Funnily enough, Wild Beasts turn out to be pretty tame.
All the signs are positive in the build up to this gig. Suitably warmed by a few pre-gig tins with my fellow Spoonfed scribblers? Check. Arrival at Koko timed to absolute perfection so as to miss the support and catch the main event? Check. No guestlist issues (possibly a first)? Check. Oh, and some poor sod has just got a phone call, meaning he has to vacate his prime viewing position on a second step just behind the main throng of a lively crowd. Even a midget such as myself can see all four members of the band from here. It’s all going rather bloody swimmingly.
But what of the band? Well, it turns out that expectation can be a rather unruly, erm, beast. To contextualise, I’d been a strong advocate of the virtues of Wild Beasts since stumbling across a promo copy of their brilliant sophomore record, ‘Two Dancers’, at the arse-end of last Summer. The metronomic Krautrock drumming; the mesmerising repeated guitar figures; the controlled yelp of Hayden Thorpe’s countertenor vocals – all had a kind of decadent thrill, knowingly infused with cheerful debauchery.
But does it work live? Well...yes and no. When the band get their heads down and play the songs, it sounds superb. Opener ‘The Fun Powder Plot’, played under a shroud of darkness, harnesses every last drop of the deliciously dirty hypnotism it carries on record. When the lights come up for the excellent ‘We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues’, bathing the band in a kind of eerily fluorescent light, I’m expecting the gig of my life.
However, all too quickly the bubble bursts. Instrument changes are all well and good – even necessary in Wild Beasts’ case – but when married to labouring, clumsy tuning sessions (which seem to increasingly permeate the performance), they have a stifling effect, halting any prior momentum gained. Considering that the band seem content to stick to the ‘let-the-songs-do-the-talking-and-avoid-moronic-stage-banter’ mantra, they may well have benefited from doing just that and avoiding such tedious passages of inaction.
That said, perhaps I’m just a killjoy, as a cursory glance around the venue shows a sea of faces locked in a tryst of delight and rapture. Perhaps these people have taken something I haven’t; perhaps I’m being unduly mean-spirited. Either way, the band almost redeem themselves through a combination of the strength of the songs available to them and their pitch-perfect live recreations – with the vocals often providing the focal point. Whilst occasional vocalist Tom Fleming’s booming baritone sounds great on rapturously received single ‘All the King's Men’, it pales in comparison to Hayden Thorpe’s soaring shriek, which matures into an inimitable delight on highlight ‘Hooting and Howling’.
The crowd rapturously applauds and awaits the obligatory encore. Having played their best songs, it passes off unremarkably, despite an energetic run through early single ‘The Devil’s Crayon’, and I head off into the bustling Camden night. Cheered, certainly, but not entirely convinced.
Wild Beasts will be back in London this summer for Lovebox. Their album 'All The Kings Men' is out now.
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