I saw The xx last night at the Guildhall; They were excellent, really really great. Their music is very slow, and chilled, so I was a bit skeptical as to how they'd be live, y'know, in terms of if they're music was engaging, because The xx's music isn't exactly the kind of music you'd jump up and down to. (Im not *that* well acquainted with their music)
Well anyways, we rolled up at 6:30, queued for about twenty minutes and went in. We were some of the first in, luckily, so we got to be literally at the front. The support act came on, I didn't get their name, unfortunately, as they were quite enjoyable. Best described as... prog-electronic, I guess. Musically they were good, but as there were no vocals they had no mic, and didn't have all that much stage presence to be honest.
So they finished, and whilst we were waiting for The xx to finish being set up and all, one of my friends with me- lets call him Noah, because that's his name- suddenly turned to us and muttered "Guys, I don't feel too good,". He started to sort of fall over a little. At first we thought it was just a ploy to get to the front (He was just behind us) but he was really pale and his pupils huge. So we let him to the front and he started going limp. At this point we were all sort of going "Oh shit, shit, is he okay? Oh bollocks...". Noah fainted.
The security guys helped us lift Noah over the barrier, and they took him off to the side where he was checked over by the medic guy. He regained consciousness almost immediately after, and was fine all evening. Unfortunately for him he lost his space at the front. He still got to see the gig though, just from the back.
Anyway, so after all the kerfuffle The xx come on. Their music wasn't quite the same, by which I mean, it wasn't as slow and chilled. Don't get me wrong, it was slow, and it was chilled, but it was more engaging, in a gig-y way, if that makes sense. So, the bass was loud as a motherflipper- It was great. Big old booms of the electronic drum pads, and loud (but gentle) humming of the bass guitar. Good shizzle. The loudness of the bass, combined with the mellow weeping guitar and Romy and Oliver's calm vocals gave the performance a weird kind of intensity. The setlist was a thorough nineteen songs (bearing in mind The xx only have about twenty songs anyway), encompassing all the crowd-pleasers and whatnot. Musically they were great, performance wise they were great also.
The two singers had great stage prescence, but I felt sorry for poor Jamie stuck at the back in amongst all his electronic drums and gadgets. He didn't really get the attention he deserves for that. They began their first song (Which was not Intro) with a giant white curtain in front of them, which was just about see-through-ish. At the climax of the song it fell down and revealed them, which was pretty badass. Then at their 'final' song the curtain at the back rose to reveal a giant X, which filled with smoke. This was a brilliantly inventive use of effects, it was cool. They came back on for an encore of three more songs, then it was all over. They were great.
8.5/10
'Till next time,
Elliott
P.S. About half way through, this incredibly drunk woman came up near us and began dancing. She then proceeded to literally finger my friend George in the arse- No idea why. Well, I mean, obviously she was drunk, but it was still a bit weird...
No comments:
Post a Comment