Saturday, July 28, 2007
Winterpol
It seems like an age ago that I saw Interpol play what is known as a 'club date' at the Astoria. It's only 25 days, but these 25 days have involved taking the megabus to Edinburgh and back, signing on the dole, signing up with a ton of temp agencies, puting my heart into many an application form and covering letter, getting temp work in a central government department, signing off, and working 40 hours a week for two weeks. Work really does get in the way if you let it and once this transition period is over, I intend to reclaim my life. Because it's important to have one. It's certainly been a wintery July, with floods left, right and centre. I do wonder if NYC's eternally winter-dressed masterminds had anything to do with it. Go figure...last summer was a scorcher in Northern Europe and Interpol were in the studio. This summer they've done the festival rounds and look what's happened; Umbrella was #1 for the tenth week.
But I don't want Interpol to go back into the studio yet, it is time for them to bask in the glory of their new album, Our Love to Admire. I wasn't instantly filled with the same relief that I experienced when I first listened to Antics, the production threw me a bit and the lyrics seemed more obvious than on earlier work. To this day I still mumble along imagined lyrics to old Interpol songs, I like their abstract quality; you can project what you want on to most of their grand soundscapes and evasive texts. But after three back-to-back listens, I was reassured that they still have it.
S and I watched it from the front row of the balcony, which was perfect. I love watching each member of Interpol doing their own thing on stage and sometimes coming together. Paul stands almost statically, hair over his face; Carlos, now sporting a bushier moustache and longer hair than before looks less like a member of the gestapo and more like an eccentric Eastern European duke - still he plays his bass like a machine gun; beautiful Daniel, so petit, shimmies in a sharp suit and looks incredibly suave as he slinks around his corner of the stage and Sam is the understated powerhouse, behatted and looking like he's straight out of a Brooklyn-Italian mob flick. They are so New York. They played NYC, too, in the encore and I wept a silent tear at the thought that I won't be back there for a long while. I still don't know why the subway is a porno, but the streets are a bit messy...all those rats...
I'm fortunate enough to have a ticket to see them at Ally Pally in November when it truly will be time for Winterpol and I can walk back through North London with rosy cheeks in my long, smart black jacket with my gloved hands in the pockets and feel secretly happy that the winter is upon us. Before then I'd quite like some summer please!
posted by Unknown at 7/28/2007 01:17:00 am
2 Comments:
Lam Thuy Vo said...
Williamsburg!!!
Documenting it for you, so you can prepare for your master's in NYC! ;)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamivo/
said...
hey robbie
trying to contact you regarding yeah yeah yeahs shots
please can you get back to me
phil@thefader.com
