Seeing
Interpol in
November last year was one of those life changing moments. I went from liking them to loving them, and loving them so much that I was instantly in a panic over whether I'd ever get to see them again. As it turns out that wasn't much of a problem, as their tour took them away from the UK but then back again in the early part of the new year, so I was online straight away getting tickets for Leeds in March.
In what seems like a bizarre decision, having seen them in Newcastle in the mosh with my 2'6" baby niece, I decided to get balcony tickets this time as I'd be with my 5'10" wife. How would the balcony compare to the mosh? Well hopefully it'd give a better view - the entire Newcastle concert had appeared as a back-lit silhouette and we'd barely seen the faces of band, let alone Dan Kessler's groovy footwork.
We got to Leeds O2 close to doors opening and got more-or-less straight in. First impressions were that Leeds O2 was a bit minging compared to Newcastle. You stuck to the floor as soon as you entered the building and you were nowhere near the bar or arena by then. By the time you reached those parts of the building the stickiness was almost superglue in strength and you stood still at your own peril. It at least explained the bag-search at the door - worried someone was trying to smuggle in cleaning products!
Other than that it was quite a nice building, internally the architecture, layout and lighting surpass Newcastle. We got seats in the second row of the balcony, which gave an excellent view, though I was slightly tempted by the standing that was available behind the side rows of seats. The fact that standing there for a few hours would probably mean I'd have to leave my shoes behind when I left persuaded me otherwise.
After almost and hour and a half of nothing the support act came on and the evening's entertainment finally began. Matthew Dear was someone I'd never heard of, let alone heard, so I didn't really know what to expect. What followed, therefore, was all the more surprising. I just sat and watched almost open-mouthed, the sound and stage presence that he generated being quite mesmerising. I particularly liked the trumpet (? - I'm no brass expert) that featured on many tracks. I donwloaded (legally, from iTunes) his album when I got home - it's good, but nowhere near as good as the live show, and I don't really notice the trumpet on it.
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| Matthew Dear and his trumpet player |
So he came and went, and after a further (relatively) short interval Inperpol were finally on. The setlist was much the same as in Newcastle - the best tracks are the best tracks, so you can't change a set too much. The differences between the sets were that C'mere, Hands Away and Specialist replaced Length of Love, Not Even Jail and NYC. Good in some ways, especially as Specialist seemed to be the most "requested" song at both concerts, but bad in that Length Of Love is my favourite track and was omitted.
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| Paul Banks, Interpol |
The view was indeed better and we got to see Kessler's footwork in all its glory, as well as being able to actually see the band's faces. All tracks were performed immaculately, though as always at these smaller venues, the vocals sometimes got a bit overpowered by the music. The bass was a lot less prominent on the balcony than it had been in Newcastle's mosh too - only to be expected I guess, due to the large difference in distance from the speakers. This totally changed the feel of the concert, and feel is the right word. The deep base resonated your whole body so you did indeed "feel" the concert when closer to the front, and it was that that had really grabbed me at Newcastle.
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| Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler & Sam Fogarino, Interpol |
So this ranks as my second favourite concert of all time, after the Newcastle one, though if you take into account the much better support act then maybe it could be up there as equal first.
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| Guitar change for Mr Kessler... Must mean Slow Hands is on its way... |
SetlistApparently Not Even Jail was also planned for the encore but time was against them.
1 comment:
I thought Matthew Dear was rubbish. You're right about the carpets in the O2 though, minging!
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