GIG REVIEW: IDLES @ O2 City Hall, Newcastle, Sunday 24 November 2024
IDLES have come a long way since they first played in Newcastle, at the intimate Think Tank? venue back in 2017 on the tour promoting debut album Brutalism.
This sold-out show, part of their Love Is The Fing tour, is their second to the City Hall, after first gracing the famous old venue in February 2022. Their path here was an organic one, with gigs at the Riverside and Boiler Shop along the way.
As you’d expect, their most recent album, TANGK (reviewed here), was best-represented, but it was a surprise that only one song (Mr Motivator) from 2020’s Ultra Mono, their first No 1 album, got an airing.
It’s a sign of how the band, formed in Bristol in 2009, are always looking to progress, and I was curious to see how the new songs – most markedly different to the post-punk powerhouse sound we’d come to expect from IDLES – would go down with their audience.
They started with Idea 01, the slow burning opener from TANGK, and followed with old favourite Colossus, which saw guitarist Mark Bowen leap the barrier and crowd-surf for the first time tonight. It wouldn’t be the last.
Frontman Joe Talbot was under the weather shortly before they took the stage, but whatever pick-me-up he took certainly had the desired effect, and the rapturous reception the band received seemed to have a similarly energising effect.
He calls TANGK “our album of gratitude and power”, and the quietly-spoken vocalist and his band showed plenty of both in a set lasting two exhilarating hours.
Drummer Jon Beavis remains the band’s heartbeat, pummelling out a motorik beat, with locked-in bassist Adam Devonshire never more than a few feet away, resplendent in his Keegan-era Newcastle United away shirt.
Lee Kiernan, on rhythm guitar and keyboards, went one step further, adding ‘Ginola 14’ to the back of his claret and blue hooped Toon shirt. Talk about getting a crowd onside…
Yes, IDLES were here to showcase their latest album, but they’re savvy enough to give the people what they want, and delivered in spades with a wonderfully-paced set. Seven tracks from TANGK were spread throughout the night, and almost always followed with an absolute banger.
Talbot thanked Newcastle for the kindness they’ve showed his band, led the crowd in an enthusiastically-embraced chant of ‘Fuck the King’, slagged off Tories and fascists, and called for a ceasefire in Palestine. Just standard IDLES fayre then.
Highlight of the night? Where do I start? The Wheel and Crawl! from 2021’s fourth album Crawler sounded immense, but Mother and I’m Scum nearly took the roof off, and Divide And Conquer seemed to shake the City Hall to its very foundations as well as provoking a massive moshpit.
Gift Horse, three songs into the set, and Dancer, three songs from the end, were the pick of the new material, and The Beachland Ballroom provided a welcome change of pace.
But it was Benzocaine, Never Fight A Man With A Perm and Danny Nedelko which almost brought the house down before an extended Rottweiler sent everyone home exhausted.
Next time they come to Newcastle I’d wager on it being to a much bigger venue.
