IDLES @ Barrowlands, Glasgow, 3 Feb

Divisive rockers IDLES continue their years-long victory lap bringing hard riffs, heavy drums and the opportunity to shout about Tories for 90 minutes to the Barras

Live Review by Lewis Wade | 07 Feb 2022
  • IDLES live at QMU, Glasgow

Jehnny Beth only waits two songs before jumping into the crowd (heels off), bringing an intensity and energy that is familiar to anyone who followed the sadly-missed Savages. It's a bold move from a support act, but Beth is not one short on confidence and the crowd quickly warm to the industrial-punk mania.

IDLES have been riding high ever since they started gaining a fierce live reputation, with their reputation only growing after the unexpectedly huge Joy as an Act of Resistance. The pandemic has done little to stem their rise, with the slightly flat Ultra Mono giving way to a lot of personal growth on the recent Crawler.

The set is drawn fairly evenly from across their catalogue, but it's still Joy... that dominates – it has the most songs, as well as its opener and closer serving the same purpose tonight. Colossus is a great opener, but the crowd are so frenzied after the lights go down that IDLES could've done anything and still been showered with love.

Joe Talbot is as magnetic as ever, throwing fists and dad-dancing (it looks like he's been taking a few tips from occasional foil, Jason Williamson). It's a focused, almost robotic performance: what the band have gained in technical ability, their overall show has lost in its predictability. While the Talbot of old would have been crowd-surfing, the band would follow his lead with guitars flying and out-of-control oscillating. They still sound brutally brilliant, probably better than ever, but the tone remains so steady that the messages are sometimes lost in the fog.

The Beachland Ballroom, fittingly, lets the band utilise the Barras disco ball to great effect and, despite Talbot's vocal limitations, it's a welcome change of pace from the otherwise constant strobes (second only to Death Grips). It's followed by one of the night's most intense moments, Never Fight a Man with a Perm, as if to emphasise/erase the prior aberration.

I'm Scum, Love Song and Danny Nedelko form a brilliant trio late on, followed by a bizarre (especially for February) medley that includes All I Want for Christmas Is You and Letter from America. Guitarist Mark Bowen is allowed to indulge in a bit of karaoke histrionics, briefly taking focus from Talbot who remains somewhat in the shadows all the way through to his pounding drums on closer Rottweiler.

All the things that make the band infuriating (the broad sloganeering, the one-note abrasiveness) are still present, despite the lyrical leaps made on the new album. But fully following that new path would make an IDLES show very different, almost disingenuous, so it's hard to fault the band (apart from the omission of Samaritans!).

IDLES give you hard riffs, heavy drums and the opportunity to shout about Tories for 90 minutes – don't overthink it.


idlesband.com