It had been a while since we’d darkened the doors of the Arts Club. Long enough to forget which entrance you’re meant to queue at, long enough to remember it as something slightly grander than it now appears. The redesign is subtle but telling, a different route into the main room, the bar area stripped back and feeling faintly temporary. It leans more student night than sacred gig space these days, low maintenance and clubby, but still reliably hot and sweat-slick by the time the headliners step out. Some things never change, thankfully.
Monday night in Liverpool can be a gamble. Tonight, it felt like a test of stamina. Two stella support acts in the form of Zeruel and Portrayal of Guilt warmed the room with conviction, clearly aware that this was a room that listens hard. For them, this was exposure of the proper kind, not polite applause but genuine engagement. You could sense the crowd filing them away for future reference, the way you do when you know you’ve just clocked a band before they move up a line on the poster.
Then Deafheaven arrive, and whatever aesthetic tweaks the venue has undergone melt away. No tracks from Infinite Granite, which in itself speaks volumes. That album’s shoegaze sheen, praised in some quarters for its bold pivot into cleaner textures and more introspective tones, felt like a deliberate detour in the band’s catalogue. Critics noted its glossy melancholy, its patient build-ups and shimmering guitar layers that traded blast beats for atmosphere. Live tonight, that restraint is nowhere to be found. Instead, the set leans back into the ferocity and scale that made their name, songs that feel less like compositions and more like controlled detonations.
It’s hard not to clock how much George Clarke thrives in a room this size. On larger stages he commands, here he prowls. He folds himself into the crowd, microphone cord snaking behind him like an afterthought. You want him to have more space, to stretch out and let the music breathe, but then you also don’t. The tension of confinement suits him. He performs like someone trying to claw through the front row, eyes wide, arms outstretched, every scream pitched somewhere between anguish and exorcism.
The band behind him are a study in balance. Walls of guitar swell and collapse in waves, the drumming relentless without becoming mechanical. Where the studio versions can feel meticulously layered, live they feel urgent, almost volatile. There’s a looseness that makes the crescendos hit harder, like the songs are discovering themselves in real time.
And the crowd, fair play, were up for it. Monday night mosh pits are a specific breed, slightly unhinged, fuelled by the knowledge that work awaits in the morning. There’s something admirable about watching a room collectively decide that tomorrow’s alarm is a problem for future selves. Bodies collided, lifted, spun, and yet there was that unspoken code that Liverpool crowds tend to honour, fierce but watchful.
By the encore, the Arts Club is back to what it does best. Condensation on the ceiling, sound ricocheting off inconveniently placed pillars, a sense that you’ve been somewhere physical rather than just attended a performance. The redesign may have softened its edges aesthetically, but nights like this remind you that the bones are still solid.
We came back to the Arts Club out of habit, maybe nostalgia. We left reminded that in the right hands, it’s still one of the city’s most visceral rooms, and Deafheaven remain a band who can turn even a slightly studenty Monday into something monumental, and that’s no small feat.
Photo Gallery by Alex Cropper
Go Places Do Things 