Playlouder - Music is the Network

It’s a penniless miserable night in a penniless miserable part of London, and while The Windmill’s a pretty inviting place it’s always a culture shock for me, coming from my plush Pimlico quarters to this back-alley off Brixton Hill. Needless to say I found it difficult to believe the reports (from various sources) that tonight’s gig had sold out, but then I’ve never heard of The War on Drugs, and all I know about them is that they’ve been compared to Bruce Springsteen.

A bit of a baffler that their opening act (Kurt Vile?) – whom I rather like – are a sort of shoegazing spacerock scuzzfest; even more baffling is that their members also comprise the headline act. Is somebody screwing with me? 

Well never mind that – here there’s plenty of the pedals and knobs that are oh-so-fashionable right now, but a bit of the raw rock know-how that’s never been fashionable, and a dude singing through a mass of dark hair in an entirely unintelligible manner, and some pretty hypnotic beats. I like it a lot, though not that many people seem convinced.

A brief cigarette break and suddenly the place is packed-out in anticipation of Bowerbirds, who turn out to be a much more melodic affair with a few large and curious instruments, but such is the nature of their music, and the nature of being halfway towards the back of the crowd with the back half chattering aloud, that their set is almost entirely lost on me, and while several people assure me that they outdid the opening act, I can’t see (hear) it.

I’m not making the same mistake for The War on Drugs. If they have lyrics worth hearing I want to hear them. Unfortunately, the front ranks are beleaguered by an eccentric soundman who insists on barging through the crowd every now and then to admire his own handiwork – testing out the aural angle from all over the shop.

This is odd behaviour: not least because all I can hear is NOISE<NOISE<NOISE. The many electronic drones and buzzes meld together with the guitar lines, drums, drum machines, and basic bass, rendering the vocals almost as inaudible as the hairy guitarist’s were in the band’s earlier incarnation. It’s pretty groovy stuff, but also pretty painful, and maybe a tad disappointing. 

Are my ears fucked or what? For a 'next big thing', they sound an awful lot like a wetter version of last month’s next best thing, A Place To Bury Strangers.

It’s only when I retire to the smoking area and shake the sweat from my hair that I suddenly realise he’s actually singing words, and some of them make sense, and there are real melodies overlaying the strong song structures here – only for some reason it was barely discernable inside.

And so, a very rare experience was had: that of walking out on a band and then enjoying them a lot more. Perhaps they’re worth investigating further after all.