Review: Idles, Rough Trade Bristol

The obituary: RIP Rise Records, the source of many a fine piece of music; provider of many collectible and coveted treasures after enduring early morning queues for Record Store Day and host of plenty of live music oftentimes sedate & enchanting, oftentimes rambunctious and raucous gigs.

The replacement: So welcome to Rough Trade Bristol, the iconic brand setting up shop in town and offering a convivial, spacious emporium pleasingly stuffed with lovely records and must have books; a welcoming micro café / bar and a decently sized live space, which hosted Idles for the shop’s first in-store signing and gig.

The Christmas tune: Acknowledging the festivities the band opened proceedings with a boisterous a cappela All I Want for Christmas is You, a tune they and the audience separately and together returned to several times over an hour of pummelling, brutal, contemporary rock and roll.

The band: Joe Talbot, vocals; Mark Bowen, & Lee Kiernan, guitars; Adam Devonshire, bass and Jon Beavis, drums. Talbot was on fire throughout the night, orchestrating the chaos despite losing his setlist and spitting out the lyrics (bringing to mind a malevolent pocket sized Neil Fallon) disgusted at the state of the post-Brexit, post-Trump, bigot friendly clusterfuck that is the world today. Bowen and Kiernan could barely contain their energy (and the stage couldn’t contain or constrain them, along with Talbot both were constantly in the crowd). Devonshire and Beavis provided the foundations for the tunes, the former furiously pounding out the low end and the latter battering his kit like King Kong seeking admission to an apocalyptic rave; roaring out the lyrics and powering the tunes remorselessly.

The songs part 1: If you’ve got a copy of Brutalism then you’ll know that it is jam packed with bruising 21st Century bulletins delivered with piss and vinegar. The lyrics hit home harder live: “This is a song about living in a shithole” introduced a vicious Exeter “Great for postcards not so great if you’re black” and Well Done was greeted with a roof raising roar, easily the most popular tune of the night, the lyrics skewering many of the banal absurdities that preoccupy too many idiots of late. If you haven’t got a copy of Brutalism buy one.

The performance: Visceral, totally visceral. The band were thrillingly energetic, constant bursts of energy, the front three a perpetual blur of motion, entirely wrapped up in their songs and playing like their lives depended on delivering the material with total unswerving commitment and passion. There was no bullshit rawk posturing, no mannered too-cool-for-school posing, simply 5 committed blokes on a mission to rip down the barriers between audience and performance to deliver their message. Not that the band were at all po-faced, there were laughs galore, the band constantly amused at each hiccup in the set and the comments from the crowd – particularly one valley commando who seemed to think it was still 2016.

The songs part 2: No, it’s not really post punk. Sure there are elements of post punk – it’s not simplistic enough to be termed punk really; complex polyrhythms, weird unexpected swerves certainly payed lip service to the idea of post-punk but it’s way too heavy for that. More sprightly than say Killing Joke and heavier than the Gang of Four but without any metal clichés. In fact there’s a riffmungous solidity to their music that sets them head and shoulders above many of their contemporaries, not many of whom could survive Download let alone storm it.

The banter: Talbot and his bandmates were vocal and engaged throughout with onstage chat – “We’ll start this next song as soon as soon I’ve got a guitar player” (well, your guitar will need retuning after a prolonged safari in to the crowd) – as well as a continuing conversation with the audience and commentary on the tunes. So pleased was Talbot with a lad stage front that an initial invitation to spend Christmas together was escalated to an offer to meet up after the show and do drugs (“…and you’re buying”).

The new song: Love Song was more of the same, i.e. fucking excellent.

The crowd: Down the front the crowd went bat-shit, hollering and bellowing along with the tunes as a pit gradually developed, dozens of sweaty grinning ticket holders in a frenzied Brownian motion (or more accurately unconsciously aping the kinetics of gaseous particles). Meanwhile the rest of the packed room was word perfect, loud in their support and enraptured.

The politics: “God bless the NHS”. “Don’t buy The Sun”. Can’t say fairer than that but old farts in the crowd might bemoan the fact that the NHS is more in need of saving than ever and The Sun is still in business (even Rihanna agrees). The band hit home with personal politics too, 1049 Gotho a defiant howl and Mother meshing the personal with wider issues to great effect with exuberant co-vocals from the crowd. These lyrics are in your face and a million miles away from bland platitudes and #tag me too banality. These lyrics are needed and important.

The verdict: Idles are one of the most exciting bands on the circuit right now, they’ve got the tunes, they’ve got the chops and they’ve got passion by the yard. There are far too many fey fops clogging up the nation’s major venues and too many bands making an art out of artifice with “rebel” rock. If there’s any justice Idles will blow up even bigger in 2018 and clear the way for rock music that doesn’t just entertain but entertains and matters.

Idles played at Rough Trade Bristol on Saturday, December 16 2017