Alex G Live Review: a masterclass in euphoria at London’s Roundhouse
Alex G has spent the last decade crafting intense, confessional, intimate lo-fi albums far from the madding crowd. In doing so, he’s built up a cult following whilst somehow retaining a powerful aura of mystery, one that’s seen him rise from thriving bandcamp artist to one of normcore’s biggest names.
You can spot an Alex G (full name Alex Giannascoli) fan from a mile off. Everything they wear is either too tight or too loose. Their feet are housed in either Doc Martens or Vans, their eyebrows and lips are pierced and their mid-length haircuts are almost always kept in place by a baseball cap, usually one decorated with a band name like Cocteau Twins or Bowery Electric. At Euston station, a flock of them oozed into the train carriage. As they attempted to shuffle themselves into a workable configuration, I imagined we were all pondering the same question, namely, how in God’s name Alex G was going to evoke the intimacy of his albums in a live setting. What better place to answer that question than London’s Roundhouse, where, on Thursday night, he was joined by rising 1990s retro-maniacs Momma for a sold-out show filled to the brim with devoted fans.
By the time I took my seat in the upper circle, Momma’s throbbing blend of hyper-slick grunge-gaze had already transformed the throng of bodies below me into a churn of nodding heads, each sporting a rollie tucked behind the ear and saved for half-time. “The thing about this place,” someone yells behind me, “is that it used to be an old – whaddya call it – a train depot! If you look in the middle there’s a great big bulge”. He jabbed a thick finger into my peripheral vision, “Look, that man’s on it now and he’s staring into that bloke’s neck”. Imagine being part of the bulge, I thought. How undignified.
The Roundhouse is a famously echoey space. Play too loud and everything sounds like a sludgy mess. Thanks to the expertise of Alex G’s road crew, Momma sounded pitch-perfect, storming through their powerfully moody set without saying a word. “It’s just not for me,” said an American in the row below. “I like my music to tell a story – this is just too overwhelming.”
Of course, that feeling of being drowned in sound is precisely what made Alex G’s set so intoxicating. Joined by drummer Tom Kelly, bassist John Haywood and Sam Acchione, he opened with a doomy take on ‘S.D.OS’, which, aided by a wash of blood-red light, quickly enveloped the crowd. For the next 30 minutes, Giannascoli and the band jumped between the anthemic and the experimental, delivering spirited hits like ‘Runner’ and ‘Hope’ with stadium-level potency before diving into the mind-melting Rocket cut ‘Brick’. “We don’t usually play this one live,” the musician said, unleashing a wave of pixilated noise and ping-pong delay courtesy of the Boss Space Echo plugged into the soundboard. In the short gaps between songs, those fans who had managed to clamber their way to the front launched objects at Giannascoli, most of which ended up hitting him in the face. “That’s nice,” he would say. “A rose – a beautiful orange rose.”
The experience of hearing Alex’s southern drawl without any musical backing struck many as rather eerie. Alex G is his music; his albums contain his entire inner world: his fears, flaws, ambitions – everything. In God Save The Animals, he seems most real when playing a single steel-strung guitar, but on Thursday night, tender moments like ‘Early Morning Waiting’ were when he seemed most artificial. It was when he allowed the music to overwhelm him that the magic really happened. During his generous encore, which included renditions of ‘Bobby’, Forever’ and ‘Brite Boy’, the outside world seemed to dissolve. For 20 minutes, everything was still and pure and good. Below me, 500 people shed their skin in real time.
