In Tongues – The Birmingham – Saturday 14th November
In Tongues on a different night to the one in the review. I dunno who took this photo but fuck damn shit it's a good'n!
By the time I arrived they’d started. You could hear their noise through the walls of The Birmingham. Enter through one door, walk past the bar, down the hallway, turn right, bypass that hallway, turn left down this one and enter the skinny dark room that is The Birmingham’s band room. On our left is the counter. The dude ticks my name off a list that is written in pen in no particular structure. The girl by his side draws an arrow, or a capital A, or something else on my wrist with black marker.
While there aren’t too many people, you can’t see shit from the bar or anywhere that isn’t within two metres of the band. The sound is fast and technical, kind of like Bloc Party but the singing is an intense fast talking, not rapping. Fast talking in rythm, like that punk poet who plays himself in the film Control. His name escapes me. The singer is a member of the Iggy Pop school of frontman performance. At some point in the show he becomes shirtless, his skinny sweaty torso comes into the crowd. He moves aggressively with the music. Last time I saw this band he read from a sheet of paper and pretended to cry during one song. That doesn’t happen this set and I’m thankful. He’s good, he throws his heart into it and it looks as if he really believes what he’s singing, unfortunately I’m not really listening. The pace of his words would take more than one or two listens to pick up anyway. If I had to guess what they were about I’d say … I don’t know. Love. Maybe. Maybe not.
The rest of the band are seamless. Their timechanges work in effortlessly and the two guitarists compliment each other like twin sisters dancing in their bedrooms (what does that even mean?), they’re perfect. The lead guitarist dances better than most do without the awkwardness of a guitar hanging from their shoulders. His hair is fantastic also. These things are important in cool bands. The bass player, like all good bass players, goes unnoticed. I’m sure he must have done a good job.
On the bass drum sits a handwritten sign. “LAL 79 DEN 95″. Los Angelas Lakers had lost to the Denver Nuggets that morning. In Tongues are all for the victory of overpaid black men, underdogs in this instance. It’s refreshing in the sport hating world of indie music.
Their last song is killer. It has a repetitive guitar bit that goes “dum da da, dum da da, dum da da, dum da da” throughout. My description sounds lame but trust me it’s awesome. My mate Alex, who hates all things hipster and pretentious, of which In Tongues could be labelled (if you were feeling harsh), turned to me and said, “If I heard this on my car radio I’d go and buy their album.”
It’s true, they are a fucking good band. Still relatively fresh, hopefully they’ll get even better. Their sweaty live show is already worth your ten dollars. I’m pretty poor and will try and stay on the door list for future shows.
The following bands didn’t grab my attention, a screamo band, maybe, and another band with a big dude in a baeball cap. Bang and Next would be their venues of choice. They provided ok backing music for when I destroyed my mate at the pool table. It was the first time I’d ever actually seen a dacks run. A fitting end to a good gig. 21.5 stars. MJ
