Third time lucky: I have booked tickets to see Interpol three times; the first time was for a huge (for them) concert at Alexandra Palace in 2007; the second time was for a far smaller gig in Birmingham last year. I didn't go either time and both times sold the tickets. This disappoints me no end. I have said many times that Interpol are right up there among my favourite bands, the band that have soundtracked my darkest days like no other, and yet twice I bailed on going to see them after letting life get in the way. Third time lucky, since after being well and truly smitten by this New York band since the release of their second album, 2004's Antics, tonight I finally saw them live, albeit from a lofty perch at Shepherd's Bush Empire, ably supported by electronic punk-funk Brooklynite Matthew Dear and his band.
Mrs S is responsible for getting me into Interpol. It was she who first heard 'Slow Hands' and it was she who bought Antics at the old Fopp in Leamington Spa. I was hooked after one listen and they fast became 'my' band. Belatedly, I bought their debút (Turn On The Bright Lights) from Other Music in New York's Lower East Side; it was somehow important, somehow entirely logical to me, to buy this quintessentially New York album in Manhattan. Two days earlier, 'Obstacle 1' from that album was the song playing when Mrs S discovered we were expecting our first daughter, giving that song a perpetual frozen poignancy in our lives. When Our Love To Admire (ordered from Other Music instead of nipping down to my local HMV, natch) came out in 2007 it would come to fuel, drive, encourage – whatever – the most subdued period of anxiety, depression, misery – whatever – that I've ever experienced. Even now I sometimes shudder when I put that album on. I think I wrote here a while back that I'd started to hear levity in that album; after hearing the band perform that album's 'Rest My Chemistry' tonight, in all its devastating melancholy glory, I think I was probably tricking myself.
2010's Interpol marked the departure of bassist Carlos Dengler and a conscious decision by the band to move away from the big venue / stadium aspirations that seemed to be being foisted upon them. An NME review of a gig in a tiny NYC venue last year painted a picture of a band suddenly freed from record company pressures of conformity to the 'scale' befitting a band approaching their fourth album, much more at ease in their surroundings. Live, they are undoubtedly a weird proposition, shrouded in barely-there lighting and near-darkness. Singer Paul Banks barely moves; drummer Sam Fogarino – the only member of the band not to wear black – effortlessly replicates the tight yet complex drum patterns of their recorded work; guitarist Daniel Kessler has legs that seem to operate independently of his upper body, all elastic moves and spontaneous angularity, a bit like a court jester with a six-string. The stand-in bassist spent most of the set with his legs just about as far apart as is possible without falling over, Peter Hook stylee. They don't do reinterpretations of their songs, just play faithful versions of the album tracks. Only 'Evil' and 'C'mere' (both from Antics) were subtly changed, both delivered with a greater speed and urgency than on record. The epic 'Lights' from Interpol was, unfeasibly, more towering in its slow-building grandeur than on the LP and the textural 'NYC' (a song plagued by disenchantment and consequently one of my favourite songs from Turn On The Bright Lights) seemed to be rendered with heightened emotions, even if the ruminative backing vocal of 'Got to be some more change in my life', delivered by either Kessler or the keyboard player, was sadly lost somewhere in the mix.
So, third time lucky, as I said. I don't quite know how to feel in many ways – elated that I've finally gotten to see one of my favourite bands or miserable as fuck after the songs they played and the effect they continue to have on me. If nothing else, tonight reinforced that I have a very real dependency on this band and that doesn't show signs of abating any time soon.
Mrs S is responsible for getting me into Interpol. It was she who first heard 'Slow Hands' and it was she who bought Antics at the old Fopp in Leamington Spa. I was hooked after one listen and they fast became 'my' band. Belatedly, I bought their debút (Turn On The Bright Lights) from Other Music in New York's Lower East Side; it was somehow important, somehow entirely logical to me, to buy this quintessentially New York album in Manhattan. Two days earlier, 'Obstacle 1' from that album was the song playing when Mrs S discovered we were expecting our first daughter, giving that song a perpetual frozen poignancy in our lives. When Our Love To Admire (ordered from Other Music instead of nipping down to my local HMV, natch) came out in 2007 it would come to fuel, drive, encourage – whatever – the most subdued period of anxiety, depression, misery – whatever – that I've ever experienced. Even now I sometimes shudder when I put that album on. I think I wrote here a while back that I'd started to hear levity in that album; after hearing the band perform that album's 'Rest My Chemistry' tonight, in all its devastating melancholy glory, I think I was probably tricking myself.
2010's Interpol marked the departure of bassist Carlos Dengler and a conscious decision by the band to move away from the big venue / stadium aspirations that seemed to be being foisted upon them. An NME review of a gig in a tiny NYC venue last year painted a picture of a band suddenly freed from record company pressures of conformity to the 'scale' befitting a band approaching their fourth album, much more at ease in their surroundings. Live, they are undoubtedly a weird proposition, shrouded in barely-there lighting and near-darkness. Singer Paul Banks barely moves; drummer Sam Fogarino – the only member of the band not to wear black – effortlessly replicates the tight yet complex drum patterns of their recorded work; guitarist Daniel Kessler has legs that seem to operate independently of his upper body, all elastic moves and spontaneous angularity, a bit like a court jester with a six-string. The stand-in bassist spent most of the set with his legs just about as far apart as is possible without falling over, Peter Hook stylee. They don't do reinterpretations of their songs, just play faithful versions of the album tracks. Only 'Evil' and 'C'mere' (both from Antics) were subtly changed, both delivered with a greater speed and urgency than on record. The epic 'Lights' from Interpol was, unfeasibly, more towering in its slow-building grandeur than on the LP and the textural 'NYC' (a song plagued by disenchantment and consequently one of my favourite songs from Turn On The Bright Lights) seemed to be rendered with heightened emotions, even if the ruminative backing vocal of 'Got to be some more change in my life', delivered by either Kessler or the keyboard player, was sadly lost somewhere in the mix.
So, third time lucky, as I said. I don't quite know how to feel in many ways – elated that I've finally gotten to see one of my favourite bands or miserable as fuck after the songs they played and the effect they continue to have on me. If nothing else, tonight reinforced that I have a very real dependency on this band and that doesn't show signs of abating any time soon.
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