Derby’s house heads are in for a proper Sunday session as Mr Shaws House hosts SPIN SUNDAY, a vinyl-only house…
By K Futur DerbyIt was my first time inside The Bodega, and it didn’t take long to clock what kind of venue this is. Run by the same team behind Rock City and Rescue Rooms, there’s a level of polish here that stands out straight away. The sound is dialled in, the room holds energy properly, and even before the headline set, it already feels like a space built for nights that go off.
The projector behind the stage adds another layer as well. It gives bands a full visual backdrop rather than a simple banner, and it instantly makes the whole thing feel closer to a full show than a standard grassroots gig.
By the time I got in, the place was packed and already moving.
Sunk Set the Tone with Pure Crowd Chaos
I walked in to a pit already in motion, bodies moving and people two-stepping across the floor.
Sunk were already deep into their set, and it was chaos from the off. The two-piece punk act didn’t hang back, the frontman spent as much time in the crowd as he did on stage, pulling people in, building the pit and making sure no one stood still for long.
The highlight came during “Fuck the Basist”, when the mic was handed straight into the crowd and the chant came straight back, loud and unfiltered. It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t supposed to be, it was exactly what a set like that should be, unpredictable and completely shared between band and crowd.
Normal Village Dial It Back Without Losing the Room
Normal Village followed with a shift in pace, but the room stayed locked in. The indie four-piece brought a more controlled and melodic set, giving the night space to breathe without losing attention.
What stood out was how comfortable they were on stage. The guitarist and drummer swapped places at points, something that could have felt forced but instead showed how tight they are as a unit.
They’re young, but there’s real confidence there, and the crowd stayed with them, less chaotic, more focused, but still fully engaged.
Marvins Revenge Deliver a Headline Set That Feels Bigger Than the Room
Before Marvins Revenge even stepped on stage, someone was already pushing the crowd forward, telling people to close the gaps and fill the space at the front, compressing the room and setting the tone for what was about to happen. It changed the feel instantly, this wasn’t going to be a stand-back kind of set, it was one where you were either in it or you weren’t.
As soon as they came on, it went straight into the pit.
From there it didn’t let up, waves of movement rolling across the room as the crowd locked into the set, constant moshing breaking out across the floor, with a full circle pit opening up at points, people running in a loop around the centre of the mosh, feeding off each other’s energy and keeping the momentum building. In between that intensity, there were those slower, more controlled moments where the band pulled things back just enough for full singalong sections, arms in the air, people swaying together and shouting every word back, before it snapped straight back into chaos again.
At one point people were up on shoulders until security stepped in, but even that didn’t slow things down. The crowd stayed fully locked in the whole way through, reacting to every shift in tempo and every change in energy.
This wasn’t a band working things out, it was a band already too big for the room.
Everything about it felt complete, the pacing, the control, the way they moved between intensity and release, stretching the crowd and pulling it back in without losing grip of the room for a second. It felt closer to a set you’d expect in one of Nottingham’s bigger venues than a room above a bar. Marvins Revenge don’t feel like a band slowly building anymore. They feel like one moment away from something bigger.
