By DJ Astrocreep
Neither rain nor wind was going to keep me away from finally getting to catch IDLES live. Despite the onset of Storm Darragh, the splendour and sound of Manchester’s Apollo awaited me for the first time in a while for some music to fit the wild weather. A single support band is our warm up for the evening, though whether they’re quite to everyone’s taste is another matter…
I arrive a song into the set for our support, Willie J Healey and admit to being puzzled. The music is pretty good, but they feel like they would be much more in keeping with the likes of Hawkwind than IDLES, which I think leads to the lower levels of applause than I’d expect. It’s a pity, as the band are quite tight and the music is both harmonious and likeable, just a touch too different for maybe what the gathered masses have shown up for.
There is little response as Healey tried to introduce the band just before the end, leading to him announcing he would introduce them four times before he eventually did, a clear demonstration of what definitely feels like apathy. As mentioned earlier, it’s a shame, as it is good stuff, just maybe a touch wasted on tonight’s audience.
The energy and noise both rise rapidly as IDLES take to the stage. While they are absolutely unashamed of their politics, there are few bands – certainly of their level – that are quite so vociferous about it. Chants such as “fuck the King” and “fuck the Tories” ring out a while, echoing between fans and band, amongst many other examples littered through the evening, showing proof of their leanings. Given how loud the chanting gets from the crowd, it’s clearly a sentiment more widely held.
Vocalist Talbot’s delivery is as visceral as ever and he comes across like a demented preacher, talking the good fight on behalf of chaos, rebellion and togetherness – as punk as you could imagine.
A few songs in and we already have Talbot splitting the crowd for a wall of death, while crowd surfing started even earlier still! The energy is a heady mix of chaos and love, reverberating heavily in the air as it bounces every which way from person to person. The band are really tight, something a bit rarer to encounter on any kind of punk circuit, and the sheer ferocity of Talbot’s delivery adds to this further still.
The lighting is also used to top effect, making the whole performance much more audio-visual than you would imagine from most other punk acts around. Whether it’s keeping time to the drums, being used to signal key or bar changes or at other times, they are expertly worked and clearly a big part of the whole.
Whether it’s ‘Mr Motivator’, ‘Mother’ or ‘Car Crash’, there are plenty of songs in the first half of the set that have everyone moshing, singing loudly or just generally going absolutely off their heads. A nice dollop of ‘Benzocaine’, ‘Crawl!’ and ‘Never Fight A Man With A Perm’ in the second half, along with a whole host of others mean we get a good 20+ songs in the set, plenty to keep everyone happy yet still wanting more.
The kind of performance that shows just how vital music is to us all.
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