shone across the venue. Georgia Nott on vocals, a Caroline Flack look-a-like, showed off a great vocal ability and kept the crowd’s attention throughout with constant movement.
Haim entered the stage through a field of smoke to an enormous roar before kicking off their set with ‘Falling’. As Danielle started to sing she found herself being drowned out by a typically loud Irish sing-a-long. The song ended on a high getting the crowd to clap along before quickly going into current single ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’. At this stage we had already witnessed two impressive guitar solos from Danielle and Este’s nearly famous “bass face” was in full swing.
It was at this point that Este greeted the crowd. After complimenting them she asked for the house lights to be turned on so that she could stare at us all. She went on to tell us to imagine we were in their living room sitting on the floor listening to them jam. It was now that the sisters rocked out to a Fleetwood Mac cover of ‘Oh Well’. Alana provided the vocals for this song which came in between some great guitar riffs from Danielle.
This high tempo track provided the girls with a chance to take the tempo down for a bit with ‘My Honey and I’ followed by album title track ‘Days Are Gone’. The drop in tempo only lasted for a short while though as up next was ‘My Song 5’ a guitar heavy track reminiscent of a Black Keys song. In typical Este fashion she ordered the crowd to “move your asses”, and they obliged.
It was during the song ‘Go Slow’ that the bands versatility was shown as Este took the lead on vocals with Alana singing out the chorus of the song. Danielle took a back seat for this one concentrating on playing guitar.
Alana’s best friend on tour, Molloy was then introduced to the audience, with the girls telling us that she hails from these parts. The Irish girl was greeted to a chanted of her own name by the audience before the attention returned to the music with a crowd favourite ‘Don’t Save me’. Before leaving the stage prior to the encore the three sisters rocked out with previous single ‘Forever’. A song full of energy with Alana giving it socks with dance moves before Danielle again showed off her guitar skills with another solo.
Haim returned to the stage with an Irish flag draped around Alana’s shoulders to great applause from the crowd. After a cover of ‘XO’ by Beyonce, where Danille played the drums, the sisters moved into ‘The Wire’ which provided the crowd with a chance to scream the lyrics back at them as they nearly drowned out the vocals coming from the stage yet again.
The last song of the set was ‘Let Me Go’ which ended in the best guitar solo of the night followed by a drum off between the three sisters that provided a congo sounding beat to the song. The entertainment wasn’t over after this song though as Este and Alana played matador with an Irish flag. Alana proceeded to tell us that we “have the greatest voices ever” before Este started a chant of Ole Ole, a now Irish tradition at concerts. The girls left the stage to Este telling us “I F*@cking love you guys”.
Haim gave the crowd a professional but short set that was full of up tempo music that had everybody dancing along all night long. I would definitely suggest a Haim concert to any music lover as they are probably one of the most multitalented musicians out on the music scene at the minute and sound even better live than they do on record.