Sometimes pink is the blush in your cheeks. The charming pigment that fills your lips and filters your romances. Sometimes it’s the stain of a slap full in the face. The electrifying shade of a force your skin won’t forget. On its best days, pink is all of the above. Animated and charming, electric and unforgettable. Because on its best days, pink is The Royston Club. More specifically, the colour closely associated with their recent debut album. As the opening notes of their headline show at Liverpool Academy start to hum, the band’s name glows at the back of the stage – in a glorious knuckle mark of bright, flushed pink. “My passion’s branding yours,” frontman Tom Faithfull sings to a crowd who are more than ready to be coloured in.

It seems almost ironic to open the show with a song titled ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’ considering the immediate flourish of life the band’s arrival on stage brings to the room. It wouldn’t be too dramatic to expect flowers to start sprouting from the brickwork. Their most recent single is everything live music begs for. A riff that keeps passionate hands glued to the air and lyrics that have been committed to memory seemingly so they can be expelled again at twice the power and three times the volume. It’s like if choirs were made of restless apes at feeding time. Perfectly coordinated carnage.

It’s a sign of things to come.

And, it would appear, a sign of things that have already been. As the flickering indie-pop of both ‘Blisters’ and ‘Shallow Tragedy’ begin to splatter the room, it’s hard not to search for something that might capture the moment. On the ceiling, faded pieces of confetti cling like the freckles of parties past. The Royston Club might not be the first people to dazzle here, but they make a good case for the most exciting.

For ‘Believe It or Not,’ Faithfull ditches his guitar entirely in order to prance every inch of the stage – tethered only by a mic-chord which maps his movement like a ballet dancer twirling a ribbon. Dressed casually in a semi-buttoned shirt and using amps as plinths, he possesses all the stage presence of an early Jarvis Cocker and all the charisma of your most entertaining friend at the peak of a house party. It’s all sweeping arm gestures, feverish pacing and outstretched fingertips tied with a bow.

Under two mismatched spotlights, he and guitarist Ben Matthias thread the room back together. With hummingbird notes, ‘A Tender Curiosity’ flits from voice to voice in a beautifully simplistic duet. This rare moment of hush is chased by the equally delicate ‘Tangled Up,’ which starts with slow blinks of guitar that quickly crack open as the chorus accelerates into full percussion. Without them even leaving the stage, it creates an encore of sorts – the perfect segue song. Because sometimes pink is that too; the last hues of a sunset and the first signs of a sunrise.

‘Marianna’ is full daybreak. Everything is alive. People are stacked two by two, the floorboards have a heartbeat and it’s as if the lights themselves are trying to sing along. Clearings are made and ritualistically closed on every beat drop. People who started at the front have been shuffled to new neighbours and those who started at the back have danced their way to the front. In a blazing example of knowing your audience, the club-thumping soul of Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ detonates from centre stage and turns the room inside out. Talk about different class.

Whilst the crowd play a version of twister where the only objective is to find enough space for both feet on the floor, the 90s hand seamlessly back over to the present with closer ‘I’m A Liar.’ A song about false promises that conveniently advertises the entire evening:

“I’ve been shaking my hips, I’ve been putting on a show.”

Pretty much.

Flushed, charmed and now slapped full in the face, a crowd of living colour head for the streets.