Imagine deciding to take a gap year with your mates after finishing high school and moving from Byron Bay to Berlin. Now imagine you and those mates formed a band in your final year, and, once in Berlin, you decide to roll the dice and self-release an album. Okay, but now imagine that album actually gets good reviews and you end up getting a gig in Paris. Crazy right? There’s more. Among the audience there’s Thomas and Guy from Daft Punk and they decide to record their last song ever with you. It sounds like the plot of a feel-good, coming of age indie film, doesn’t it? Well, good news for the biopic-obsessed movie producers: that’s exactly what happened to Parcels.
On the second night of their tour, the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam was full. The crowd was steady, leaning in to catch every falsetto, staccato and riff, already warmed up by Zimmer90. Patrick Hetherington on keyboards, Louie Swain and Jules Crommelin on guitars and Noah Hill on the bass formed a neat, Beatles-era lineup, with the great Anatole Serret on drums at the back, and warm lights, almost like a choir about to sing. The first song was ‘Tobeloved’ followed by ‘ifyoucall’, precisely the first two songs of their new album.
‘LOVED’ is a perfect album for autumn with their signature sound but with a deeper, more real and more melancholic sound. Listening to it gives you that bittersweet, calm-after-the-storm feeling. You can sense the band members maturing: the tracks feel like a hug, as sometimes when you’re sad you connect with something more honest, more grounded, with more truth.
They continued with a tight version of ‘Overnight’, the Daft Punk collab we talked about before. Resembling the vibe of ‘Random Access Memories.’ every note is crystal clear, every bar is masterfully produced, and it perfectly balances funk, disco and modern pop. This is what critics mean when they talk about nostalgia meeting freshness, or, as some call it, retrofuturism.
Another remarkable moment was ‘Sorry,’ the biggest hit of their latest album. It perfectly encapsulates the essence of the album: sad songs with a vitalist touch. It’s reminiscent of Metronomy’s post-Covid album ‘Small World,’ and there is a reason why. The truth is, Parcels have been killing it for the last decade, and after years of producing and touring, they decided to take some time off and go back to the motherland to have a proper rest and reset. But little did they know each member would quietly start sketching new ideas, which later came up in a meeting and resulted in the conceptualization and production of a new album, which went live days before the start of the tour and they presented impeccably during it.
After ‘Safeandsound,’ the lighting changed to purple and red and the band broke the choir formation and became a full funk band. With ‘Summerinlove,’ they gave us those new slower, R&B infused grooves, less present in the previous albums. They seem to be so relaxed all the time, like nothing’s ever too serious or too bad. No wonder that among my friends, the biggest Parcels fan is the surfer. There was a really funny moment during this song with a “stare-off” between the bassist and the guitarist, full on Street Fighter mode, trying to see who could hold the groove longer. They both did.
Drums aren’t usually the most prominent in Parcels’ sound, as their style is quite smoother and rhythmically consistent, but when the drummer switched to broken, jazzy patterns, we realised how much weight he carries in the group and at the end, after a solo that left us speechless, Serret had his rockstar moment, as he should.
“This is the biggest headline show we’ve ever played and why’ve only just began the tour”, they said, sitting on the edge of the stage with mics, a red keyboard and a tambourine before they sang ‘Leaveyourlove.’ An image that evoked Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’s’ iconic video. That’s when it struck me: what makes Parcels Parcels is the harmonisation. It sounds like it’s a single person recording multiple layers in the studio, and it’s still hard to believe how well their voices blend live. They manage to achieve a studio-level sound live, which is practically impossible in the industry. And they do it so calmly it looks effortless. They are also so energetic, hyped, in sync with each other, thankful to the audience. You can tell they are making a huge effort to put on a good show, but at the same time you feel like one of the lucky ones that got invited to see them rehearse or even jam and watch them having a blast.
We were used to a funkier, more euphoric Parcels, but ‘LOVED’ shows a deeper and sadder side. The bassist, the great Noah Hill, strutted to the front of the stage with a silly smile during some of the old tracks, a bit ironic, almost sarcastic, as if he was poking fun at the golden days with nostalgia but also embracing the change.
A synth interlude before the final song felt like a symphonic orchestra tuning up, but on a spaceship. In the end, the Australian band returned to ‘Tobeloved’ with a trance-like intro that built the suspense and quietly announced that the night was ending. I have to say, the audience was a bit steadier than the one I saw in June at Primavera Sound. There are two possible explanations: first, the Primavera crowd was mostly Mediterranean and therefore looser and less formal, and second, the album they were presenting this time is more reflective, more intimate, and it had just been released. They remain loyal to their artistic vision and experimentation, even if that means “sacrificing” part of their audience.
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Words: Mar Rubio Boné
Photographer: Luca Young