The Walkmen - Central Methodist Hall, Manchester - January 20th 2011 (Live Review)
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Written by Jonathan Russell
And so to Manchester on freezing cold January night, to the Central Methodist Hall. A return visit for the American quintet on their tour in support of last year’s fantastic 'Lisbon', their slow-burning fifth album.
The Hall itself has an odd atmosphere although, this could possibly be narrowed down to the fact that the only drinks the ‘bar’ is serving are Orange Juice and Coke. NME endorsed flash-in-the-pan’s Mona are tonight’s support act and their wearily derivative slop is depressingly lapped up with great enthusiasm by the crowd. This is a bad sign.
The headliners surface just after nine, with plastic party cups of white wine in hand and non-uniform suits they look like a last minute booking to play a wedding. For a band who’ve been passed round record companies like a parcel at a kid’s party and watched their fan base swell and decrease in no relation to the increasing quality of their output, it’s a wonder they’re still around.
Opening with rarity and perhaps increasingly prophetically titled ‘Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone’ seems like a risky move on their part. As a rule the casual attendee at a Walkmen concert is there to see one song and a four minute cloud of tired confusion and misery isn’t it. The have to wait until the encore for ‘the hit’.
The mood soon shifts into gear with recent single release ‘Angela Surf City’ and total-stone-cold-classic ‘In The New Year’ making early appearances. By rights these two tunes should rip a hole through the roof but all is not well in the sound department, the inexplicable disappearance and sudden reappearance of the organ and pop ‘n’ hiss plaguing the guitar almost derail the songs entirely. Fortunately these initial hiccups are overcome and the faithful are treated to some, at times, beautiful renditions from their back catalogue. A stripped back ‘I Lost You’ brings a tear to the eye, ‘All Hands And The Cook’ pounds us into submission then screams in our faces. Not even the inexplicable ‘…sounds like Hot Chip’ comment from one nearby concert goer can ruin a charming ‘While I Shovel The Snow‘.
Frontman Hamilton Leithauser’s warm thanks in between numbers doesn’t correlate with the, at times, lethargic audience. One suspects the lack of booze and couple-of-slow-one’s-then-a-fast-one nature of the set have conspired to hamper the night’s proceedings. Having said that you have to wonder what people expect from the band live. Never was this more apparent than during the encore.
Traditionally the victory lap at the end of a set, the first of three ‘New Country’ - a sparse, at heartbreakingly sad song, was ruined by some misguided soul singing, very loudly, along to an entirely different song. Contrast that with the hysteria that greets ‘The Rat’ and you can’t help wondering how the band can bring themselves to their ‘hit’ out. Ending with oldie ‘We’ve Been Had’ the crowd spills out into the night, lighters are passed to and fro, next port-of-call’s are discussed, opinions aired on the last two hours.
A small throng of well-wishing fans can be seen gathering at one of the two tour vans outside.
It is Mona’s van.
The Walkmen, a band who deserve better.
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The headliners surface just after nine, with plastic party cups of white wine in hand and non-uniform suits they look like a last minute booking to play a wedding. For a band who’ve been passed round record companies like a parcel at a kid’s party and watched their fan base swell and decrease in no relation to the increasing quality of their output, it’s a wonder they’re still around.
