Sunday (1994) Live at Camden Assembly.
On a cold and drizzly evening at the end of September, London welcomes the mysterious, almost mythical, Sunday (1994) for their first-ever UK show– a sold-out Camden Assembly Music Room.
Photos by Jamie MacMillan
The band unexpectedly rose to the surface earlier this year with an Instagram post announcing their formation, theatrically stating that ‘Sunday (1994) begins now’. This announcement was accompanied by their first single, ‘Tired Boy’, which was released on February 23rd and has since had over one million streams on Spotify alone.
With their black, white and pink colour scheme, cinematic aesthetics and enigmatic quality, they captivated fans of all ages– from teenage girls who relate to their honest lyrics of heartbreak and disappointment in love, to the fifty-year-old dad’s who are excited for the resurgence of the 90’s alternative, shoegaze soundtrack of their youth.
It’s September 30th and fans are queuing outside, eager to climb up the narrow staircase and pile into the small, dimly-lit venue which once hosted the likes of The 1975, The Strokes, and even powerhouse pop-singer, Adele. As you enter, there is a table with a handful of t-shirts– sold out before the show even began– and some of the band’s CD’s. The venue is at capacity, with around 100 people crammed in front of the stage, keen to find out more about the mystical figures that are Sunday (1994).
The support act was Matt Felix, a London-based indie-rock solo artist with similar melodramatic black and white aesthetics to Sunday (1994). He arrived on stage at 8:30pm to play his moody, guitar-heavy songs which included the first performance of his recently released single, ‘Don’t Cry’– a song that he wrote in one sitting after a bad shift at work which left him feeling lost and disappointment with where he was in his life. His fortune has changed though as he is set to play a headline show at The George Tavern on the 3rd October.
At 9:30, the guitarist, bassist and drummer stroll on stage to take their place in front of their instruments and start the ethereal, synth-infused intro of ‘Blonde’, a song about an experience with heartbreak and the desire to change her appearance to feel better. The lead singer, Paige Turner, drifts on stage shortly after with a white, prairie-style dress and a small cross marked in eyeliner under her left eye, and begins to sing the melancholy verses with her delicate and soft vocals.
Afterwards, they went straight into ‘Stained Glass Window’, a confessional song about loving someone even though it’s bad for you. The chemistry between the guitarist, Lee Newell and the vocalist, Paige Turner, who met and founded the band together, was palpable during the performance of this song as she took the mic off the stand and sauntered over to embrace her bandmate and sing the lyric, ‘I don’t want anybody else’ to him.
They continued the set with ‘Mascara’, a song about girlhood, friendship and helping each other through heartbreak with an incredibly infectious guitar riff, and ‘TV Car Chase’, a song that is sonically similar to Lana Del Rey with the emotive, soothing vocals and her lovelorn lyrics: ‘I’m braiding my hair / You’re drinking a beer / Car Chase on the TV / Leave me here’. During the bridge, Turner brandished a sign which said ‘my head is in the oven’, the lyrics of the song and an ode to Sylvia Plath and her tragic end.
The energy picks up for their heaviest songs, ‘Our Troubles’ and ‘Blossom’, two grungy tunes which wouldn't be out of place on one Paramore's early albums. The distorted guitar riffs and dense drums were perfectly accompanied by the intense white strobe lights which flooded the room during the choruses.
During the set, the guitarist, Lee Newell, revealed that after playing their first ever show last week, a sold out performance in LA, he scoured the reviews on ‘Bands in Town’. He said that the reviews were mostly five-stars, expressing love and awe for their performance, apart from a four-and-a-half-star review which said that the show was good but there should be more crowd interaction. He took this advice, asked an audience member their name and then asked the crowd to leave a five-star review.
They introduced the band— the drummer, the newly-added bassist and singer Paige Turner are from overseas, born and bred in the glamorous US, and Lee Newell is from Slough, a small and gloomy town outside of London. It is an unexpected mix but works well as the crowd were captivated by them throughout the performance.
Sunday (1994) ended their set with their most popular song and the song that started it all for them, ‘Tired Boy’, and the performance came to a close with Turner turning the mic towards the crowd and them singing the chorus along with the band.
