Tuesday 9 February 2010

Gig Review: Editors.


E D I T O R S
WARFIELD THEATRE
SAN FRANCISCO
8 FEBRUARY 2010

When Editors released their most recent album In This Light And On This Evening (October 2009), some of their fans seemed to become mildly disgruntled at the musical direction the Birmingham, UK quartet was drifting towards. After all, after two very successful records - their 2005 debut The Back Room and 2007's An End Has A Start - Tom Smith and Company decided to bring legendary producer Flood into the mix (haha, yeah, pun kind of intended) and veer into the realm of bands such as Depeche Mode, New Order, and Erasure. So, yeah, some fans were, like I said, mildly disgruntled about the whole lay of the land. I am not one of those fans.


Now, I have a theory I’ve been working on as to the general theme of the Editors' songs. I might be completely off-base (and off my rocker as well), but try to stick with me here: Everybody (I think, though I hate to make generalizations) knows the Serenity Prayer, don't they? (It's a staple philosophy behind AA. Alongside burnt coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes, and stale biscuits) "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change," it goes, "courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." So I've been listening to Editors for quite some time, and I think I've arrived at the conclusion that the narrators of their songs are often held in the psychological grasp of the basic crux behind the Serenity dilemma. For within their songs you will find stories of men who, confronted with the stark realities of Love, either A) question whether or not they're good enough for it; B) see themselves as a some kind of a "savior"; C) realize how much work goes into making a relationship work; D) worry that they're giving too much of themselves to their significant other; or E) wax poetic on the fragility of love and people in general.
Please do not ask me to go further into this comparison. I highly recommend listening to the music and lyrics of the Editors, and sending me an email regarding your thoughts. Chatting with my girlfriend earlier today, she told me: "Well, that's one way to look at it!" Let me know what you think.
But I digress. Let me tell you about the show!
The In This Light And On This Evening Tour dropped down in San Francisco Monday night at the stately and beautiful Warfield Theatre. Consisting of Tom Smith (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and piano), Edward Lay (drums and percussion), Russell Leetch (bass guitar), and Chris Urbanowicz (lead guitar and synthesizers), Editors hit the stage with a ninety-minute set that featured tracks from all three of their albums, and had the energy and forthwith to make them shine.
Here are some highlights. First of all, I’d like to state that their music is as tightly-wound on stage as it is on their records. There’s an intense efficiency at play here, and I’m happy to report that it was on full, glorious display during their show. Watching them play older songs with newer numbers, I was constantly reminded of how much of a team they are. Everything, and every sound, just comes together like they were born to be, man.
Take “Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool,” off the new album, for instance. Intense and vaguely horrific, it’s a prime example of the new direction Editors are taking in their song-writing. Featuring squelching synths that buzz about like nasty little insects layered over a deep and roiling drumbeat (which is appropriate, I think, for a song that mentions in its lyrics, “chewing with an open mouth, raw meat, your blood drool attracts the flies …”), Tom Smith’s rich baritone seems to have been perfectly designed for conveying the confused sense of loss that permeate the soul of the track. Even hearing him say the word “fuck” (“I don’t want to be left out – or get fucked”) seems somewhat out of time and place, and frankly I feel that that limited usage of profanity gives the single uttering of it a certain power that the likes of 50 Cent, Jay-Z, or Ice Cube couldn’t achieve in a fucking paragraph, let alone an effing LP, yo. Following the logic of the “Serenity Prayer” I was referring to earlier, I’d say this particular narrator was one who did not possess the serenity to accept what cannot be changed. “I give a little to you, I give a little to him, I give a little to her!” Smith chants, and you can sense his frustration at how little he gets back.
I sometimes found myself wondering if Tom Smith has a bone in his body. Watching him writhe and flail about on the sparsely decorated stage (actually, unlike a lot of shows I’ve seen recently, there wasn’t a single projection, movie, or even a curtain with the bands’ name on it behind the goings-on), I kept subconsciously waiting for him to run into something, slam into Leetch or Lay, or just trip over his feet and fall down on the dusty wood of the Warfield’s platform!
The first single off of In This Light And On This Evening, “Papillon,” surged forth like a fantastical marriage of Doctor Who and New Order. When Smith bellows, “IT KICKS LIKE A SLEEP TWITCH!” you could feel the force resonate in your stomach. “Munich,” off their first album, was full of cool little surprises, including (to my delight) a hell of an extended ending, something I really find endearing about the live experience in general. And "Bones" was just fucking majestic in its rocking power. "YOU'LL SPEAK WHEN YOU'RE SPOKEN TO," Smith intoned over and over again, as the music brought the freaking house down!
Now, there were a couple of moments that seemed a little, well, dull. "Lights" was a rather milquetoast moment, coming across like a boring Coldplay throwaway, and "You Don't Know Love" seemed to be a little weak and rote - a bit like filler and not much else. But these, dear readers, are just minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things, and Editors have officially reminded me of how powerful and grand their music can be - especially in a live setting. Their new musical direction, and how they've come to marry driving indie pop with a delicious electronic sensibility, has certainly not "mildly disgruntled" me. My hat's off to them, and I can't wait to see where their new musical road takes them (and their loyal fans). Cheers, gentlemen. I give your show a ...
B+
Setlist
In This Light and On This Evening
Lights
An End Has A Start
You Don’t Know Love
Bones
The Boxer
The Big Exit
Blood
Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool
The Racing Rats
Walk The Fleet Road
Like Treasure
Bullets
Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors
Bricks and Mortar
ENCORE
Munich
Papillon
Fingers In The Factories
And here, for your listening pleasure, I'd like to play for you a song. From In This Light And On This Evening, here's Tom Smith and company with their new single, "Papillon." Enjoy, and have a lovely day, friends!

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