So, this Peter Denton dude thinks we are "long-winded."
March 28, 2005
Interpol at the 9:30 Club
(Review by DCist guest reviewer Peter Denton)
While most indie bands are content to pander to their local constituents and bring the pork home to their narrow fan base, Interpol is following Hillary Clinton??s lead and has their eyes set on breaking through to a national, mainstream audience.
Sure, the couture-clad gents from NYC might not be tacking to the center on abortion rights or injecting their songs with overtures to the religious right, but their Friday night sold-out show at 9:30 Club showed off their crisp and focused radio-ready chops that are helping them charm red-state fly-over audiences.
Interpol kicked their set off with Paul Banks darkly intoning, ??We ain??t going to the town, we??re going to the city,? and the band launched into a drowsy take on ??Next Exit,? the lead track from their latest LP, Antics. While Interpol peppered their setlist with rockers like ??Slow Hands,? ??Obstacle 1,? and ??PDA,? much of the night was devoted to their gloomy dirges and droning midtempo post-punk sound.
After more than two years of constant touring, Interpol has developed an incredibly tight and clean sound. Banks?? vocals are way up in the mix and the band nails every song to perfection while closely mimicking the album??s arrangements. This works great for their up-tempo singles, but really leaves something to be desired on the rest of their tracks. Because of their dark, ruminative nature, most of Interpol??s songs cry out for extended exploration. Unfortunately, there isn??t an organic bone in any of their bodies. A definite highlight, though, was when they dusted off ??Specialist? from their buzz-starting self-titled EP for the first encore.
If this was our first time seeing Interpol -- or if we hadn??t compulsively listened to their first LP ??Turn on the Bright Lights? -- we??d probably be much more complimentary. Fortunately, it seemed like much of the backwards-hat crowd were among the uninitiated. During the feeding frenzy of buying tickets for a show we knew would sell-out -- and quickly -- we considered also going to Saturday night??s 9:30 Club show, but, frankly, we??re glad we didn??t.
While March Madness kept us from getting out early for noise-pop openers Blonde Redhead, nevsky42 saw them and certainly didn??t hold his thoughts back:
"Might have been the absolute shittiest performance ever from a group I paid money to see. And I'm including De La Soul's horrible '93 performance at Bates College. It was all the more offensive to me because I normally like this sort of crap: shoegazer guitar chords powerfully strummed for two-three minutes with heavy use of the ol' flanger pedal, with either a skinny male mumbling incomprehensible lines about a cruel world or an ethereal female ready to protect you in her moist mother-earth embrace."
The Ghost of Gordon Sumner, however, had this to say about the openers:
It was like Radiohead scoring a Japenese noir film. It was hypnotic, sexy, moody, mysterious. Perfect. It's the soundtrack to a doomed love affair, something involving guns and drugs and tragic choices. When the drummer from Interpol came out to play a second drum set during one song, culminating in a doubled-drum coda, it was probably the highlight of the night.
Unfortunately, the highlight of the night shouldn't come during the opening act.
Many of the usually long-winded 9:30 Forum members seemed to be suffering from Interpol backlash, but friarfunk opined:
??Show was great last night -- good till about the middle, at which point they tore up "Not Even Jail" and annihilated the second half of the setlist in fine fashion. "Specialist" was a great treat."
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