Longtime friend and local musician Brian Repetto, aka DJ BCR and former frontman for Dumbwaiters, first played Interpol for me at an after party at my dinky Friendship Garden apartment in Seminole Heights during the summer of 2002. He had an unlabeled CD-R of Turn on the Bright Lights before its release. I said the obvious —“This sounds just like Joy Division” and that I really liked it. The infectious rhythms and moody atmospherics left me with a double sensation of clove-scented nostalgia and the excitement of a new discovery. [Text by Julie, photos by DCG.]
Repetto, a fellow ’80s New Wave-phile, smiled and nodded and understood my excitement. He shared that the band had connections with his homies from Home, St. Pete/Tampa exiles who'd enjoyed some prominence touring with famous acts like Flaming Lips. Twelve years later, Home's Brad Truax took the stage as bassist last night with Interpol at Jannus Live in support of the band’s 2014 album, El Pintor. It’s the band’s first release in four years and without iconic bassist Carlos Dengler in the fold.
Through the years I’ve admired and had a somewhat disconnected affection for Interpol. I dig their theatrical moods, danceable rhythms and insomniac poetry, punctuated by disjointed bursts of confession and droll interpersonal ruminations. (“I know you’ve supported me for a long time, but somehow I’m not impressed”). But the band’s persistent detachment is their double-edged saber — both central to their appeal and inability to overpower the towering ghost of their nearly perfect first album.
The specter of Turn on the Bright Lights loomed large Thursday night when the crowd sprung to life with the bouncy, Smiths-y rhythms of “Say Hello to the Angels.”
That’s not to say that selections from El Pintor completely languished amidst the noise of a restless Jannus crowd. (Side note: An Interpol show is better in an enclosed, mid-size theater.) With solid, spirited musicianship, Interpol capably swept the crowd along, if not completely over, thanks to Daniel Kessler’s beautifully soaring guitar and well-placed reverberations, Truax’s creeping basslines and keyboard flourishes, and Sam Fogarino’s thick, precise backbeat.
Singer/guitarist, babyface-handlebar-mustachioed Paul Banks gave a virtuosic performance reminiscent of a Berlin-cabaret Bowie, belting out throughout with a haunted baritone. He and his bandmates looked uber-sharp in black suits. The video backdrop was meh at first but grew more interesting, enhancing the sweep and majesty of “Leif Erikson” with a mountain range flyover and "Take Me on Cruise” with oceanic swells.
Selections from the 2007 release Our Love to Admire were conspicuously absent. Either because it’s the now Matador-ians’ only major label release (Capitol) or because it got lackluster reviews. I, myself, love that record and wish they would have played “Wrecking Ball,” which could have elicited a corny Miley Cyrus joke. But Banks is above such silly shenanigans.
Lack of loose playfulness aside, Banks’ endeared the crowd with gentility, thanking each of his bandmates throughout the show. Perhaps the best moment — when the stage lights turned up for the epic durge “NYC,” which includes the titular anthem, “Turn on the bright lights.”
All in all, an impressive show but not transcendent. It paled in comparison to the band’s first State Theatre concert a dozen years ago, when they were lean, hungry and on the brink, and not just proving to us they’re still relevant. Interpol will be have to choose to scale or detour the luminous peak of their first album to find their next, post-Carlos D era of all-out greatness.
Opener Hundred Waters was an under-appreciated gem. As Interpol fans (or random people at Jannus to see a famously hip band they remembered as an opener for the Cure) bustled to buy drinks, the female-fronted Gainesville band delivered haunting vocals, a stirring light and fog show and dense guitar-synth orchestrations. Be on the lookout for future dates by this rising act.
Setlist
1. My Blue Supreme
2. Say Hello to the Angels
3. Evil
4. Everything Is Wrong
5. Take You on a Cruise
6. My Desire
7. Leif Erikson
8. Anywhere
9. Lights
10. Same Town, New Story
11. Breaker 1
12. Hands Away
13. Not Even Jail
14. Slow Hands
Encore:
14. All the Rage Back Home
15. NYC
16. Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down