all photos: Ryan Wakeman
Liars lead singer Angus Andrew has been a proverbial hot mess over the past couple of months. After throwing out his back prior to the start of this tour, Andrew had to pull out of a show in Philadelphia last Saturday due to a stomach bug. This put the D.C. Tour date in a little bit of jeopardy – but the hulkingly-tall lead singer, for better or worse, was well enough to try and rock the 9:30 club on Tuesday.
Liars didn’t bring out the crowd that I thought might appear – the stage was brought forward, and there was a decent amount of available space in the house. And although I expected the crowd to be fully into what was going on, due to the intense brand of prog-rock that Liars produces, my view from the balcony indicated to me a relatively stable, inanimate crowd (more on this later).
Andrew looked like he was on strings the entire night. Due to his back injury and recent illness, he performed on a stool, occasionally getting up to awkwardly dance around on stage. When he was sitting, Andrew looked like a marionette controlled by a dyslexic – but when he actually made an effort to get up, it was great, and left me wondering what an unhindered performance would’ve been like. It was especially great when Andrew threw ‘bos and smashed imaginary faces with his fists to the drumline.
I’ll be blunt – the performance was just dreadful, but I wonder how much of that can be attribute to Andrew’s condition.I’ve always been a huge fan of this band – “Mr. You’re On Fire Mr.” accompanied me on many, angry teenage expressway drives through Ohio. But the set list chosen by Liars for this show was absolutely atrocious for the most part, with a few notable exceptions. It seemed like Andrew selected songs for a post-rock pot-smoking session rather than a stand up and fist-shaking concert experience.
The concert had two highlights – an absolutely piercingly clear rendition of “The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack” that parted the clouds for a moment before diving into an utterly mundane encore, and a tweaked version of “We Fenced Other Gardens With The Bones Of Our Own,” with a bad-ass synthesizer line that played a much more dominant role than on the studio version of the record.
However, the band stuck to mostly mundane material on their newest, self-titled record with some songs being completely and utterly bastardized, such as “Pure Unevil,” which had something to do with the drummer’s girlfriend, if you could make out anything of his horrific attempt of witty stage banter with the crowd.
The most reaction I saw of the crowd was a shoe (or possibly sock – hard to tell from my vantage point) toss exchange that kept taking place between the band and someone in the crowd.
And when a flying foot article generates the biggest pack of action at a concert, that’s definitely a cause for concern. Nevermind the meandering drums and the wall of bass – this show was just boring, plain and simple.
I still love Liars as a studio band, but after seeing them on Tuesday, now I know better than to trek out and see them again.
I couldn’t disagree more. Me and my friend truly enjoyed the show and thought that the preformance was very intense. Other friends we met after the show loved it as well. I had people around me (downstairs - in the little crowd there was) who were rocking it out. Hell, there were two guys who didn’t even stop shaking for a second during the performance.
I didn’t know that Angus had a back problem and was suffering - one couldn’t tell, really. He was hot and awesome as ever. His movements were perfectly aligned with the disharmony of the songs.
This was my fourth Liars shows and I never saw anyone fist shaking at any of their shows. I think they just don’t attract a fist-shaking crowd. I truly love them but even I was just standing around and minimalistically imitating Angus’s insane spasms.
I had tears in my eyes when they played purely unevil. I thought many songs, especially leather prowler, sounded way better live than on the record. Then again I also think that their music is coming much better through live than recorded.
Strange how music and show perception works, right?
Btw. the three pictures in the middle do not show the Liars but no age. These guys didn’t do a very good job and clearly need another leadsinger.
February 14, 2008 at 10:38 amTwo additional snippets:
1. Liars set lasted just about an hour, which was mildly disappointing, but understandable because of Andrew’s condition.
2. I only caught the last 3 songs or so of No Age. It was equally unimpressive - just bland, aimless noise. It could’ve also been simply over my head.
February 14, 2008 at 10:42 amyou mgiht thought different if you had descended from the heavens. as silly as it sounds, location can make a world of difference, since everything was “hard to tell from [your] vantage point”
February 14, 2008 at 10:56 amRE: Pure unevil
1. No Age needs a new everything, I’m afraid.
2. I disagree with the studio v live sentiment - “Gardens” is a great example of what this band is capable of in such a translation, and they fell flat on most of the other tracks, although admittedly, I was unfamiliar with a couple of them.
Not everything was “hard to tell” - that’s a gross exaggeration. Only the sock/shoe.
February 14, 2008 at 10:58 amThen, I stand corrected.
February 14, 2008 at 11:03 amwhat I don’t understand about this review is how you can complain about Angus’s performance and then show absolutly amazing pictures of him which make me want to see the show allover again…
February 14, 2008 at 11:09 amI think the size of the crowd may have had just a little to do with the weather. Personally, I would love it if everytime I went to the 930 club there were that few people there.
