What happens when the opening band is excellent and electrifies the room before the headliner? Is it a good thing? I suppose, but it places the bar really high. A quartet from Belfast, And So I Watch You From Afar, was one of the bands opening for Russian Circles on Friday night at the El Rey theater, and my Saint Patrick, they were a must see!
Instrumental was definitively the theme of the evening, as the Irish guys played a set of exuberant and complex post-rock lyric-less songs, and even managed to make the initiated part of the audience sing-along with some ‘taa-taa’ on one song, despite the total absence of words.
Their noisy explosive music was complex, thunderously dense, going in all directions during the same song, with many propulsive sonic assaults and very few quiet moments. They could have been a hybrid between Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai (although not that much Mogwai), but what made them unique were these frantic, exhilarating parts when the guitarists (especially the one in front of me) were going totally crazy and physical, deliriously jumping around, and doing a frenetic and spectacular dance with the guitars as I have rarely seen one. It was wild and nervous, but at the same time very organized and seemingly obeying to a strange symmetry.
They could have started as loud and heavy as Motörhead and continued into something more jazzy, may be more Joe Satriani, if I dare to say, blending many genres and influences, and honestly putting the room on fire with their dynamic shifts which populated their moody, energetic, and sometimes borderline bombastic, post-rock numbers.
And what else? Above everything, they were having a lot of fun while performing their fast-as-you-can-play intense songs, they were totally having an awesome time, something I cannot say while watching other post-rock bands, who seem more seriously absorbed by their music. No these Belfast boys were furiously happy, and they were communicating their joy to the public, as they even applauded with us at the end of their set.
And in the middle of all this experimental and textured stuff, in the middle of all these amazing and energetic dexterity, somewhat did I perceive pinches of Irish folklore or did I completely imagine it?