INME - O2 ACADEMY, ISLINGTON 18TH SEPTEMBER 2015

We made our way to North London on Friday evening to a packed out Islington O2 Academy for an evening of nostalgic rock enchantment. InMe are no strangers to a gig or two having formed back in 1996, almost two decades ago, they have released countless studio albums and embarked on an impressive amount of tours. Despite their rather shocking lack of deserved recognition and limited level of breakthrough success the band have managed to acquire a rather militant and solid army of fans to follow them through their journey. The title of the tour was ‘Overgrown Butterfly’ which is a mix match naming of their two albums ‘Overgrown Eden’ and ‘White Butterfly’, yeah you guessed it these were the two albums the band played in full on this particular tour. The albums where the bands first, with debut ‘Overgrown Eden’ being released in 2003, potentially one of the bands most successful albums aswell reaching Number 15 in the UK album charts.

The gig had a great aura about it, it wasn’t an album promotion tour or a pre festival warm up tour or anything along them lines it was merely a coming together of fans for an evening of appreciation; reminiscing two great albums that played massive parts in many lives of the people that were present. It’s rare that you see a band organise a tour like this, where they take time to revisit old material and revel in nostalgia, we think it is a great idea! More often than not these early albums are the ones that mean a great deal to people, they can stand through time as the pinnacle reason that fans fall in love with a band in the first place, acting as a soundtrack to ease the monotony of day to day life. Music has a powerful ability to evoke all kinds of emotion and evenings like this can surface various wonderful memories that may have been pushed to the back of the subconscious, never to be remembered until one note or chorus can bring it all flooding back.

The gig itself is exactly what you want/expect from a O2 Academy Rock gig on a Friday Night busy, sweaty, beer soaked and passionate. Some of the best nights we’ve had have been achieved at the hands of the aforementioned setting. Dave and the band played the two albums in full split down the middle into two halves separated by a brief 15 minute break for fans to re-quench their thirst with pints of Carlsberg and calm their bodies adrenaline levels down with a well earnt fag. The first half was ‘Overgrown Eden’, the band played the album in order opening with crowd favourite ‘UnderDose’ and ending with what we would have to say were our two stand out songs of the night ‘Neptune’ and ‘Mosaic’. After the break the band came back and left no time to ease back into the proceedings by dropping straight into White Butterfly’s ‘7 Weeks’ another of the bands heavier tracks. The moshpit was pretty live forming as soon as they hit the stage and continuing throughout the time the band were in our presence, to be honest we were surprised it didn’t carry on through the intermission. During the heavier songs it was a cauldron of expression where fans of all shapes and sizes could display their love for the band and music through eccentric movement and constant collision. Whilst its atmosphere was rather contrasting during their softer songs like ‘Chamber’ and ‘White Butterfly’ it became an airy space of soppy singing, raised arms and lots of hugging. What a wonderful place!

Dave often interacted with the intimate crowd on many occasions provoking them to break into the traditional band chant ‘InMe *clap* *clap* *clap*’ interpret that as you will. Dave ushered the photographer and videographer onto the stage to take photos and film the chant with Dave claiming that the band would look to use the recording on the NEW album from their Trilogy project. The bouncers between the crowd and stage definitely had their work cut out for them with a continual stream of crowd surfers being fed from the inner workings of the rampant mosh pit over the top of the crowd towards the stage. The closing of the gig saw the band partaking in some emotional farewells to the crowd, whilst many departed the majority stayed to continue the chant in hope that the band would return to the stage and play an encore, wishful thinking considering the band had just played the two albums in full and would have had to play another albums song as their encore. Nevertheless they were relentless continuing the chant for a solid 5 minutes, maybe even more; it wasn’t until the techies came onto the stage to pack up the equipment that the crowd conceded defeat dispersing into the streets of Angel to find themselves the nearest watering hole in which they could continue their nights. Many would have crossed the road to The York where Dave announced the band would be residing after their gig for celebratory drinks and mingling with the fans. We love that, long live InMe and the admirable dedication to their fans!

Here's a video of InMe in action with their track '7 Weeks' from album White Butterfly, video courtesy of @_viewfromthepit. Go check them out on Twitter or at their website www.viewfromthepit.co.uk and subscribe to their YouTube channel. They are a Digital Video Editing business dedicated to bringing Rock and Metal gigs to the masses. A fantastic venture, anyway enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJaCynQqe2s