Interpol - Live at The Joint - 10/22/2010

Interpol live at The Joint (photo by me)

October 22, 2010

This was my fourth time seeing Interpol live. Two of the three previous shows were absolutely spectacular with fantastic energy, eye popping light sequences, and pure crowd love. One of the previous shows was a short set, two days after they had played Coachella, a quick stopover as they essentially "tried out" some of the tracks for their forthcoming album and it felt exactly like what it was: a practice run. It was a letdown.

I was a little worried going into this show because their new self-titled fourth album is not really doing it for me. But I shouldn't have let my worries get the best of me. This is a tight band that knows how to put on a good show. They are also one of the few bands that seem to truly enjoy playing Vegas and lead singer Paul Banks is vocal in letting us know it. In addition I was a little concerned about Carlos D leaving the band. Would the lack of his prescence be noticeable? He was such a striking figure, a true individual character in a band with plenty of character as a whole, not to mention his throbbing bass lines that provided the crux of so many of their songs. But honestly, his absence did not affect the band's performance. I've always enjoyed watching guitarist Daniel Kessler's manic on stage movement the most anyway. He glides back and forth and side to side on his quick feet until you are suprised that he can move like that and play at the same time!

Overall the setlist consisted of five songs from their first album Turn on the Bright Lights, six from their second breakthrough and most popular album Antics, only one lonely song from their third outing Our Love to Admire, and a full six off their new self titled fourth album. I will first say that the songs off the new album sounded much better live and actually made me want to give the album more of a chance. Secondly, hearing live seven songs from their latter two albums and eleven songs from their earlier two albums ultimately reveals the difference between the two parts of their career so far: their early work contains a palpable energy, propulsion, and ROCK that their latter work is lacking. It's not that there new work is not as good as their older work, but it is decidedly different to my ears and I prefer the raw intensity of their first two albums to the rather lanquid unfolding of their last two.

But Interpol is a very smart band. They obviously know that my opinion is the same opinion as a lot of their fans and they rewarded our loyalty by playing a setlist that consisted of over 60% older songs.

And I thank them for it.

Setlist (for those of you into that kind of thing):
Success (Interpol)
Say Hello to the Angels (Turn on the Bright Lights)
C'mere (Antics)
Memory Services (Interpol)
Rest My Chemistry (Our Love to Admire)
Summer Well (Interpol)
Narc (Antics)
Evil (Antics)
Untitled (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Barricade (Interpol)
Lights (Interpol)
Slow Hands (Antics)
PDA (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Try it On (Interpol)
Not Even Jail (Antics)

Encore:
NYC (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Take You on a Cruise (Antics)
Obstacle I (Turn on the Bright Lights)

Interpol and Canadians

I went to see Interpol on Monday night with Phillip and my friend Shanda. I was a little leery because friends of mine who had seen them the Friday before in Portland had reported a lackluster showing by the band and no encore. No encore?!? The thought was mortifying!

Lucky for us (sorry Jill and Frank) they were UH-MAY-ZING!!!! After two mediocre live shows in a row they completely restored my faith in live music.

This is the third time Phillip and I have seen them. The first time was September 19th, 2005. Phillip literally remembers this as one of the most perfect shows he's ever seen and I tend to agree with him. That night they played every song we could wish to hear, had a gorgeous light show that accompanied the music, and were tighter than tight with their musicianship. The second time we saw them was last April and it was a warm up show a few months before the release of their new album "Our Love to Admire" and it felt like that. Almost like the audience was just watching band practice: short and sweet set, no special lighting nor attempt to utterly please the audience. Not really very rocking. Well this past Monday night was thankfully a companion show to that first one. Long set, spectacular and atmospheric stage setup with columns of light and projected images, and perfect playing. You know how the layers of sound that a band can capture on a record sometimes can not be replicated on stage? That just isn't true with Interpol! They are so tight – every bit of that nuanced, cavernous sound from their albums comes through in their live shows. It's incredible!

Here is the set list from memory, so not necessarily in this order or complete:

Pioneer to the Falls
Obstacle 1 (these were definitely songs 1 & 2)
Slow Hands
Rest My Chemistry
Not Even Jail
Lighthouse
Scale
Evil
Heinrich Maneuver
No I in Threesome
Say Hello to the Angels
Narc

And our encore (in order):
Specialist
Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down
PDA

Phillip and I already knew that they would play "Pioneer to the Falls" first because it's just the perfect opening song and from most reports they've been opening with it on this tour, but we took bets on what song would be second. I guessed "Evil" but Phillip triumphed with "Obstacle 1." The encore was incredible. The first song they played we weren't familiar with and my friend Dave informed me later that it was an early b-side. Phillip feels like he summoned Stella because he was shouting it out like freaking Brando throughout the entire show. He had such a great time, Shanda and I were laughing at him because he was so into it! During PDA when that extended pause in the song occurs, the band held it for about 30 seconds too long while the whole audience screamed. Paul and the boys were absolutely playing with us, building our anticipation level up to that nice breaking point, and then they crashed back in with the music. It was AWESOME. If I had money I would follow this band around on tour.

During the show I met a random boy at the bar. He was from Canada, this was the first time he had seen Interpol and he was blown away. Before the show ended I ran into him again and invited him and his friend to come with us to the Double Down Saloon after the show for a drink. Since they were from out of town and it was a Monday night I figured they'd be happy to join us and they were. Their names are Rhys and English and they run a bar in Toronto called The Underground Garage and they are super cool people. They were excited to see a real Vegas bar and not another club on The Strip which is all they had seen of Vegas prior to this. Our buddy Ben (DJ Rex Dart) was spinning and our friends Dameian (DJ Standing 8) and Nicole met us for drinks too. The Canada Boys bought us round after round (although I was driving, so quickly switched to water) and we talked and talked and talked. We then decided to take them to downtown Las Vegas, which they had yet to see. They are truly music lovers and when we played The Stills in the car they were impressed that we would be fans of such an obscure Canadian band. We then exposed them to Neutral Milk Hotel who they had never heard before. We hit The Griffin, one of the coolest bars we have, and they fell instantly in love with it and played about a dozen songs on the jukebox. English is the drummer in a band (My Psycho Ex) and I wish him much luck. I hope we will stay in touch with these guys because I want to visit Toronto and drink in their bar now.