The amount of crowd participation seemed pretty standard for a DC concert.
Andrew did more sitting down than I have seen a lot of other lead singers do who havent had back surgery a few weeks before.
Ive never seen them play anything off their first.
Im pretty sure they played every fast song off their newest.
No offense, but you should have probably asked someone who has seen the Liars in the past 4 years how they are live, because it just seems like this kind of show does not appeal to you. You say you are a fan, but by the review it seems like you don’t really know who the Liars are as a band. Their live counterpart is a direct translation of how they are on record, rhythmically tight while still being loose and out of control. Angus was on point, although his condition, and watching them make holy hell on stage was great. While I thought last time I saw them in B-More it was better, the show still kicked ass. Their new record is almost perfect, and contains some of their best material. I don’t think it was a bad night, but maybe you just weren’t the right person to review the show.
By the way, if there were any problems with the show it would be No Age being late. They were pretty fun though, but no so much worth the wait.
February 14, 2008 at 11:40 amI’ve heard Liars can be uneven live. In general.
But I don’t know for sure, as I wasn’t at the show.
What I do know is that Ryan’s photos are OUTSTANDING.
they were just too Avant-garde… honestly deerhunter is better
February 14, 2008 at 1:44 pmAvantgarde? Hmmm, maybe. Deerhunter is more accessible, that’s true. I like ‘em both but Liars some better. They are more gritty, well, and a bit more mature.
Speaking of… .Atlas Sound aka Bradford James Cox’s other project is playing the cat in a few days.
February 14, 2008 at 2:01 pmI have to join the chorus and completely disagree with this review. I had an awesome time especially since I was right up front only feet away from Angus. I thought they were pretty awesome as usual. After driving up to Philly to see them with Interpol last year and seeing the almost total disdain towards Liars by the Philly crowd, I was really looking forward to them being in a smaller venue and being the headliners.
Also, why were you up in the balcony? If’n you want to experience a rock show — especially one with such a relatively small crowd in which it would be easy to get closer — then get down on the floor and get to the stage.
One more thing, what’s with all the hating on No Age? I’d never heard them before but I liked what I heard enough to consider buying their record.
February 14, 2008 at 7:28 pmI agree with the review. Really boring. No Age was way better than Liars I thought.
I was the one who yelled ‘boring’ during the horriffic attempt at witty stage banter. It was.
February 15, 2008 at 1:15 pm“I was the one who yelled ‘boring’ during the horriffic attempt at witty stage banter. It was.”
Classy.
February 15, 2008 at 2:12 pm“if there were any problems with the show it would be No Age being late.”
Fuck that. I had issues getting out of work and then I got stuck in traffic. If No Age has gone on as scheduled I would’ve missed the show. I could see it being an annoyance to… well… everyone else, but to me it was a definite life-saver.
I have to disagree with this review entirely. I was tired when I got there so I sat at the upper bar the entire time. The club sounded a little more bass heavy because there weren’t as many bodies as the club usually takes in to add some dampening. Weather was to blame for that. Even so, it sounded pretty damn good from MY vantage point. I was a little disappointed with the encore. I’ll agree with that. No Age didn’t blow me away, but I didn’t completely hate them either. All told I had a great time at the show. Before and after the show… well… that’s not the point. Liars performed excellently.
February 16, 2008 at 9:17 pmno age…ouch. liars were great! the weather was indeed dreadful for driving! I loved the crappy stage banter, that’s just my style. I do wish they’d played a few more rockers, gotten the crowd going a little more, but I went in wishing for Drum’s Not Dead and got it in spades. This concert made me buy a Gibson SG. Did anyone else notice that every song they played was in a weirdo tuning on the guitars, that I’ve never seen before? Maybe that accounts for the song selection (Each guitarist only had one guitar, in the unusual tuning). Gonna have to flatly disagree with the pan review.
February 19, 2008 at 11:24 pmshould have went to gibby haynes and the paul green hall of fame allstars doing butthole surfers songs. slippery sidewalks.
March 5, 2008 at 1:37 am
Must disagree on your trashing of the show.
With Angus restrained to the stool, the show was bound to be less physically energetic than the usual Liars set, but I thought the music absolutely killed. It was dark, evil, and mesmerizing — even if I wasn’t moshing, I was entranced.
By this point Liars are no longer playing (many if any) songs from their first album for a reason: they wrote that stuff 8 years ago and have moved to more complex, if not always as immediate, territory. The new album is glorious and “Drum’s Not Dead” was captivating. As you’ve listened to these and “They Were Wrong…”, I’m not quite sure what you expected speaking from the music. The power of the songs carried the night.
I too would love to see an unhindered performace, but I wouldn’t write off this tour quite so quickly. The band is in top form even if their singer isn’t his typical madman self.
February 14, 2008 at 10:25 am