White Lies - Metro Theatre 28/07/09

There are some bands that don’t require a magnanimous back catalogue of albums, an expensive live stage set and excessive, repetitive mainstream exposure to prove their worth, White Lies definitely fit into this category. With only a debut CD under their belt and a relatively low key profile in Australia, it was questionable of what to anticipate in a live environment, which was to be expected. To say they pleasantly surprised, would be an understatement of paramount proportion.

They entered the stage to a sombre atmosphere and subdued lighting, a reflection of their music and musical style, often described as a form of dark and moody 80’s tones, much akin to The Smiths and Echo and The Bunnymen.

White Lies actually sound better live than they do on their debut CD, ‘To Lose My Life’, Harry McVeigh’s voice is sublime and powerful, the comparisons to Ian Curtis ( Joy Division ) and Paul Banks ( Interpol ) have been numerous and well justified but Harry does hold his own, if anything his vocal range is superior to the aforementioned two. If Harry is the voice of the band then the rhythm section of Charles Cave, bass, and Jack Lawrence-Brown, drums, are its foundation , combining in an almost effortless flow of bass line twang and rhythmic beat keeping them all in unison.

The setlist primarily consisted of songs from their only CD but this meant that the crowd was well versed with the lyrics which only added to the atmosphere. This however did not detract one bit from the performance that these Londoners gave on the night.

The live version of "Fifty On Our Foreheads” was given a fantastic extended run, “The Price Of Love” showcased the versatility and depth of Harry’s vocal range, “To Lose My Life” injected by Charles’ driving bass forged a gloomy, yet compelling and captivating semblance of dark sound. They also played “Taxidermy” a B side single from “To Lose My Life”, which would have been a song foreign to all but the die hard fans. The surprise of the night, for me anyway, was the terrific version, Portishead’s; song “The Rip”, which would have done the trip hop pioneers proud.

Of course, the night would not have been complete without the song that started it all, “Death”, which fittingly ended their set, you would think that they must have grown tired of playing this signature song but they showed no sign of it. As expected the crowd went crazy and the band obliged their exuberance by delivering it with a hard edge and sullen passion, that culminated with Jack standing over his drums extracting every last beat out of the infectious song.

Unfortunately my only complaint was that there was no encore, the night pretty much ended after “Death” was played, kind of fitting for the so called “dark and gloomy” trio, who are primed and screaming out to be heard in a stadium/arena environment.

Quite a solid and brilliant performance from a bunch of guys just in their early 20’s, the question is what will their sophomore offering be, only time will tell but for now the future of alternative rock is in good hands… “Love the feeling when we lift off……..”

Interpol - Hordern Pavilion 21/2/08

Ok, you know how on occasion you’re watching TV and you slowly doze off only to be woken up in the middle of the night, TV still blurting away in the background and you’re totally dazed as you reluctantly go and turn it off? But I digress, what has this got to do with seeing Interpol at the Hordern Pavilion? Not much really, other than this is how I got into Interpol in the first place, the song was PDA and I woke the next morning with it still playing in my head.

Not even 12 months had passed since that fateful wake from my slumber and I was lining up outside of the Hordern, an hour before gates opened ..waiting…and waiting. Well we all know of the adage “well worth the wait” well it was certainly the case in that particular moment in time.

As noted earlier, my introduction to Interpol has been very brief, albeit they have only released 3 CD’s since 2002, but I have noticed that people either like them or they don’t. Their style of song and music tends to polarise people in their opinion of the band, so in a way the people that attended the concert that night “wanted” to be there…and it showed.

The band was amazing, there wasn’t a note played out of tune, very tight and very professional. The sound was spot on and the lighting was not too overbearing and strategically bathed the band in colours of intermittent Blues, Reds, Orange and Yellow, it was almost an interstellar look and feel and complemented the songs very well. Oh and the music, music, music…this is a band that truly lets their music do the talking, no fancy gimmickry, animation or stage props, just brilliant melodies and superb vocals ( Paul Banks is an example of being able to produce an outstanding vocal performance without the requirement of an extensive vocal range or the use of vocal theatrics, he was solid and on the mark the whole night ), a band that was completely in tune with one another and a thoroughly polished unit.

Although Interpol were touring Australia promoting their latest album ‘Our Love To Admire’, they played songs from all three albums, including my subliminal calling song "PDA", which they saved for the last song of the evening.

An absolutely brilliant concert by an equally brilliant band, one that seemed to actually enjoy the crowd and the opportunity in performing for us all.

Oh, and to my two Czech friends that I lost in the crowd on the dance floor “Já doufám že jste měli výbornou noc”

David