The War On Drugs by Shawn Brackbill
A compelling night from The War On Drugs in Leeds.
There’s a wonderful charm to 80’s sci-fi movies.
Despite a usually dystopian view of the future, it was an era when the technological march had begun to move fast; Donkey Kong, Motorola DynaTACs and real life star wars making cyborg assassins, bio-engineered replicants and, lest we forget, hologram sharks seem an inevitable part of everyday life by now.
But it was a future which had to be imagined from an 8-bit reality which nevertheless was then at the cutting edge, so that – aside from the benign robotic voices (‘Alexa, take over the world for me’) – the perceived advancements in understanding and capability were not necessarily matched by a vision of sleek design or ease of transportation.
The War On Drugs have an inherent charm based on much the same principles, if not ones necessarily arrived at in the same direction on the space-time continuum.
Now six albums in, from the countrified, Americana beginnings of Wagonwheel Blues, Adam Granduciel took the baton from Kurt Vile and was firmly making his presence felt by 2011’s Slave Ambient.
It was, of course, after another neat three year interval that Lost In The Dream heralded the arrival of The War On Drugs as the band we know today – a very modern one built in the 21st century on a hazy, romantic vision of what rock music in the eighties was.
Brian Eno, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits, Springsteen…the names of the day were all once again checked at some point upon the release last year of I Don’t Live Here Anymore, the album which brought Granduciel and co. to Leeds’ First Direct Arena last Saturday night (April 16th).
A study of recording contradiction, the analyses which followed – a collection of songs more relaxed, with space to breathe, with the flair for jamming which had defined its immediate predecessors this time left as untapped ideas in the studio – belying the unending search for perfection from its obsessive creator, one happy to have the paint still wet on the canvas as the picture is being packed up for shipping.
But songs have always transformed under this band once let off the leash on the road, and already I Don’t Wanna Wait has been given freedom to yawn, stretch its arms wide and unlock from any restraint on record to comfortably fill venues of this size and feel here like an immediate career highlight.
Others do still have that delicate sense to them, that the glue is still setting at the joints; Old Skin, Victim and Living Proof a bit too fragile to hold complete attention across those looking on, though Harmonia’s Dream and Rings Around My Father’s Eyes are the consistent notes, as compelling in both settings and standout moments in the set.
This UK tour has been one of those increasingly regular ones jumping from arenas to academies, and there is a sense that The War On Drugs are currently occupying that slightly awkward position between the two, where venues like the O2 Arena in London and the O2 Academy in Birmingham can be navigated on consecutive nights.
There’s more than enough here to hold over 13,000 people to court – the enormous An Ocean Between The Waves, which hands Granduciel not one, not two but three opportunities to kiss the sky, from its fellow Lost In The Dream treasured alumnus Red Eyes, and from I Don’t Live Here Anymore’s title-track, whose melody is kept alive by the chorus of the crowd long after the band have wrapped it up.
But the audience’s focus does wain at points too, those perennial issues of a Saturday night arena crowd – personal conversations and endless ‘excuse me mates’ on the way to and from the bar – deflating the ambience for some of the aforementioned newbies and, more confusingly, for what should be considered unmissable stone-cold favourites – Strangest Thing and In Reverse especially.
Why these people choose to spend a £50 chunk of their disposable income on an evening of chatter and toilet visits is, alas, a discussion for another time.
There’s no hint of these issues once that unmistakable playback launches Under The Pressure however, one of those odd Hits That Wasn’t A Hit which could send a crowd 10x the size here home happy, and when more than ten minutes of Thinking Of A Place brings the show to an end, doing so like three distinct songs seamlessly melded into one classic whole.
It’s moments such as these when The War On Drugs touch true, yet not timeless genius. When a glorious scene of a bygone analogue past is built from our current 5G world.
Sometimes forwards really is the only way back.
