Waiting
outside in the enormous queue it seems like the entire population of nice, well
brought-up young men and women of London is here, not covered in the
accoutrements of an indie kid past, but showing just enough beards and band
t-shirts to constitute a tribe. There’s a metal detector on the door – maybe to
prevent anyone shooting the roof when M. Ward plays one of his many paeans to
inner-city gun crime? – but I think it’s probably unnecessary for this crowd.
As the
world of gigs and live music grew seemingly inexorably bigger, the industry
around Rough Trade records and shops has grown in conjunction, harnessing the
spending power and general goodwill of this big group of nice middle class kids
who like their records untouched by big radio stations, the churn of music
video channels, or being picked up on a whim by the till in Tesco.
So
there’s something odd about the fact that this is a pretty big market, these
nice young people, people who like smaller bands, but go to gigs in pretty big
numbers. And Monsters of Folk are the perfect pretty big band for this pretty
big market. They’re a modern/alt/indie Traveling Wilburys, comprising M. Ward,
Jim James and two members of Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis (Ward and
Oberst even took the Roy and Bob parts for a cover of Handle With Care with the
peerless Jenny Lewis a couple of years ago). They’re nice young men playing
good ol’ boy music, and - like the Wilburys - they’re a little bit too good to
sound like something hastily thrown together for yuks.
On stage,
striding out besuited and beaming, they confidently crash into Say Please and Man
Named Truth, booming out into this art deco 1930s palace with music as crafted
and polished as any of the façades and fittings they’re reverberating around.
The songs, especially in this big glitzy room with its mega speaker stacks,
sound like a pumped-up stadium take on the American folk form these four are
experts in making. Whether roaming the stage (Ward) or staunchly holding their
position (Oberst), MoF are vets at holding the floor and projecting.You admire the ability, the playing, the
songs, but the size of it and the oomph of it feels a little disconnected, like
a package tour of Soul greats or 80s hitmakers where the crowd are loving
seeing their heroes.
The
individual monsters take it in turns to play mini sets of their own songs
(Oberst inspires some particularly incongruous grunting and whooping from some
of the men in the audience) and reconvene to finish in spectacular style. The
crowd are happy. The MoF are happy. But I think I’m going to go home and enjoy
these songs a lot more in my front room with a bleary Sunday hangover than with
a big band of big names in a big room.
Perhaps
it’s a reaction to all those smoky, mooching trip-hoppers that shambled out of
their city throughout the 90s. Maybe an aggressive streak lurks behind their
shy façade. Whatever drives them, Bristolian electronica duo Fuck Buttons make
one hell of a noise, a jagged synth titan of a roar.
They look so unassuming too, Benjamin John Power obscured by baseball cap and
massive bottle of water, Andrew Hung summoning a perfunctory wave as they sidle
on after a blistering support set from glitch kid Clark and a funky DJ turn from
veteran (and current Fuck Buttons producer) Andrew Weatherall.
Latest album Tarot Sport isn’t a huge shift of emphasis from the proggy
electronics of last year’s Street Horrrsing, but Surf Solar, opening Tarot
Sport and the show, is a tangible step forward. Chattering effects swell into a
dancefloor monster, kicking Fuck Buttons’ more meandering predilections into
touch in favour of acid mantra. It’s a blast and sets a pace, and volume, that
doesn’t flag all night.
For a band that zips and flashes like the sonic embodiment of laser beams, it’s
a while before the light show gets going, modest spotlights shining on a lonely
looking mirrorball for the first few songs – but Bright Tomorrow’s cut-up
synths and cyber-woodwind see green shards firing all over, taking at least one
bare-chested chap back to his rave days.
It’s a
fair mixture of albums one and two, Tarot Sport pivoting the set with the
spacey chords of The Lisbon Maru and setting us back on dry land with
Olympians’ quasi-soft-rock shimmers and blusters; Street Horrrsing giving up
encore and last-dance Sweet Love For Planet Earth. Power screams into his
distorting mic, but no one’s shocked. For all the deafening techno riffs, the
vast towers of sound, the confrontational name, Fuck Buttons are easy company.
Good, inventive, electro pals.
What an odd idea. It's glorious outside, maybe the last glorious day of a glorious ten day burst of sunshine and drinks in the park and summer memories stored in photos you'll ache over in another decade. But I'm inside. Inside a cavern. A cavern full of other people. Who are hot. Who are sweaty. Who are doing a bad job of sneaking drugs past the doormen. ("Come on, swallow. You can't, your mouth's too dry. Come on.") Who are pressed up en masse, having been there for one or two hours, cooking and sweating. Thousands of people have swapped the chance to not look stupid in shorts for this black, smelly cattle market. What an odd idea.
I see the end of the Dirty Projectors set, who are a good idea, so far as I can tell as I scrabble about for somewhere to fit my frame in. I like this new generation of bands who like Talking Heads. They seem good hearted. I will go on the internet and find out more about them some time soon. Good.
Battles gear starts to get shifted about. There's a lot of it, but it is economically placed. The economical drum kit (Big Cymbal, Bass Drum, One Tom, One Snare, One Floor Tom) is pushed to the front of the stage. Flanked by one set square array of keyboard, mac and boxes, all taped and shaped for ease of use not show. On the other side a bright red keyboard topped off with damaged android wiring and lighting. Behind them are four stacks of amps, standing square behind the instruments like Easter Island heads. As soon as Dirty Projectors are off this Battle and that Battle come on and start poking around with their kit, calmly wiring everything up just so. This is a great touch, a sort of techy, shy showmanship, a peak behind the curtain and an egalitarian and exclusive touch - "No-one else can set this stuff up, but I'm happy to do it while the roadies plug in the amps." I bet Battles really worry whether they turned all the plugs off when they go on holiday.
I am getting extremely fed up and wondering why I am in a baking hot room listening to some nonsense industrial whingeing on the soundman's mixtape. Then a Battle walks out. Grinds out a warping bass riff on the bottom two strings of his guitar. Loops it. Plays over it. Loops that. Plays over it. Loops that again. The rest skip on stage, looking just as excited as the front row. They latch on to the loop and start building over it, and the whole building starts to jitter with them. They have a great drummer, but they're all drummers, just not necessarily playing drums.
Everything they do has a function, and an almost physical form. They make the sound of running, the sound of effortless complexity, where the body and mind are doing something requiring a million signals and adjustments and everything has to be done at speed and in harmony. There's no frowning or distance with these boys though. This is a communion, a method of communication with no real message other than to make you move. Like James Brown or Otis taking gospel shapes and making them move your hips, they take the puritanical, sexless aesthetics of boy-rock and recast it as a motor to drive your unspoken self. There's tunes, too. Well, everything is a tune. Everything's a hook. There's no uncomfortable push/pull. Everything's a pull. Everything is trying to make you feel. It's jarring when one of them speaks to the crowd, thanking them for making it a great night and letting us know that the album that brought us here, Mirrored, has its one year anniversary that day.
They have hits, too. Instrumentals that get the crowd wooping in anticipation. 8 minute epics that seem like they're finished before they started. Everyone in the crowd wishing they had the chutzpah to dance on one foot while playing piano with your right hand and skittering over frets with the left. Battles thank us for being part of a great night. And everyone is. Part of the currents and eddies of the music, part of the fun, part of something unique and universal.
I briefly consider buying a band t-shirt, realise it's all a bit neon for me nowadays, and skitter off down Charing Cross Road singing odd snatches of drum riffs and delay loops to myself.
