On a rainy Tuesday in October, one would not expect a 100 year old building on the north side of Chicago to be jam packed with nearly 2,500 people with indie-rock music boring out of every crack, but that is exactly what happened. On October 9, 2012, Two Door Cinema Club graced Chicago with their presence all the way from Ireland, to a warm welcoming from all their fans at the Riviera.

Before the main show started, there were two different bands that performed.  The first band that performed was Guards. Guards is an indie-rock band made up of five people, four guys and one girl. When they walked out, it seemed as if they would be different than all the other music out at the moment, considering their clothes and the fact that the lead singer looked exactly like the character Jeff Bebe in the film Almost Famous. The band was actually pretty generic; there wasn’t anything that was outstanding about them. Guards only played a few songs and even though they tried to get the crowd excited, no one really got into since they didn’t have great stage presence. None the less, live music is always a good time, so it wasn’t too bad.

The next group that performed was Friends, a band from Brooklyn. Friends is another five piece band, including lead singer, Samantha Urbani, drummer, Oliver Duncan, bongo player,  Etienne  Pierre, bass player, V- who is automatically super cool, since she’s a girl bassist- and Nikki Shapiro who plays guitar and well as the keyboard. Also Sasha Winn was present on stage during the concert, but isn’t actually part of the legitimate band. Friends had a far better performance compared to the previous band. They played with the audience way more-throwing flowers into the crowd, crowd surfing- and they also have a far more unique sound, especially the vocals. The crowd was much more interested in Friends than they were with Guards, but nobody really knew the music, and frankly, everyone just wanted Two Door Cinema Club to get on stage.

After an excruciating long wait, Two Door Cinema Club finally walked out to a screaming crowd at 8:30. The three members, Sam Halliday, Alex Trimble, and Kevin Baird, along with their touring drummer, performed a total of 17 songs in about 70 minutes. They performed a balanced amount of songs from the first album Tourist History as well as their new album, Beacon. The band started the show with “Sleep Alone,” the first single off of Beacon, which the crowd went wild for. After that song ended, front man, Trimble, said a brief few words, right before they got into three straight songs from the first album, “Undercover Martyn,” “Do You Want It All,” and “This Is the Life.” The energy in the room stayed high throughout the entire set, but escalated quickly whenever the more fast beat songs from Tourist History were played, especially when the unmistakable beginning of “I Can Talk” started. Throughout the show Trimble switched between two different guitars and the piano, depending on the song and Halliday and Baird seemed to be enjoying themselves so much that they were just dancing around the stage and occasionally looking out into the crowd with smiles on their faces. The band said a quick goodbye to crowd, only to take a short break before the encore, which they performed “Someday,” “Come Back Home,” and “What You Know.”

After the concert was officially over, “You Make My Dreams Come True” by Hall & Oates came on, which the whole crowd just sang and danced around to on their way out the door and into the rain, which was a very reminiscent of the scene from 500 Days of Summer.

Two Door Cinema Club is a truly talented band that is perfect for small venues, they feed off of the energy and in such a small space, and you can’t help but be excited with that large amount of energy. This concert was one of the best ones that I’ve ever been to, the music was amazing, it wasn’t a big fancy performance, and the love that they have for their fans is evident; everything about the concert was spot on and spectacular, but I could do without the ringing ears, even three days after the concert.