In case you were wondering: Yes, IDLES is the best band to see live. Period. Angelinos were in luck as they blessed the Hollywood Palladium with two sold-out shows back-to-back on May 13th & 14th on their Love Is The Fing tour. They had stopped by in the area for the Re:SET 2023 and This Ain’t No Picnic 2022 festivals, but their last headlining show was three years ago. Too long ago, if you ask anyone anxiously waiting for the lights to turn off at the Hollywood Palladium. I was lucky to catch them on their second LA night and here is how this epic evening unfolded.
Detroit band Protomartyr started the festivities at 8pm sharp. Joe Casey (vocals) walked on stage Corona can in hand and nonchalantly took sips throughout the set. The stage remained very dark until the end and the band members were pretty still, which made for a gloomy ambiance which fit their music very well. The Michigan quintet played mostly songs from their most recent album Formal Growth In The Desert and from their 2015 LP The Agent Intellect. I particularly enjoyed the bass lines which were really cool and the balance between heavier parts and slower moments. The band played for close to an hour and was well received by the crowd.
Before IDLES made its appearance, everyone was speculating over how much crowd surfing was expected based on the endless battalion of security posted between the stage and the barricades. The excitement was already building up. At 9:15pm, the lights turned off again and the British band walked on stage, triggering thundering claps and shouts. They started playing “IDEA 01” the opening track from their new record TANGK in a semi-obscure setup where we could barely see more than shadows pacing across the stage. The lights progressively turned back on and the band followed up with the banger “Colossus” and the audience immediately blended into a giant human wave. Mid-song guitarist Lee Kieran climbed the barricade and surfed on this ocean of bodies while playing his instrument. The tone was set: the night was going to be a night of communion in beautiful chaos.
Joseph Talbot (vocals) made a few political statements throughout the show, singing “Viva Palestina!” or having the crowd shout “Fuck the King!”. IDLES is more than pure energy, it carries a message of social justice, love or feminism like in “Mother” from their 2017 Brutalism album. As I stopped at one of the balcony to get some shots of the crowd, I realized that there were all sorts of objects constantly flying across the air: hats, shoes… I am still wondering how many people got back home barefoot that night. From a higher point I also realized the army of security was not overkill after all as a constant flow of crowd surfers kept pouring humans behind the barricades.
I was happy the band played “Jungle”, a personal favorite from TANGK which doesn’t appear to be played at all shows. And it surely was my lucky night when they played “Grounds” from 2020 Ultra Mono, which also is not often played live. Joe introduced “Benzocaine” as a song about him losing the person he thought was the love of his life, due to his own drug addiction issues. He dedicated the song to people struggling with addiction. As time passed, Lee kept jumping again and again in the crowd and eventually guitarist Mark Bowen dove in as well. This was definitely one of the highlights of the show as both guitarist started in opposite sides of the venue, but eventually ended up meeting in the center of the floor and played in the amongst the crowd for a bit.
Surely over time, the Hollywood Palladium as seen its share of seismic activity, but it probably never shook as much as it did when the insane banger “Never Fight A Man With A Perm” hit. The audience bounced up and down the entire song, singing every word with passion as you would for an anthem. Before starting “Rottweiler” from the 2018 Joy As An Act Of Resistance, the band did a short a capella cover of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” which kept the crowd laughing and singing.
I had missed IDLES on their last headlining tour, but will most certainly never miss them again after attending this show. I am convinced that TANGK is and should remain the best album to come out in 2024 and the Bristol band puts up a show like no other. It is in your best interest to run see them quickly.
IDLES setlist:
IDEA 01 / Colossus / Gift Horse / Mr. Motivator / Mother / Car Crash / I’m Scum / 1049 Gotho / Roy / The Wheel / Jungle / When The Lights Come On / Grounds / Wizz / Benzocaine / Gratitude / Samaritans / POP POP POP / Crawl! / The Beachland Ballroom / Never Fight A Man With A Perm / Dancer / Danny Nedelko / All I Want For Christmas Is You / Rottweiler
IDLES
PROTOMARTYR
Photos + Review by Manuel Gay | Exclusively for Music, Why Not!
