Exhaustion – pure, beautiful, raw and ragged exhaustion. That is how IDLES leave you – and me – feeling at the end of their shortish, end of year tour, which has stretched from Glasgow to London in the space of just over a week.

The whole idea fits perfectly in the scheme of their meteoric rise, from humble beginnings in Exeter, sometime in 2016, playing to no more than 50 souls, to Camden in April this year in front of around 1,000, moving on to that now historic performance at Glastonbury where Joe Talbot shed honest tears of joy and disbelief surrounded by tens of thousands of newly adoring fans. Finally, the juggernaut ends up at the top of a winding hill, overlooking the whole of this crazy city we call London, in the presence of a huge, close to 10K strong crowd of AF Gangers and other very do wells.

The venue, which recently played host to both snooker and darts championships, is vast, like a decorated aircraft hangar, replete with double bar and various eateries: I opted for a veggie chilli with just the right amount of jalapeno heat.  My editor, Monsieur Muscutt, had bumped into none other than Danny Nedelko himself in the queue waiting for the musomuso photo pass (see accompanying phenomenal pics for evidence that we were there – really!!)

Merchandise was selling like those hotcakes, steaming and singeing, 20 deep queues most of the time and, all the while, hordes of willing converts to Idles and their mighty noises, anthems tall and imposing, behemoths and giant sea lions, squalling and yawning out huge gobs of scarred beauty to all ears. They came, these tribes of Hoxtonites, gorgeous humans from all over this sceptre isle, screaming FU to Brexit and wearing heavy coats since it was blowing a hoolie out there in the darkness, where lights had dimmed whilst this temple to celebration came alive.

GIANT SWAN emerged from the shadows, specially selected with a slow, building wall of noise formed and broken up by pauses whilst this fascinating duo summoned the audience to let their intense sound wash over them. A beat dropped, interrupted by a haphazard off-kilter rhythm, causing a few moments of confusion before the brain re-engaged and locked into the groove. With one stripped to the waist, both techno heads seemed deeply involved in a game of ‘speed chess’ as a relentless, tribal-like rhythm assaulted your inner core; somewhat reminiscent of Moby, the sounds accentuated by classic late 80s acid grooves, this was a quirky and uplifting way to kick the evening off.

METZ, eerily reminiscent of At The Drive In, are an even more titanic assault on the senses, their sound a guttural roar. The metallic quotient just blew stratospheric – heaviosity, pile driving riffs and, with ‘Get Off’, a mighty bludgeon to the cranium. ‘Acetate’ is singular distortion, edgy, relentless. The overall sound is minimalist, squalls, minor earthquakes, walls of sound, layers upon further layers. It’s hard to discern a tune but Metz’s positive, spiky attitude works wonders for any stuffed up sinuses that might be still wandering around this arena. Whatever way you crane your neck, this is super-charged and powered up to maximum effect, leaving the baying hordes breathless and ready for the main event.

Bang on time and for the next 120 minutes, with barely a break for breath catching, IDLES entertain an entirely partisan crowd with oldies, recenties and brand newies, each greeted like the Second Coming of something really crucial. To show that they really don't have to give a flying fuck about reputation, the band kick proceedings off with a new song, called –I think – ‘War’ which emerges from the amps with a relatively soft intro with a refrain of ‘this means war’, replete with hard riffing and Joe Talbot still sporting flecks of pink in his hair, set off neatly with his shaggy, disunited beard – at this point, a few minutes in, a flamboyant manic street teacher.

‘NFAMWAP’ follows swiftly behind: drinks are flung, the floor erupts , the usual amazingness amidst the tale of a thug with arms like baseball bats and a haircut that’s violent. It is, by now, a post-modern classic, retro yet ever present in our consciences.  ‘Scum’ flies by in a mass whirl, the chorus shouted back with unreserved glee by an already overwhelmed audience, hoarse and ready to fight back with slogans and mass cheering.

Before the incendiary ‘Mother’, Joe dedicates it to his wife, Elizabeth, whom he mentions about 10 times this evening. The legend is ‘It takes a village to bring up a child’. This song has taken on a life of its won both irrepressible and faintly terrifying but with a shit-eating grin plastered over its grinning fizzog.

‘Faith in the City’, ‘Divide and Conquer’ bookended by a polemic about the NHS, erupt in brutal riffing, pure punk pop delirium to be frank. Everything is broadcast on big screens in full HD on either side of the stage to further capture the bristling energy of what is exploding on stage. Joe pauses, frequently, to thank the whole of this lovely bunch of sweaty followers for ‘helping to build this ship’ – the Great Ship Idles. He invokes anti-fascism – for skin, shoes and eyebrows and EVERY PART OF HIM IS TRYING FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. He talks about his father, a lot, tells himself off for being a dickhead; it’s all very confessional and so refreshing. The unique brilliance of this band comes primarily from their willingness to express vulnerability with absolutely no sense of shame.

‘Heel / Heal’ sees Joe falls onto his hands and knees, begging for something – not a Bovis home, naturally!!! ‘Gram Rock’ seems to be about two coke-heads at a funeral: at this point, Bobo goes crowd-surfing, another activity that both he and Lee indulge in as often as humanly possible throughout the set.  As you might expect, ‘Danny Nedelko’ is both celebratory and significant, a momentous sing-a-long, now an anti-Brexit anthem just 5 days before the election. It serves to highlight the extreme divisions and prejudice that have boiled to the surface since its inception, then it swiftly rips them asunder with its extreme positivity!! ‘Rottweiler’ is an earthquake of sound, tightly coiled, bristling with intent, anti-The Sun and right wing idiots.

They break, Dylan Thomas intones ‘Don’t go gently into the good night’, everything feels right, important, significant again. ‘Colossus’ is as mighty as an imploding star, all tension and slow build with the ridiculous pay off that just keeps on giving so generously – it goes and it goes and it goes…there is NO ESCAPE from its fierce embrace. Another fresh tune has my ears perking up big time, with a sassy, instantly class refrain – ‘Do you hear the thunder? / That’s the sound of strength in numbers’: it is pure, unbridled, funky as a fly in treacle and stinging with attitude.  Thank God for this! Full force, in your face.

‘Love Song’ leads into a faintly bizarre soft rock medley and then ‘1049 Gotho’ blasts the roof off the venue with its invocation for pissing in the sink followed by much needed sex. As for ‘Benzocaine’ – holy shit! ‘Samaritans’ is just EVERYTHING. I feel empowered, then the final newbie ‘Danke’ kicks in and salvation is very, very near. So close, in fact, that you can taste it.

With lyrics like ‘true love will find you in the end’ and a Television ‘Marquee Moon’ –era riff tearing up my corneas, I am lost, exhausted, found, spent, spiralling in an endless, cyclical loop of stinging brightness that squeezes at my soul and will not, ever, let me go.

IDLES are my world, they are the world, yours to discover. Drink deeply and be re-fucking-born.

 

Hugh Ogilvie.

Setlist

Set 1

1. War

2. Never Fight a Man With a Perm

3. I'm Scum

4. Mother

5. Faith in the City

6. Divide and Conquer

7. Heel/Heal

8. Gram Rock

9. Queens

10. Slow Savage

11. Danny Nedelko

12. Rottweiler

Intermission - (Dylan Thomas reads "Do Not Go Gently...)

Set 2

14. Drone Intro

15. Colossus

16. Grounds

17. Love Song

18. 1049 Gotho

19. Benzocaine

20. Samaritans

21. Television

22. Danke - (Live debut, With METZ & Giant Swan)

To see our image gallery from the show, please click or tap HERE