Lay Down (Live at Brixton)

Album review

Nothing says bittersweet like a live album released during a pandemic. On March 6th 2020, just before coronavirus put the whole world on pause, the Aussies played to a crowd that filled Brixton Academy’s cavernous space wall to wall. Almost exactly one year later, on March 5th, the rock band released Live in Brixton to a world of shut entrance halls and empty dancefloors. The live performance is brimming with the kind of warmth and energy that really really makes you wish you’d been there. The magic stems from those special moments of erupting unity when the audience belt out every word in chorus with the DMAs. The three-man band (Tommy O’Dell on vocals, Matt Mason on lead guitar and Johnny Took on backing guitar) turn into a six-piece on stage to allow for more musically-adventurous tracks like Life Is a Game of Changing. Though it’s much more than six people contributing here. From fan favourites Silver, The End and Tape Deck Sick to quieter emotive ballads like Step Up The Morphine - not forgetting the album’s highlight, Delete – the audience injects the atmosphere with what can only be described as… dare we say it… togetherness. This admiration isn’t a one-way street, mind. The DMA’s appreciation for their followers becomes poignantly evident on In The Air, a swaying get-your-lighters-out track which the band dedicate to the late Lesley Harris, the wife of a man who runs their Facebook fan group ‘DMANIA’. This show was soon hailed as one of their best ever, and it’s easy to see why. Now tinged with nostalgia for the good old days of normality, this recording is a reminder of the life-affirming joyfulness that live music brings. © Abi Church/Qobuz