Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

Is it acceptable to wear the band’s T-shirt to their show? It’s a frequent topic of debate amongst my gig-going friends. As a rule, we tend to agree it’s not cool, although we all have our notable exceptions, and I got mine. But IST IST fans would largely disagree, it would seem – unless this is their exception band.

Usually, with the front bar right next to the auditorium, people sit at the tables supping until the bands start, sometimes until the headliners take to the stage. Not tonight. A large cluster of middle-agers in IST IST T-shirts are queueing and actually blocking access to the bar room half an hour before doors.  There’s a guy with an immense beard wearing a sleeveless black denim jacket with Sisters of Mercy and Fields of the Nephilim patches paired with red tartan trees and he’s standing in the queue too. The queue is practically out of the front door by 7:25, but the bar remains almost empty. These people are keen.

The support is an Ian McCulloch wannabe in a knee-length coat doing sub-mid-80s Psychedelic Furs lifts with a goth tinge. The drum machine is nicely up in the mix and the sound is great, even if the songs are only middling at best, and wince at worst. and it’s mostly backing track. But the Jarvis Cocker moves are overdone, suddenly throwing shapes in the most uncool fashion, sometimes going for a power pose or something a shade more aggressive and all the more incongruous, and the shades are off and back on and off and I again and the cringe only increases as the set progresses. It’s one of the longest half hours of music, and probably the most painful since the band supporting A Flock of Seagulls at The Brudenell a few years ago. It’s a rare talent to be this technically competent and so fucking embarrassingly awful at the same time.

Oliver Marson

Having clocked a vintage Sisters T in the gents and emerging to find the front of the stage absolutely rammed, I was reminded just how hardcore – not to mention fucking stubborn – older gig-goers can be. It’s no wonder I learned spot-bagging and elbows when I started going to shows as a teen in the early 90s. And, as then, I’m probably a sound 10-15 years younger than the majority of these buggers. Those clustered in the front row in groups are discussing the set lists placed on the stage. Smoke drifts as Interpol’s ‘Roland’ blasts from the PA.

It’s not hard to comprehend why this band enjoys such devotion from this demographic: they present all of the quintessential post-punk elements, delivered with precision and panache. It is, it must be said, post-punk as viewed through the prism of the 21^st Century revival. And there are many who are here for that, too, with plenty of under 30s grooving away behind the first five rows of old sods.

IST IST

There has been no shortage of bands doing precisely this since around 2004, but Superlative drumming elevates their Editors /Interpol / White Lies – etc. – sound. The vocals are a flat, monotone and slightly twangy baritone with all the reverb, which take me a while to place, but they land somewhere between I Like Trains and She Wants Revenge. Credit to the sound guy, too, who’s working hard with the reverb and echo, especially on new song ‘Echo’, which has ‘instant classic’ written all over it and goes down a storm. They’re tight as and the sound is outstanding, with some super-solid bass at the pulsating heart of it all – and unlike Oliver Marson, leather jacketed bassist Andy Keating keeps his shades on – although I can’t help but wonder if they’re prescription and he’s doing a Wayne Hussey.

IST IST

One of the tracks later in the set – my notes are sketchy as I was a bit engrossed – is pure She Wants Revenge, and it would be easy to shrug that IST IST offer nothing new, and it would be a valid criticism – but the counterpoint to that would be the consistency of the material and sheer quality of the performance, where some nice 12-string action adds some all-essential texture, and there are abundant I Like Trains-style post-rock crescendos along the way – and shshsh, don’t tell the younger fans, but it’s all as goth AF.