Michelle Shiers on April 15th, 2015

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Hard on the heels of an electrifying Coachella performance, Royal Blood all but blew the ceiling off the Fonda Theatre on Monday night.

• ||| Photos by Michelle Shiers

Their 12-song set, almost entirely from their debut album, began with “Hole” with front man Mike Kerr bringing his immediate swagger and his bass slung low. While Royal Blood are quickly ascending from the tag of “Breakthrough Act,” the duo are also proving that size really doesn’t matter.

The sheer power of “Come On Over” with its Muse-like riffs and “Cruel” with a Homme-indebted vocal melody showed off the duo’s crushing bass-and-drums prowess. The audience, which included Alex Turner and Nick O’Malley of Arctic Monkeys and drummer Ilan Rubin of Nine Inch Nails, cut loose along with the band who boasted an outsized kind of melodrama.

The hurried crunch of “Figure It Out” and muscular blues groove of “Better Strangers” showed that Royal Blood are not merely just pulling it off as a two-piece, but rather suggested that their rock ’nÆ roll landscape isn’t as straightforward as it initially seems. Clearly influenced by early QOTSA, prime-time Zeppelin and Sabbath, and meatier White Stripes, Royal Blood are doing the modern-rock-meets-garage their own way with Kerr’s short-scale Gretsch bass sometimes strung with a couple guitar strings, a tricked out pedal board and baseball-capped drummer Ben Thatcher’s pounding rhythms.

Backed by huge spotlights and occasional strobes, Kerr and Thatcher were spread out on stage, but when Kerr did walk closer to the drums, their connection was palpable. “Blood Hands” buzzed the audience’s chests with its severe riffage, and B-side “One Trick Pony” was taut with a blues-infusion that quickly morphed into fuzzy bass shrieks.

“Careless” and “Ten Tonne Skeleton” saw the inception of a growing mosh pit. Thatcher occasionally stood up at his drum kit, smashing away on his cymbals and watching the vehement fans who were undoubtedly getting bruised on the floor. Kerr kept on provoking the audience to be more and more lively and pointed out those who were sitting on the balcony versus those on the floor. “Loose Change” ended with Kerr yelling “Merry Fucking Christmas!”

Then Royal Blood closed their set with “Out Of The Black” as blue and yellow lights flooded the crowd to the dangerous beat. Kerr’s voice echoed as Thatcher raised his arms for more powerful hits. Toward the end of the song, Thatcher jumped out and crowd-surfed and then returned to the stage for a bombastic ending of volume and noise highlighting that their secret is worth its weight in gold.

Royal Blood were supported by Australia’s Cameron Avery as The Growl (normally a quintet), who performed his experimental blues with quirky lyrics and DIY textures.