Live Review | Junk Whale turn up the volume and the feeling at Delicious Clam
DELICIOUS CLAM, Sheffield
Delicious Clam has a way of feeling like someone’s living room on the right kind of night. On Friday, it tipped over into something more intense. Junk Whale hadn’t even plugged in before the room started heating up. Then came the first chord and the place lit up. Fuzzy guitars tangled with open-throated vocals, while the front row shouted along like it was a song they’d carried around for months.
Playing a set alongside Nathy SG, whose blend of spoken word and rhythmic guitar had people paying attention to Pink Opaque, dialling in a woozy dream-pop haze that softened the edges, Junk Whale were set up and delivered an epic Friday night.
There’s no divide with this band. They don’t play at you. They pull you in. Vocals passed between members, rough-edged and real, while the guitars dipped between tuneful jangle and complete chaos. Songs didn’t build in neat shapes. They swerved, cracked open, and bled out. It felt like they were working through something, and the crowd was right there with them.
At one point, the noise dropped. They eased into a slower track and for a moment, the place held still. People swayed. Someone hummed the melody near the back. Then a sharp count-in snapped the band back into motion, and the noise came flooding back. The floor moved. The walls seemed closer. A sea of heads bobbed to the beat like they didn’t want it to end.
By the final chorus, you could barely hear the band over the crowd’s joy. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t tidy. But it didn’t need to be. What mattered was the feeling in the room, and Junk Whale had that locked in.
Next stops are The Waiting Room in London on Saturday 31 May, and JT Soar in Nottingham on Sunday 1 June. If this show was anything to go by, you’ll want to be down the front.
