Christopher Nosnibor
This show was originally scheduled to take place back at the end of March, but then as has continued to be the plague of touring bands, a positive Covid test meant it was postponed, and co-ordinating schedules between bands and venues who are still playing catchup from the last two-and-a-bit years meant that we had to wait a while.
It’s a great advertisement for both the Brudenell and Leeds that the venue is hosting two sell-out (or near enough) shows on the same night, with Ezra Furman in the main room and the Sad in the newer one. The bars may have been packed – and I still can’t get used to the concept of forming an orderly queue at a bar – snice when? – but the vibe was a typically convivial one, with random strangers chatting about which gig they were off to and the like while they waited.
The Twilight Sad are frequent visitors to the Brudenell, which they recently posted on FaceBook is one of their ‘favourite venues in the world’, and they’re not alone. Like many others, I’ve been coming here for well over a decade now, and always feel like I’m at home, and it’s also fair to say that in all that time, I’ve never witnessed a bad gig or experienced poor sound – and I’ve never paid more than about £4 for a pint either. Their last visit was in 2019, but the time before that was also in this room, where they debuted material from the then-forthcoming album It Won’t Be Like This All the Time, back in June 2018. They had Michael Timmons in toe, then, and it’s a welcome return for him as he promises us a night of ‘depressing music’.
Michael Timmons
He seems more confident on this outing as he delivers a set of his quiet, reflective kitchen-sink contemplations on love, life, and death – mostly death – with some delicate picking and a dense Glaswegian accent, It’s lifted by some self-effacing humour, and it’s impossible not to warm to the young guy.
In context, depressing music can be the most uplifting, and the sense of community and collectivism is a joyous experience. It’s clear from the off that The Twilight Sad – James in particular – are pumped for this show. He and the drummer are sporting utilitarian dungarees that look like a cuddlier take on Jaz Coleman’s boiler suits, but they’re straight into the bleak stuff with a double-whammy of darkness from No-One Can Ever Know with ‘Kill it in the Morning’ and ‘Dead City’, during which the vocal cut out suddenly. Joking that it sounded fucking brilliant in his in-ear monitors and that it was the best he’d ever sung it, they restart once the hitch is fixed – pretty swiftly, credit to the sound engineer – and blast it hard.
The Twilight Sad
It’s not the last track from their third album, either, with a magnificently taut rendition of ‘Another Bed’ landing mid-set. Nobody Wants to be Here and Nobody wants to Leave is represented by perhaps the most obvious choices; ‘There’s a Girl in the Corner’ and ‘Last January’, both of which are achingly magnificent, and ‘It Never Was the Same’, which, when followed by ‘The Arbour’ makes for something of a lull two-thirds through. But you can’t exactly blame them for taking things down a notch when the pace and emotional intensity are at such a pitch for the majority of the set, especially when they pile back in with a quit unexpected outing for ‘The Wrong Car’.
James isn’t especially chatty, but is sharp and focused and on strong form, and when he does talk, he gushes about his appreciation of the venue and audience, and responds to a heckler with “This one’s for you. It’s about a cunt”, before they launch into ‘That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’, and it’s a song that never gets tired.
The Twilight Sad
‘[10 Good Reasons for Modern Drugs]’ and ‘I/m Not Here [Missing Face]’ are both delivered with precision and passion, while the cover of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ which has become a solid set future brought the house down. Four years on from the death of Scott Hutchison, it may not be as raw, but it’s every bit as relevant, and they’re keeping the spirit alive, while at the same time providing an essential reminder of the importance of mental health awareness.
Rabbits remain a theme, and you know it’s the end of the set when the jangling feedback and loping drums that mark the intro of ‘And She Would Darken the Memory’ start. The attempt at optimism with the lyrical shift to ‘head up, dear, the rabbit won’t die’ does nothing to diminish the song’s impact: we all know it still might, as we’re transported to another plane in a swirling wall of sound that reminds us of where it all started: almost twenty years and five albums in, they’ve still got the passion and intensity that made them stand out as special, and the fact they never give less and one hundred percent to any performance – there are truly no half-measures – is precisely why they may be very much a cult act, but one with the most ardent and devoted fanbase going. They deserve it.
It’s sweltering, and we know there’s no encore: there is nowhere to go from here. It’s a clear pinnacle, and we’re all spent, band and audience alike. The catharsis is complete.
Aural Aggravation 