Words: Lucy Donoghue (She/her)
Time to turn on the bright lights: Interpol are back with the usual Antics.
Oozing New York City cool, the band revisit their iconic second album, Antics (2004) for its 20th anniversary tour. Funnily enough, Interpol (as in the global policing organisation) also had a conference in Glasgow on the same day. Coincidence? I think not.
As a (semi) seasoned gig-goer, walking into Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall felt oddly reminiscent of the high school prom I never went to, with its squeaky clean floors and a stage that felt like an afterthought. Not what I pictured for the suited-and-booted Manhattan band. Queue the image of an underground jazz club, whiskey in decanters, and a glass bowl for keys at the door. Nonetheless, atmosphere is Interpol’s middle name and that’s exactly what they brought to Glasgow.
Interpol are known for their powerhouse basslines, and this band has a bassist with a powerhouse stance. Think Peter Hook circa 1979. Paul Bank’s post-punk revivalist lyrics reverberate through the crowd like a heavy thrum, Joy Division-esque. As a side note: someone told me that Interpol’s lyrics are just words that sound good strung together, without any kind of rationale or meaning behind them. How very rock’n’roll of them.
Interpol are one of those bands that have a cult following amongst their dedicated fans, but when you tell the person sitting next to you in class that you’re going to see them, their response is usually ‘who?’. Even listening to them once, you might think ‘meh’. But listen to it again. You might just be won over. I certainly was.
The crowd is what you would expect from a 20-odd-year-old kind of niche in the mainstream (but not unknown) indie-rock band. The majority were dads, alongside a sprinkling of 30-something-year-old men with beanies and denim jackets who probably have extensive record collections. And me, yay! There was no mosh or anything, just sophisticated head bobbing and a wee dance where appropriate, considering the music style is largely more about groove than noise. This suited me since I had just eaten a big plate of pasta from Sugo and moshing was certainly not on my agenda for the evening.
People often say that musicians are never as good live as they are on recorded albums, but this definitely isn’t the case for Interpol. Unless someone pressed play on their Spotify playlist and let Paul Banks mouth the words, Interpol largely play an identical live show to their album. They left no stone unturned, playing every song from Antics as an opening set. Each song was played in the order it is on the recorded album, which added a sense of satisfying predictability to the evening. Usually, when I go to gigs, I am apprehensive about the artist not playing my favourite songs, or placing crowd-surfing anthems disjointedly amongst slow ballads. However, with the adherence to Antics, Interpol provided an album-based performance that was unlike any I had seen before. Even in album tours, artists often understandably leave out less popular songs in favour of bigger hits, but Interpol’s consistency is what ultimately made the gig so memorable.
After the entirety of Antics, Interpol played a second 9 song set playing some beloved fan favourites such as The Rover, Obstacle 1 and All the Rage Back Home. This was a nice contrast to the rhythmic cohesion of Antics, creating an exciting guessing game as to what forgotten-about song was coming next. And if you thought it was all over, shock horror, you would be wrong. After two distinct sets, Interpol came back on stage for an encore of PDA. By the end of the show, Banks still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. You have to respect the dedication to the bit.
Although I had a great time, I was disappointed in the lack of Stella was a diver and she was always down, having listened to it religiously for a year; going so far as to learn it on bass in true Interpol fashion. I guess you can’t have everything. Regardless, it was an incredibly atmospheric gig with an array of old classics that even the novice Interpol fan would know, or at least could appreciate.
In the words of one Glaswegian dad stood next to me, ‘Interpol, Glasgow loves ye!’. Don’t ask about the price of a concert hall Tennants though, that’s still a touchy subject.
