Augustines live in London, 2012 (Photo: Andy Crossland for Live4ever Media)
For your average band, what would constitute a bad, even disastrous, live performance?
False starts? Forgotten lyrics? Interruptions? Guitars cutting out? Mobile phones ringing at inappropriate moments? Seriously overrunning on time? Any one of these would send most into a frenzy, a combination causing a complete seizure.
Yet for Augustines, these incidents are merely amusing asides that surely left the Leeds audience stunned, and certainly extremely late home.
For just shy of two-and-a-half hours the New York group fired their way through seemingly every song in their back catalogue. Some even twice. Billy McCarthy and Eric Sanderson resorted to songs from their previous band Pela. They threw in an unprepared cover version of The Clash’s ‘Guns Of Brixton’, with no regard as to whether any of them could remember all of the lyrics.
Through seemingly endless encores, and misleading announcements that the next song would definitely be the final one, the band continued to play. And the more they played the more the audience willed them to continue.
It was an impassioned concert from a band that have something rare amongst those in today’s music scene; a genuine love of music and its live performance. Nothing about the show felt contrived or forced, or even for that matter planned. The affection shown to the crowd, although gushing at times, felt honest, and through sheer energy, passion and charisma they gave an utterly memorable gig.
Augustines have a way of sounding both epic and intimate at the same time. Their first album, ‘Rise Ye Sunken Ships’, was a heartbreaking cry to the heavens, while the current self-titled record is a far more uplifting and euphoric affair. Both are wonderful studio albums, but the true power is only fully realised live. Songs such as ‘Chapel Song’ and ‘Book Of James’ are pounding, the passion and emotion barely contained by the venue. Most recent single ‘Nothing to Lose (But Your Head)’ almost sends things out of control.
There are moments of utter heartbreak shared with the crowd, ‘Weary Eyes’ is sung with them, while ‘Now You Are Free’ is sung to them. But both are beautifully intimate, shared moments. Each song builds on the atmosphere and with each further encore it all seems to become a haze.
So when the whiskey-fuelled bravado leads the band to decamp from the stage to the centre of the venue for an entirely acoustic set, all bets are off. What might have been a one or two song gimmick is for the Augustines just the second half of the show. And the encores continue. And continue. And continue.
Eventually it all draws to a close, and it is hard to really tell what has happened. It was a show that went in every direction at the same time. Heartbreak was shared, and also interrupted by awful ringtones. The singer’s hat became as much a part of the show as the music. The Augustines on charisma and humour alone could have come out as winners. But the music was central to everything. Giving the crowd something to truly love. It was a performance that if anything felt shackled by the size of the gig; the Augustines are growing, their anthemic and euphoric songs really can no longer be contained by venues of this size.
This was a show that had almost everything, and the audience were by no means bit players in pushing it ever onwards. In many ways in was a total mess, but that was why it was so wonderful.
Live music has rarely felt so alive.