Review: Idles
The Bristol rockers played the Auckland Town Hall last night off the back of their brilliant 2024 record Tangk.
We were nearing the end of the show: less than fifteen minutes remained on the timer sitting side of stage, Idles had just finished “Dancer”, their hit single from last years brilliant album Tangk, and the group were visibly exhausted. And singer Joe Talbot chose that moment to ask: ‘what does that sign say?’
The sign read ‘autographs please’ and had been held over the balcony between every song by the youngest attendee I had seen at the show. Lead guitarist Mark Bowen went to grab the sign, but Talbot went further, inviting the kid - whose name was Johnny - on to the stage while all the members of the band signed.
‘Are you scared, Johnny?’ Talbot asked, and the boy admitted he was. ‘Its okay to be scared, and its okay to admit it. Thank you for telling us,’ Talbot said, before the crowd began chanting ‘JOH-NNY! JOH-NNY!’ at full volume.
Then Talbot dedicated the next song to immigrants and Craig Stevens and Johnny and the audience as the group tore into the brutally heavy “Danny Nedelko”, the anti-nationalist hit from 2018’s Joy As An Act Of Resistance.
It was that kind of show: from the outset, Talbot encouraged the crowd to have fun, to dance, to be kind to each other, and spoke between songs of how mental illness and alcoholism and coming to terms with those things inspired his lyrics. It inspired a friendly camaraderie between members of the audience. As I walked out onto Queen St, smiles abounded and strangers shared with each other how exciting it all was. There was a good feeling in the air.
After a solid half hour set from openers Shepherds Reign - the heavy metal outfit from South Auckland who leverage their Samoan heritage and instrumentation to create a unique and blistering sound - just a short wait was ahead before the lights went down and the headliners hit the stage.
Jon Beavis came out first, taking his seat at the drums and smacking the opening beats of “IDEA 01” while his bandmates joined him. “Colossus” was up next, the crowd joining in for the frantic refrain of ‘goes and it goes and it goes’.
A couple of tracks later was the first proper highlight of the show, Tangk’s excellent “Gift Horse”’; for the most part, while Tangk is a bit quieter and more experimental than their earlier work - likely an artefact of Nigel Godrich’s production - it’s songs rock hard in the live setting.
On stage, singer Joe Talbot stalks around, occasionally stomping his feet or dancing to the beat, but always throwing himself completely into the music. Talbot is less frontman, more at times like a panther in a zoo waiting to be fed, at others like a church pastor delivering hard truths. And his knack for working chant-worthy lyrics is second to none, the crowd happily yelling ‘and so it turns’ in “The Wheel”, or ‘for a long old while I’m known as scum’ in “I’m Scum”.
Meanwhile, guitarists Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan are balls of energy in themselves, kinetics in human form, moving constantly on stage, and even joining the audience several times, complete with their guitars (and, in the case of Kiernan, with the help of one of their road crew who stood on stage and held his guitar cable aloft). I’ve popped a couple of instances below that I took from my seat. (Apologies for the quality. I’m a writer not a photographer.)
I was quite late buying a ticket to this show and ended up in a seat marked ‘obstructed view’, which really meant I ended up sitting above the stage. And I had a helluva time - the setlist took us all over the Idles repertoire, from their 2017 debut Brutalism to 2021’s brilliant Crawler and last years Tangk.
And honestly, I was surprised how well some of their more experimental work in the last few years translated to the live setting. Beyond just Godrich’s influence on Tangk, the group are something like Radiohead’s trashy cousin, figuring out ways to do the unexpected, to take risks in their composition, while still keeping the post-punk core of who they are intact.
Almost two hours after they hit the stage, Idles signed Johnny’s poster then ripped through “Danny Nedelko” and “Rottweiler”, leaving the stage without an encore - not that we could have fairly expected one, even if they weren’t ethically opposed to the practice - and leaving behind a satisfied audience.
I’m still smiling now, even as I write this. Helluva show.
Check out the full setlist here.
One additional note: I’m not sure who was playing bass on the night, but it did not appear to be longtime bassist Adam Devonshire - at one point Talbot introduced him as ‘Tank’ or ‘Ted’ maybe. There’ve been no announcements of any lineup changes and I found confusion in the r/Idles subreddit, so hopefully it’s nothing too serious.
Kia ora e te whanau, and thanks for reading!
My Week In Music will be along at the slightly later time of 12.30pm.
Mā te wā, Chris