Spring King, 100 Club, London

A couple of years ago, a show at the subterranean 100 Club would have gone along pretty nicely with Spring King’s relatively underground status. But that was then. This is now, and they play their biggest London headline show to date as red hot property. “There’s so many of you here,” remarks singing-drumming machine and group lynchpin Tarek Musa as he takes his seat. “It’s a bit nerve-wracking.” He needn’t worry one bit; he and his band are about to spark a riot.

It comes as no surprise that it manifests itself as a mob of fervent moshing, one which seems to swell in size with every certified banger Spring King deliver. It doesn’t matter whether they’re early cuts like ‘Can I?’ and ‘Mumma’ or recent humdingers of singles ‘Who Are You?’ and the brand new ‘Rectifier’, each and every song on the setlist raises the proverbial roof. Or should that be ceiling down here beneath Oxford Street?

Perfectly in sync throughout, their faces etched with exactly the kind of infectious glee that emanates from their music, these are four young men who are visibly high on the rock ‘n’ roll life and loving every second of it. They’ve even got the confidence to throw in an audacious cover of Grimes’ ‘Oblivion’ – because why the hell not? Frankly, it just shouldn’t work, but needless to say it’s an overwhelming success.

With performances as enthralling and energy-sapping as this, it’s little wonder Spring King have previously been tasked with warming up crowds for the likes of FIDLAR and Slaves. Tonight though, they prove themselves once and for all as a formidable live force in their own right. Almost eight months have passed since Zane Lowe memorably launched his Beats 1 station with the set-closing ‘City’; you can already imagine what grand stages the same song might be gracing another eight from now.