Launching into ‘Ores’ to kick off proceedings, the crowd is enthralled, and this doesn’t let up until the boys finish eighty minutes later. Audience and band are discernibly as one, with Mears jittering about the stage and playing in amongst his devotees for extended periods of time. After being jokingly heckled as “fucking quitters”, the guys appear genuinely touched by the reception that they receive tonight, laughing that they are more popular now that they’re splitting than the entire time they've been together.
Youthmovies are the masters of tempo change and they flit back and forth so erratically between raucous and frenetic guitars to slower, more melodic vocals that you are left in a continual state of uncertainty as to what they might catapult at you next. The nine songs played in their set tonight flow into one another seamlessly, with it not always being clear where one track ends and another begins. Ska-inspired trumpet outbursts and distorted sound experimentation during ‘Last Night Of The Proms’, along with largely improvised ten-minute instrumentals, only serve to attest to the fact that they are one hell of an innovative group of musicians.
The overall sound is undefinable. Taking its time to momentarily skim over a variety of genres but never resting upon one long enough in order to settle itself into a specific niche, this is what makes Youthmovies such an incredibly mesmerising live band. It's been eight wonderfully inherent years for this Oxford-based quintet, and they couldn't have provided a more triumphant last hurrah.
This review was originally posted at www.the-fly.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment