Forget Brooklyn or Camden, Liverpool can be an unimpressed and tough audience. Ask Liverpudlian locals Death At Sea who had the honour of being first up in the three band set tonight. Damn good youngsters in a developing sort of way, they did their best to exhort the crowd onto their feet and up close to the stage. Nada. Nyet. It wasn’t due to lack of love, being the home-town openers they’d brought plenty of support. The venue though, the lovely old Kazimier, doesn’t help this tendency. The space in front of the stage is like a tiny amphitheatre, with steps up and away on all three sides, making for lots of sitting space. And in all fairness, eventually two girls did get up and dance.
Next up Scots visitors Three Blind Wolves fared no better. They tried the same trick, and very nearly dug a hole they couldn’t get out of, accusing the audience of being insufficiently enthusiastic. It’s not that we don’t care, we’re just not so easily won, and while you’re a pretty nice band and all that, we’ll just loll around and enjoy things, take in the scenery. Next please.
Which leads nicely to the moment that the Wolves said ‘thank you and goodnight’ and clambered up the precarious pantomime steps to the dressing room of the gods. In that millisecond everyone in the room got off their arses and the front of the stage was suddenly elbow to elbow with the faithful. I’m not going to pretend the whole place was packed to the rafters for The Twilight Sad but it was decently full and the solid crowd knotted in front of the monitors knew exactly what they were there for. An exceedingly drunk girl from Swindon (you know who you are) cursed me roundly for checking my phone when in her loudly expressed opinion I should have simply been clearing my mind and mentally preparing for the excitement to come. Drunk or not, any band really could do with a hundred of her in their audience, but even the mere mortals were feeling pretty keen and whistly by the time Andy MacFarlane, James Graham and the rest got on stage.
Twilight Sad are a singular band for me, in that they are a long way off my usual radar as a ‘type’ of band. I’ve seen them precisely once before, two months ago, and that time round it was a festival impulse to nip down the front and check them out. My god, it was like being caught in the crossfire, ambushed and my legs taken by this band I’d never before given time to. Which meant that tonight (a) I was hoping for a repeat performance and (b) everything was going to be a comparison. All well and good, so long as you realise the inherent dangers of great expectations.
They descended onto the stage, and immediately crashed up-front and loud into ‘Kill It’. The sheer volume, compared to the intimate club gig last time, shattered my first preconception, even if in a very good way. Comfort in wall-of-sound and all that. They sounded great to me, vocals included, but at the end of the number James was wound up and demanded to know why his mic wasn’t working. He quickly grabbed the spare mic, ready plugged with a lead and ready to go, and declared that he’d use that instead. Problem was the main mic was still there on its weighty stand, which accusing as a spurned lover got in the way of his every move. James threw it to the ground in disgust and even there it tried its best to trip him up on that small stage. In the end Dok Doherty emerged from behind his keyboard to make some sense of it all and move the bloody thing out of the way. Meanwhile James announced that he’d simply start again, which he did but fluffed it. So he began yet again. And again. By now he was laughing, the ice was broken and we were all friends; apart from that mic.
This band trade on dramatic tension between Andy’s screeching, howling guitar and James’ wrung out anguish, the latter well to the fore as he crouched and glowered over us in the front row. Again with the comparisons, James tonight spent more time on his feet and less in his usual position on his knees. This was perhaps not surprising as apparently he had knackered his back in the past few days. It didn’t prevent him fist clenching, face grimacing and body quivering his way around the set, proving that he is a singer who is simply compelled by some force of nature to throw it all down for his art.
It’s not just the accent that renders the lyrics poignantly and charmingly unintelligible. The guitar echoes the skirl of bagpipes and a sense of longing drags behind like a cold wind up Glencoe. They might not be the first to ever pull off this trick, but surely do it better now than anyone. The subject matter only helps – ‘Dead City’ sets the grim scene, while ‘I Became A Prostitute’ sees any possible charm stripped by abbreviating it to “Prossy” on the setlist.
Somewhere in the back third the sound really did break down, James opening his mouth but no vocals coming through the PA. It faded in and out but just as suddenly was fixed again. I nipped out for a brief moment to grab some spare camera batteries from my car parked outside the door. Thing was, the loading bay door was open, and while I fumbled in a rush for my keys, the sound spilled out like a creeping fog of yearning, drawing me back in. Paradoxically it was that there I found the keening pull that I’d been looking for all night, and once back inside it was really hitting at gut level, this band that don’t so much wear their hearts on their sleeves as bleed them all over the carpet. Thank you and goodnight.
