As vital as ever: Delving into Interpol’s ‘Antics’ 20th anniversary tour
The house lights dim. A vapist takes her cue to puff a powdery plume into the darkness. It rises into the black like a mushroom cloud. Blueberry flavoured. A man in E24 squeals. He’s had too many. The excitement has gotten the better of him. He won’t do too much quality accounting tomorrow. But I am charmed by the fact he has treated himself to an Interpol t-shirt.
Anticipation abounds in the pregnant seconds of darkened nought; the hushing chatter, smattering of yelps, and din of ‘here they come’ is a song unto itself, a little symphony that signifies why the masses have trudged out into a wintery evening from the safety of their homes. But such a buzz doesn’t always unfurl. Tonight, though, the bustle resounds because it is slowly being reconciled by the beery crowd that one of the century’s best bands are about to regale one of the century’s best albums.
Antics emerged in September 2004, two years on from their undisputed masterpiece, Turn On the Bright Lights. It was a time of relative poppy enthusiasm for alternative music. Interpol stood firm as the Joy Division of the age. Their brooding world of choppy textures, dense, rumbling rhythms, and obscure, borderline-mystic lyrical toplines offered a black-suited escape from the likes of The Magic Numbers, no offence to the cheery inverse of The Magic Numbers intended.
But that was 20 years ago, and the question with classic album tours is always whether we’re resorting to nostalgia. The answer to that can be found among the quiet crackle of the crowd at Newcastle’s City Hall and no doubt all the other venues to come on this anniversary tour. The brand of buzz abounding is the sort that comes not from mere jovial excitement but also a sense of cultural importance. Antics is an album of great relevance today.
The riffs rise up within you, triggering a sort of primal angst. Although tracks like ‘Slow Hands’ and ‘Evil’ are invigorating and classically catchy with a familiar structure, they don’t adrenalise you in a typical ‘classic rock’ way—there is something dark and haunting about their exhilaration. With the news of Donald Trump being re-elected filtering through in the wake of the concert, that makes these anthems feel oddly prescient. The songs have a foreboding edge to them, a whiff of brutalist despair.
But also, in their heavy energy, there is just a hint of rebellious hope. This goes back to the moment the band found and formulated their sound—a reconciliation that arose after the tragedy of 9/11. That smouldering ember amid darkened despair sentiment exemplified the band’s early sound. That stands up today, right down to the faultless and fresh live performance that the group delivers (despite the departure of a few key members).
Paul Banks clearly remains engaged with his material because how couldn’t he? It has mutated in a fittingly mystical sense into something that gains pertinence with time. The songs are a snippet of history – all our personal history’s, too, evidenced in the nostalgic glint in the eye of many a crowd member – echoed just as loudly in the present. The album’s brooding post-punk is distinctly urban—conjuring dusky cityscapes. Within that notable setting, themes of urban alienation, disillusionment, and unmet desires – a favourite topic of Bank’s – unfurl in a pent-up frenzy that just about keeps its besuited composure.
That’s the key to Antics: musically, it perfectly captures tension. The bobbing heads and occasionally screamed lyrics exhibited by the masses in attendance prove that it helps to release tension when performed live, too—something evidently very vital right now.
