The Dandy Warhols live in Manchester, June 2014 (Photo: Gary Mather for Live4ever)
At ease with the sleaze.
Unquestionably, there has always been an element of lewd impropriety about the Dandy Warhols, but what separated them from other bands that focused on depravity was their comfort within that sound. Courtney Taylor-Taylor and his companions have always seemed most at home when singing about society’s underbelly.
And this is never more evident than when you see them live. There is only one tempo for the whole night – and it’s a writhing, driving and throbbing beat. Everything is moody, menacing and pulsating, all done with purpose. This is a performance intended to startle, nothing is as expected. All the hits are played, most are barely recognisable, but all amaze.
‘Everyday Should Be a Holiday‘ is played solo, ‘Bohemian Like You‘ is mid-tempo and joyous, rather than bouncy and sarcastic, and this playfulness continues throughout the evening. ‘We Used To Be Friends‘ and ‘Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth‘ are thrown in early, putting the crowd on notice to pay attention – the Dandy Warhols are playing by their own rules, because they rule OK!
Stand out moments include opener ‘Be-In‘, a breathtaking extended jam, and a ferocious ‘Boys Better‘, which manages to destroy what was left of the crowd’s will after the rapturous sing-a-long of ‘Bohemian Like You’. They even manage, on ‘I Love You‘, to make those three most special of little words sound like a threat. It feels so dirty somehow, even though you don’t know why.
After all these years, the Dandy Warhols seem even more at home in their sound than ever. For a long time they were written off as being merely derivative of those that influenced them. But surely, as tonight proved time and time again, many bands have influences, many bands sound like those influences, but few manage to emulate those influences with the kind of intensity and success that the Dandy Warhols do.
And they consistently do, with each track adding layer upon layer of intensity and power to their sound. Their steady rhythm and hypnotic guitars giving them such force and making even their most upbeat and humorous tracks somehow seem dark and unsettling.
After all these years, Courtney is as stunning as ever, and still loving the adoration of the crowds, while Zia is still lost in her own world, like a euphoric, angelic and aloof incarnation of Bez. Fat-Head’s driving rhythms keep everything moving along – they are still such a forceful live proposition.
The unformulaic setlist and approach to playing such a string of hits live is not just refreshing, it is wondrous. You can’t help but love the fact that the Dandy Warhols have only one intention tonight, and that is to play a complete and killer set. They are not trying to please the crowd, they are just self-assured and certain that if they please themselves then everyone else will be carried along with them.
Still full of fire, the Dandy Warhols look like they intend to sit back and watch the world around them burn. Surely there is nothing more you could want from a band playing live.
