London Grammar, Troxy, London

There’s certainly a sense of an event at the Troxy tonight. A huge queue snakes around the venue, and girls are waiting outside with handmade signs pleading for tickets for this sold out show. The band have a string quartet with them and huge spot lights are trained on the stage with a screen behind them lighting up and words appearing as if by magic.

It’s a reminder, if any were needed, that London Grammar are huge right now. A lot more than mere buzz band (and they’re not trying to be hip) they have grown to be a band which the Troxy is no longer big enough to contain. Later during the show guitarist Dan Rothman stares out at the audience and still seems disbelieving at the band’s rise: ‘This has been the most incredible year of our lives.’

He’s not wrong. The band open with ‘Hey Now’, which, since London Grammar first posted it online, has had more than 3 million plays. Tonight it eases the crowd in to the show and gives Hannah Reid the chance to showcase her smoky, deep vocals; a voice that has seemed to define what the band are about.

Yet though on record Reid may be the central figure, tonight is proof that Dot Major could justifiably claim to be the star. The band must be bored with The xx comparisons, but there’s a more than a little of the Jamie xx about how he builds up the songs to fill the live space, bringing tracks like ‘Wasting My Young Years’ and ‘Strong’ to life and creating something more pulsating than you find on record.

But when that energy turns to empty space there’s a stillness to London Grammar’s music that means the crowd can lose concentration and there’s a muted restraint here, especially, and ironically, during ‘Stay Awake’. Halfway through the set Reid tells the crowd that they’re recording a video for next single ‘Sights’ and asks them to go wild. The crowd oblige, yet there’s an even bigger reaction for ‘Nightcall’’s slinky and dark groove.

Finishing with ‘Strong’ they return for an encore. We get ‘Sights’ one more time for good luck (and due to ‘technical reasons’ for the video) and they finish with the magnificent ‘Metal And Dust’, Major providing a pulsating beat as the screen behind the stage shines out the band’s name. Their name in ten-feet high lights. It’s been that type of year for London Grammar.