I don’t know when I have seen a less skilful use of the deep, wide, beautiful Madison Square Band stage by a headlining band, than alt-j Monday night. In a straight line near the tip of the stage, they didn’t budge an inch for 75 minutes. And it is to the English bands credit that they managed to perform a beautiful and mesmerizing set based purely upon songs off their two albums.Sound was showmanship.
I hated alt-j for ages, ever since a completely enervating festival gig, but after seeing them at MSG it is obvious they couldn’t have chosen a worse atmosphere for their songs than Governors Ball: it isn’t that the band is subdued, but that it is deeply nuanced, and all its strength is through the force of gravity, it is how the band is weighted towards each other. They don’t have a leader, they don’t have a Guy Garvey or a Thom Yorke to be the center of attention, they blur together with everything in a sort of rooted limbo.
In other words, at a festival it is too easy to be distracted and so since there isn’t any one thing to hold your attention on stage, you get distracted. Whereas at MSG the only thing to distract you was keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton’s moustache… But before we got to the moustache, electronic duo now a foursome Phantogram performed an invigorating set, loud, boisterous, pent up electro rock with keyboardist Sarah Barthel and guitarist Josh Carter kicking up a storm with semi-popular songs like the terrific set opener “Nothing But Trouble” and without a dead spot.
Alt-j got a bit dead spot around “Bloodflood”, where the heaviness was iffy and draggy, But before than, they rattled off hit “Hungers Of The Pine” (you know, the one where they sample Miley Cyrus while she was still dodging Hannah Montana), another hit “Fitzpleasure”, the sublime “Something Good” -much better live than on record, and then another two before a disappointing “Matilda” and the two “Bloodflood” needed to be saved by early track “Leon”. By the time the band reached “Every Other Freckle”, it didn’t save the set because the set didn’t need saving, though, for the third time, the audience, college kids for the most part, sung the hook for them.
It has been three years since alt-j made their New York debut at Mercury Lounge (my friend Kevin Mazzarelli mixed the sound and found them a little standoffish even then) and that is an amazing leap but they have that sort of sound. They are nerds and musos, they are music guys. Radiohead is the influence but it is as though Radiohead had gone in a different direction after The Bends, though the acoustic moodiness of The Bends isn’t an exact comparison with An Awesome Wave, they come from similar progressive but spontaneous places. I saw Radiohead live circa “Creep” and I can absolutely tell you, the dots don’t need much connecting, except alt-j are more grounded English, less insanely better living through electronics, and though it is hard to say it, we are looking at an alt-j slot where they played 20 songs in 85 minutes. Translation: they don’t jam, they aren’t Phish, they aren’t Yes, they’re a rock band by other means.
Ending the set with a more than fun “Breezeblocks”, their American breakthrough, alt-j managed to keep a huge audience quiet and attentive. A lovely light show helped and so did the whistling, though it was through the beauty of their music, whether an a cappella opening or bass guitar electrifying, heartfelt soulful and very emotional-secret weaponish singing by guitarist Joe Newman, or distracted keyboard doodlings, the set seldom slackened too much.
Grade: B+
