Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s a big night for Benefits. For the final show of a nine-date tour, and their biggest shows to date, they return to the place where it all began – properly, at least – a few weeks shy of a year ago, when they supported I Like Trains in this very room. A lot has happened since then, and not just in terms of their surging fanbase. Back in February, it was clear they were a band on the up. Now, that trajectory continues unabated, but the leaps they’ve made are astronomical.

Bringing Straight Girl on the tour as support was a great move, and speaks further volumes about who Benefits are.

Straight Girl just can’t suppress a grin as various points throughout their set that boasts massive banging techno beats through a combination of live synths and laptop, with pitch shifting and distortion on the vocals, and it’s all delivered with relentless energy. It wouldn’t be a Straight Girl set without technical difficulties, and on this outing, the audio from the laptop stopped abruptly, but as always, they ride it out with aplomb. Sprinting off stage for a change of cable with a barrage of ‘fucks’, the chaos seems to be an inevitable part of any show, and they power on through, radiating so much good energy, bouncing and leaping nonstop.

Straight Girl

The new song premièred tonight about hating the country is a mangled dark noise blast that’s clearly influenced by the tour headliners. It’s also raw, powerful and real, and yet, ultimately, their performance is so, so much fun.

And so to the main event, and for one night only, Cat Myers is replaced at the drum stool by Neil Cooper of Therapy? The Adverts’ ‘One Chord Wonders’ is on just before they take the stage among a cracking PA playlist of punk and new wave and nihilistic classics, including The Sisters of Mercy and Sleaford Mods, and they come on to ‘The Electrician’ by The Walker Brothers.

There’s simply so much to absorb here. Benefits certainly draw a broad demographic, and the place is close to selling out: only a few minutes previous, Kingsley was manning the merch stall, with a queue twice the length of the one for the bar, but he’s come away to bring the noise, and to the back of the stage, he’s got a nice big stack of lyric sheets.

There are a lot of words to remember, and they’re delivered fast and furious, with a strong emphasis on the furious. Anyone wondering how his voice and general energy levels would be after eight shows is immediately answered, and the band as a whole positively crackle.

Benefits

‘Empire’ starts with solo spoken word into before the blistering noise barrage hits. And from thereon in, it’s relentless. Only a few songs in, Hall’s legs are trembling and he can barely get the words out he’s so breathless and yet he still goes on. He’s got the platform and isn’t going to waste a second. It’s not about ego: it’s about catharsis. He simply has to do this, even if it wrings him dry, every night, and with the dynamic, expressive jazz-style drumming really standing out amidst the ear-bleeding squall cranked out from laptops and synths by the Major brothers, the power is stepped up to a whole new level.

The stripped back, percussion-free ‘Shit Britain’ finds Hall sliding in a segments of New Order’s ‘World in Motion’ at the end. Limbs flailing, Hall’’ more intense than ever, and the sweat is seeping through back of hoodie halfway through the set, and by the end he looks like he’s just stepped out of the shower. Last time I saw anyone sweat so hard it was The Rollins Band, and that’s a fair measure of just how hard this band plays.

Benefits

‘Thump’ is a banger, and it’s still amazing to think that it was premiered at Rolling Stone, but yet again, it’s just another indication of how far they’ve come, and how they’ve evolved significantly in less than a year, without compromising a single thing. And if introducing the band members before the finale – like Bon Jovi and Therapy? – seems incongruously conventional, its knowing delivery is another indication of the newfound sense of performance and showmanship that differentiates Benefits now and Benefits at the start of the year.

For all that, they remain super-humble, their feet firmly on the ground and with their eyes focused on getting the message out there. Hall speaks honestly about his anxiety, and explains how Tories are welcome at their shows for debate and education. Inclusion and education are the real keys here, and for all the sound and fury, Benefits are anything but joyless. Tonight, we experience a collective catharsis that couldn’t be more unifying. And this, people, is where the revolution really starts.