Opening the night, Nilüfer Yanya and her band rocked through a great set of songs from across her catalogue and helped set the tone for everything that would follow. Direct and concentrated guitar licks were met with sharpened rhythms that struck with fine precision, all coming together with heightened tension firmly controlled by Yanya and her strong, well-seasoned band members. "stabilise" was a strong stand-out, laser focused and ready to go in for the kill. Throughout, the Yanya held a remarkable gaze and demeanor that had the crowd locked-in and fully engaged. It led perfectly into a killer cover of PJ Harvey's classic "Rid of Me," which felt like such a natural choice and incredible addition to her set list and had everyone pumped up for what was to come next.
Scaffolding and massive blinders took over the stage, towering over the band and covered in Christmas lights to boot, which made for an epic set up in front of which Alex G would lead the crowd through a tour de force of songs that had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hands from the moment the lights came up to reveal him going straight into "Louisiana" off the new album. It was a near non-stop performance as the band stacked up a serious number of tunes to plow through and hit them all with absolute force. The night covered every song from his latest release, but also made sure to throw in as much older material as possible and included just about a song from every one of his full-lengths as well. After starting off strong, the momentum only picked up with "June Guitar" and saw the crowd really come to life, everyone rising and committing to standing for the night as we jammed along the song's pleasing refrain. Wasting no time and diving straight into "Runner" had the audience erupt with joy, people in front jumping along to the beat and Alex himself letting loose with some ragged screams. On record, it's hard to pin the artist to a single genre and live it feels like the range expands to even further ends of spectrums. Morphing his vocals into wild yelps and howls while still playing stunning chords on acoustic guitar may sound like mayhem, but watching the band enhance these at times wild callouts is really something to behold and frequently captivating. A candidate for Song of the Year, "Afterlife" was another momentous number that had the lighting rigs popping off to add even more effect and impact to the track's already thrilling melodies. "It's a spooky time of year" G said to the crowd around the half-way mark of the night. "I'm trying to pick out my Halloween costume" he also informed us before naming off some great horror film villains as possible options. His guitarist then came in with a cover of John Carpenter's theme for film Halloween which naturally got a huge reaction from the entire room before the band went into a raging "Brick" that was certainly the heaviest moment of the night and once again had Alex distorting his vocals into an unrecognizable state. "You can sit down for this one" he told the audience as he sat behind the keyboard for the Vince Guaraldi-esque track "Is It Still You in There?," although without the ghostly (in a charming way) chorus, it was just an instrumental number that served as a lovely moment of zen in the show. Things were charged right back up again when the band slid into the revving riffs of "Bounce Boy" and everyone rose up once again and remained standing for the rest of the night. Flowing in a near seamless fashion from one song to the next, the band knew how to ride out an intro to allow one another to tune or for one of the many trade outs of instruments, their ability to stay in sync a consistently fun and impressive thing to observe. Headlights is Alex G's first major label record and this tour is an impressive operation that relishes in the band's new situation. A well-deserved dream come to life and an artist living out their total potential.
Set list:
01 "Louisiana"
02 "Gretel"
03 "June Guitar"
04" Runner"
05 "Real Thing"
06 "Beam Me Up"
07 "Afterlife"
08 "Oranges"
09 "Bug"
10 "Kicker"
11 "Halloween Theme - Main Title / Brick"
12 "Horse"
13 "Blessing"
14 "Immunity"
15 "Logan Hotel"
16 "Is It Still You in There?"
17 "Bounce Boy"
18 "Spinning"
19 "Forever"
20 "Headlights"
--
21 "Far and Wide"
22 "Ain't It Easy"
23 "Proud"
24 "Southern Sky"
25 "Hope"
26 "SugarHouse"
No comments:
Post a Comment