Music > Live Reviews

Editors + Talos

The Nick Rayns LCR, UEA

23/10/18

If you’ve been attending musical festivals over the last ten years with any kind of regularity, chances are you’d have bumped into the Editors.  They appear with such ubiquity that you’d be hard pressed not to. Yet, while in Europe they would probably be headlining that festival, here they are more likely  to be mid-table, evocatively playing as the sun went down, perhaps on a second stage, leaving you wondering why you don’t pay them more attention. So it’s something of a novelty to have them on home turf, within the modest walls  of UEA, close enough to see the whites of their eyes.

Immediately before their appearance, however, was what proved to be an ill-advised support set from Talos. The band specialise in anthemic soundscapes overlaid with quirky vocals, expressing opaque ideas with demonstrative sentiment. Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with any of that, but you shouldn’t be doing so just before a band that have made a career out of it. While there was a certain style on show, and they are undoubtedly fine musicians, Eoin French’s high pitched vocal sat uneasily on top of wall of sound coming from the band, reminding you how narrow the space is between epic and overblown. It was a timely reminder of just how good the Editors are at this sort of thing, but a rather cruel one for a support band that still has only its toe in that water. If only to gain a certain smug satisfaction, it’s always good to spot a support band ahead of the curve, so I really did try and look favourably on their offering, but to me this just felt like a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

On with the onslaught, for that was what the Editors blistering twenty-plus song set sometimes felt like. Audaciously kicking off with a couple of tunes from the fallow years was a very smart move, and a clear setup, for the first of several cracking songs from the new album, Violence. Hallelujah was  a curious mashup of the Klaxons and Midnight Oil and a belter of a song obviously constructed to play loud and live. Cheekily followed by an early outing for the classic Sparks and An End to a Start, this was the band surely signalling that their new material could stand shoulder to shoulder with more established music – the effect was that, after only twenty minutes, it felt like we’d already been treated to a mini concert.

The Editors proved to be a well-oiled machine, offering up a relentless selection of goodies in a crafted set that deftly shifted in mood and tone as the new mixed in with the old. Ironically, it was Darkness at the Door that was a tad underwhelming, while the eponymous Violence showcased how strong the new material is. That said, it’s understandable that the band wants to cherry pick from their whole catalogue, and while I could have happily dispensed with Oceans of Light and No Harm, it’s fair to say that a rejuvenated Formaldehyde was a revelation, nicely complimenting the newly minted Nothingness, a tune that got dangerously close to danceable.

On the home run now, the favourites came thick and fast. Blood, Papillion and Bullets started a countdown that needed the fingers of both hands, as one classic song followed on from another. Even brazenly finishing on the idiosyncratic Magazine begrudgingly had me revaluating a song I thought duff on first hearing. Whether it was the strength of live performance, or having it hammocked within so many other good things, I thought the same of the haunting Cold, which felt like the perfect opener for an extended encore, which took us nicely through to the end with Racing rats, Munich and the splendidly mordant Smokers.

“I hope you had a great time listening to miserable songs,” said Smith chirpily, as the band reciprocated the crowd’s applause, beaming as they took a bow before scuttling off stage.

The Editors are a motley crew, with Tom Smith’s angular, discomfiting stage antics completely at odds with his grounded companions.  Russell Leetch still looks, after all these years, like a man surprised and delighted to be on stage. While his bass playing is never going to excite the musos, coupled with the diminutive Ed Lay’s hypnotic drum rhythms, it is key in providing the signature backdrop for new boy Justin Lockley’s soaring guitar, prowling around the stage complete with hipster beard, looking as if he had been borrowed from another band. For all their idiosyncratic appearance, this was a stadium sized performance packed into an unassuming box called the LCR, elevating the venue in a way I’ve seen only a handful of times. I’m guessing I was not alone in wondering why they are not huge in their own country, but also in being sneakily pleased that as a result we get to see such a brilliant performance in such an intimate setting.