Wild Beasts – Live, Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh, Wednesday 30th September 2009
I’ll admit before I start writing this review that I am oddly ambivalent about Wild Beasts, and that this gig didn’t entirely cure that. Some of their songs I absolutely love, a couple are just a little too weird, and a couple don’t quite light the fireworks. For the most part though, I really like them, and this performance generally cemented that impression.
Interviewing them beforehand for Fresh Air Radio was interesting too. Apart from the fact that they came across as incredibly nice, down to earth guys, it was interesting to hear about the emotional state which led to some of the wilder aspects of their music. Originating in the bustling metropolis of Kendal*, they decided to make the move to Leeds specifically to take a chance on their music careers.
Consequently, according to the band, a lot of the desperation in the howls and yelps on Limbo Panto was just that: a shrill proclamation of their existence. The risk they took to arrive in a new city and try to make themselves heard in an already bustling music scene drove them to extremes, and you can hear it in the album, which has a kind of manic, dark energy to it. Follow up, Two Dancers, is mellower and less ragged, with the band now achieving consistent recognition and admitting to consciously taking it a little easier on their audience.
Nevertheless, the transition from being a band who had to shout just to be heard to a band enthusiastically pimped by the NME and one who are now as cavalierly dismissed as being good as they were previously just cavalierly dismissed has been a little weird for them. They have only just taken the next big risk: that of becoming full-time musicians. This is a terrifying time for any band, because it’s a circular dilemma. The only way to become full-time musicians is to take the chance and just do it, because without devoting that kind of time and energy to it, you can’t make it work well enough to justify the decision in the first place. And even then it might not work. But basically the only way is to just do it and take the chance and in the current music industry, where no-one really knows where the money is coming from, that’s a big risk – something of which the band are acutely aware.
I can’t really tell whether that newfound confidence which they describe as being present on the album has transmitted in any way to their live performance. They do strut confidently on stage, but the fourth wall is generally left intact. Ben talks to the crowd occasionally and a little uncomfortably but Hayden, chatty, thoughtful and sincere during the interview, tends to stay hidden behind a wall of hair. He has already admitted that he finds the recent increase in demand for live acoustic sessions to be a rather trying because it is a little too personal, and a little too unforgiving, when he would rather keep a little distance between the performer and the person.
On stage you can see that quite clearly, although they aren’t as theatrical or as flamboyant as you might expect. In fact they’re a pretty straighforward four-piece: drums, bass and two guitars with a bit of keyboard thrown in from time to time, when called for. The real difference comes with the math-rock flavoured drumming, the simple but brilliant guitar riffs and the interplay between the two lead vocalists.
As my gig companion Morgan said, it’s weird to see a group switch lead singer mid-set, because it fundamentally changes what you perceive to be the character of the band. I suppose we tend to project a lot of the musical emotion onto the singer, and having to shift that to someone else after three songs is quite strange. Having said that, the interplay between Ben and Hayden’s voices is amazing, and is just about my favourite aspect of their music. One is wild and pleading, the other more vulnerable and sympathetic and that seems to be the dynamic of the music itself. Wild Beasts are simultaneously fractious and vulnerable, and that contradiction is probably what I find so engaging about them, despite the fact that I don’t love every song they’ve ever written.
Even during this set, which I really enjoyed, there were songs I found to be a little too full-on. Particularly with their early stuff I can find the songs getting away from me a little when the theatricality is at its strongest. At the same time, and slightly paradoxically, there are times when I find the songs a little bland – where the twin sparks of pop sensibility and innovative belligerence just fail to ignite something exciting and the song never quite gets off the ground.
So I come back to where I started: Wild Beasts have done a lot of brilliant songs, and the ‘one hand giveth while the other taketh away’ dynamic is something I find really exciting, but there are definitely times when I don’t really connect, for various reasons. An intriguing band though, and a really good gig.
Wild Beasts – All the King’s Men
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Wild Beasts – We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ on our Tongues
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Website | More mp3s | Buy direct from Domino Records
*For anyone who doesn’t know Kendal, this description might not be entirely serious.
Lovely guys. Were so accommodating to us as a band. Musically, well I love some of it, don’t mind some of it and could take or leave the rest of it. But one thing is for sure, they have a shit hot drummer.
