For people of a certain age who devoured the weekly/monthly music press back in the day, there was always a certain frisson of excitement when some lucky writer got to go to a foreign land to spend time watching your favourite band live – the headline would scream ‘Blur in Stockholm!’, The Wedding Present in Geneva! etc.
These days, due to cheap flights and expensive train tickets in this country then it’s so much easier to go abroad for the weekend to see your faves, and over the last couple of weeks, social media has been awash with people going overseas to see one particular band, a band that are so very special to so many people.
So here we are on our way to Frankfurt, and who better to be seeing than IDLES, hot on the heels of their faultless Number One album Tangk.
Tonight is the last night of the bands month-long European tour, and a good place to see what form they are in before this summer’s run of U.K. dates, which now includes an Other Stage headline slot at Glastonbury.
As you may have guessed from the fact that I’m prepared to schlep all the way to Germany to see them, unless it goes horribly wrong this evening then this may not be the most unbiased review you’ve ever read. But there is always a nagging doubt in the back of the mind that as it’s the last date and one of only a couple that has not quite sold out, they may do a shorter set or just somehow ‘phone it in.
Inside the massive 4,500 capacity conference centre, they offer beers with a discount for returning the reusable plastic cups, something we really should also be doing over here.
And it’s with a bleak-tasting German lager in hand that we are to firstly enjoy Brighton’s very own DITZ, who are this evening’s starters and what a start it is.
This is as exhilarating as a support slot gets. Having only seen them before in tiny venues, the difference tonight in their sound is palpable. They suit the bigger stage so much; they sound enormous as singer Cal prowls the stage from the off.
The highlight of the whole set is the unreleased ‘Taxi Man’, with it’s hypnotic groove and catchy chorus which will surely see it as a forthcoming single.
By the end, they have the crowd eating out of their hands, sitting on the floor when told to; it’s a remarkable 45 minutes. If you’ve somehow missed their 2022 debut album The Great Regression then get on it and all of their future endeavours.
We need a good half an hour after that to recover, so it’s on the stroke of 9:00, we’re off.
It’s a slow brooding start to proceedings with Tangk opener ‘Idea 01’ seamlessly melding into traditional opener ‘Colossus’, until frontman Joe Talbot implores the crowd to form the first pit of the evening. This electric energy follows on with ‘Gift Horse’ and ‘Mr Motivator’ and it’s clear to see that they have come flying out of the traps.
‘Mother’ is dedicated to the mother of bassist Dev which leads to a touching hug between him and Joe which perfectly encapsulates the positive tone of the evening. It’s a tone of love, unity and thanks, with Talbot regularly expressing these messages to those of us here.
The band recently explained how they tailor the setlist around where they are playing and which albums did well there, so tonight we get more tracks than usual from both Ultra Mono and Crawler. It’s also noticeable tonight that it’s especially the older songs, such as the mighty ‘1049 Gotho’ and ‘I’m Scum’ that are attacked with an extra level of ferocity with guitarist Lee Kiernan spinning like a whirling dervish, lost in his mission to make as much noise possible from his instrument.
There may be a contrast between these older tunes and the stuff from Tangk, but they fit in seamlessly into the set. Their presence sees Mark Bowen alternating between his usual guitar playing and also hunched like a mad professor pressing keyboard switches and knobs, to bring out the subtleties of the new tunes, ‘Pop Pop Pop’ being the prime example with its use of a sampled vocal for the chorus.
The underrated beating heart of the band is the aforementioned Dev and drummer Jon Beavis, and watching them on drum-heavy tracks such as ‘The Wheel’ and ‘War’ is a marvel in itself. There’s a welcome return for ‘Benzocaine’ from debut album Brutalism, which sees Kiernan and Bowen in the crowd again for the umpteenth time this evening, another way they break down the band/audience barrier and make the evening such a communal experience.
Talbot’s voice on the next three songs, ‘Grace’, ‘Crawl!’ and ‘The Beachland Ballroom’ shows him in very different emotional states, and is one on the eye for those critics that say all he does is shout.
‘Dancer’ is a joyous excuse for a guilt-free boogie, before Talbot makes an impassioned speech about how Brexit was the worst thing we’ve ever done as a country, ruining young people’s hopes and dreams, and the joy that immigrants have brought to Germany and the UK before a rousing version of ‘Danny Nedelko’ (and for those social media critics who claim the band haven’t professed an opinion, which is weird if you’re relying on a band to agree with you to somehow justify what you think or you’ll go mad, they mention Palestine on at least four occasions).
There’s the usual short version of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ (and surely this is the year they actually release a version of it), before the traditional set-closer ‘Rottweiler’, which sees them invite Ditz back to play along and then ends up as an almost ten minute riotous walk of noise, which ends with Bowen chanting “Ceasefire Now” along with the crowd.
This takes us past the 2 hours 10 minute mark (so much for the shorter set/’phoning in worries) and the last thing we see onstage is Beavis holding his smashed drumsticks, seated in front of his kit, looking out to the magnificent scene him and his cohorts have created this evening.
Next up for them are some US dates to get them even more match fit for the summer. After witnessing what we have tonight then Glasto might just get interesting this year for once.
Not many bands would be able to create what has been created here, but then not many bands are 2024’s IDLES.
