Live Review: Blossoms – MelodyVR – Brixton Academy – In VR

Stockport’s Blossoms returned to London’s legendary Brixton academy on Thursday Night for the first time since 2018. The show was put on as a part of the current MelodyVR concert series at the venue.

The MelodyVR app allows fans to watch shows from 360° cameras around the stage, and fans can do this through their phone or VR headset. I watched this show with my Oculus Quest 2 VR headset. The menus were easy to navigate, which made it very quick and easy to set it up on the app.

Fading into the venue we got our first look at the stage, filled with rugs, lamps, christmas trees, mics, and instruments all arranged in an octagon; The stage was also covered in orangey-yellow fairy lights giving everything a nice outline. Frontman Tom comes out onto the stage alone, starting the night off slow with an acoustic version of ‘Blown Rose’, before the rest of the band come on to join Tom to play ‘The Keeper’.

The night had a excellent setlist filled with a great mix of songs from the bands albums, and even included the live debut of ‘Christmas Eve’ & ‘It’s Going To Be A Cold Winter’. Blossoms sounded great throughout, and didn’t seem to be phased by the empty venue, making the place feel like a bunch of friends just playing at home. Each band member getting so comfortable as to take off their shoes mid set.

It would have been good to see some interaction with fans who were watching from home – Like in Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes MelodyVR set – as it would have given that fan to band interaction that the in person shows have but livestreams lack. It would make the whole stream feel a bit less lonely, seeing others watching alone at the same time.

I thought the MelodyVR cameras could have been placed a bit better, I feel it would have been better to have a stationary camera in the very center of the octagon the band stood around. Instead the center had a camera that was on a track, which felt pointless as the ‘stage center’ was already close to one end of the track and the ‘stage right’ the other end. The camera quality was great as always with MelodyVR.

Overall the night was a lot of fun to watch and a nice little pre-christmas show. As the night came to a close with ‘Charlemagne’, VR headset on, Beer in hand, I almost began to forget that I wasn’t actually in Brixton Academy at that moment. Another great MelodyVR gig!

Photo Credit: ogden.ewan