Yeah, he was amazing, despite the presence of bongos.
I think I agree with your summation Matthew.
The general sentiment seems to be that there are amazing songs (for me Devil’s Crayon and All the King’s Men) the pretty good songs (stuff like maybe Hooting and Howling and Brave Bulging Buoyant Clarevoyant) and then the songs that don’t connect in quite the same way.
I really enjoyed the gig and I really like the band but I haven’t yet got to grips with some of their songs, I think I probably need to give them a bit more of a listen.
I absolutely love Devil’s Crayon though and ATKM is not far behind it.
Interesting that they were down to earth in your interview, they seem very down to earth off stage but kind of weird on it – maybe that’s to keep the “mystique” as they said last night.
gig companion?
yeah, the presence of bongos was a worry. but he used them brilliantly and played such complex stuff in a metranomic way. brilliant. i thought they seemed lovely off stage. didn’t notice this mystique you’re talking about russkels.
Friend who came along to the gig with me, Chutters. As opposed to Midget Companion, who is a friend who provides sexual favours.
TT – they did say they were keen to keep their actual personalities away from the music to a degree, so I can see how they’d be so different in the two situations.
did anyone one see the support act, Blue Roses?
Yep. Boring lady music. Nothing to see here, move along.
We went back up to the bar to avoid talking through her set.
i heard a promo of the Blue Roses album, and thought it was quite good
The Blue Roses album is supposed to be very good but I’ve not heard it. The obvious comparison would be Joanne Newsom given the song structures and the itinerant vocal melodies. I quite liked it actually – I bet the arrangements on the album will add something to her sound/songs.
Euan – they just jokingly referred to keeping their mystique via the use of their smoke machine. Smoke machines are cool. I think the KsofL should get one.
Interesting that they want to keep their personalities and their music separate – the two are inextricably linked I would have thought – but right enough their music seems quite a lot weirder than they are as dudes.
*Joanna
Smoke machines scare me slightly.
Blue Roses had a lovely female voice and was brilliant on piano. I liked her stuff to begin with, I just got a little bored. I wish her violinist, piano player and drummer had played too just to keep my attention.
I found the Blue Roses album a little dull and the performance doubly so. She was charming for sure and seemed nice, but musically there was bugger all there if you ask me.
She was very similar to somebody else in that sense then. What’s her name again!?
Did Blue Roses not get something like 8.9 on pitchfork? On last nights performance I’m not sure how that is possible. But then I never really enjoyed Wild Beasts that much either and sat in the gay team van with chris eating chips and burgers.
Fool fool fool fool fool!
come on. I saw them at stockton riverside festival and they were great. but i bought the albums and limbo panto kind of killed my enthusiasm for them. lovely guys but much better live than on record. anyways i hadn’t eaten and felt incredibly hunger sick. so burger and chips went down a treat.
I didn’t go to this gig. Or listened to Wild Beasts. Or read the above review.
But judging from the photograph, I don’t like them.
Yes you do.
Really?
Look at him there, which his denim jacket.
And his rolled up sleeves.
And his friend there, with the hat.
It’s not 1987, guys.
You still like them though.
his friend with the hat is his gig companion!
Chutters, you’re just jealous it’s not you.
Unfortunately I can’t argue re your statement about there being “nothing musically there” with Blue Roses on the basis I haven’t listened to the album – but I suspect it’s the converse – there is so much musically there that it’s difficult to enjoy without a degree of effort.
Having said that I’m sure you gave it some effort so, well, this is pointless I suppose…
I liked her voice.
I think WB’s fash has improved – last time I saw them they were wearing grandad shirts and braces – they looked like they’d just come out of the coalmines or something.
I have to confess I didn’t give it much time, sorry. I walke down, listened to half a dozen songs, was underwhelmed, and wandered off. So perhaps I owe the lass some proper attention before making stupid statements, but then I really was’t at all grabbed by the album either so she might just not be for me.
But then, I think Joanna Newsom’s shit too.
whats wrong with grandad shirts and braces?????
I enjoyed them (Wild Beasts, that is; not sold on Blue Roses, though she was better supporting St. Vincent last month) and thought the Two Dancers stuff sounded ace, but what was with Devil’s Crayon being played perilously slow?